Statement By Rep. Boehner,Chairman,House Committee on Education and Workforce Full Committee Hearing on Effectiveness and Enforcement of Anit-Fraud...

STATEMENT BY REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE FULL COMMITTEE HEARING ON EFFECTIVENESS AND ENFORCEMENT OF ANTI-FRAUD LAWS IN FOR-PROFIT EDUCATION
MARCH 1, 2005

Good afternoon. Welcome everyone.

One of the chief responsibilities for this committee in the 109th Congress will be the renewal of the Higher Education Act, the federal law enacted four decades ago for the purpose of ensuring that a college education is within reach for every American student who strives for it.

The face of higher education in America is changing today, because our economy itself is changing. Higher education has never been more important than it is today. More students than ever are seeking a college degree. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of non-traditional students pursuing a college education. Many of these students are minorities, working parents, first-generation college students, or students who do not have the ability or means to attend a traditional four-year college.

Traditional colleges and universities have not been able to meet this growing demand or respond to the needs of these students. Proprietary schools, or "for-profit" schools, have been stepping in to fill this void. There are thousands of proprietary schools across the United States , and they're playing a critical role in providing college access for some of our nation's most vulnerable students. And thus, they're playing a critical role in carrying out the mission of the Higher Education Act.

Students who attend proprietary schools are not treated fairly under current federal higher education law. As this Committee learned in a hearing last year, proprietary school students and the institutions they attend are essentially treated like second-class citizens under outdated current law. New York has taken action to address this inequity at the state level. I expect more states will follow suit, and my colleague Buck McKeon and I have introduced legislation at the federal level that would do the same.

It's also necessary for us to ask whether proprietary school students are being adequately protected by federal law against fraud and abuse, and to examine the steps the Bush administration has been taking to enforce those laws.
When we talk about college access, we mean access to a quality education. All students should be able to have faith in the institution they attend. All parents should be able to trust that the schools receiving their hard-earned money are delivering quality in return. We expect all institutions of higher learning - nonprofit and for-profit - to abide by this standard. When parents and students are misled, or willfully denied the information they need to make informed decisions when they invest in a college education, it is a breach of trust.

As Congress reauthorizes the Higher Education Act, our first priority has to be providing access and fairness for low and middle-income students and families struggling with the high price of college. This means holding "nonprofit" schools accountable for the role they're playing in the hyperinflation of college costs. It means providing fairness for students at proprietary schools. And it means ensuring that federal anti-fraud laws to protect students are both adequate and fully enforced.

In that light, we're going to look today specifically at the for-profit sector - in part, because of a recent report by the CBS program "60 Minutes" on alleged incidents of fraud in the for-profit education industry. We want to know:

What laws exist to protect proprietary school students against fraud?

How are they being enforced?

Are any of these laws outdated, to the point where they're now hurting the students they were enacted to protect?

Do we have different standards for proprietary schools than we have for "nonprofit" schools?

Are there legal safeguards and standards in for-profit education that ought to be considered for the non-profit sector, where the vast majority of federal higher education resources are being spent?

I want to thank all of the witnesses for their willingness to be here today to provide insights on these questions, including our colleague from California , Ms. Waters.

We can't condemn an entire sector for the errors of a relatively small number of bad actors, but we can't turn a blind eye to those errors either. This is the case in the for-profit education industry. It's also the case in the nonprofit education industry - and, for that matter, in other education programs like Head Start. Either extreme would hurt vulnerable students and parents - the very people the laws we oversee were created to help. We are holding this hearing today to ensure this committee produces legislation in the future that strikes the right balance for the American students and families we were sent here to represent.

With that, I would turn to the senior Democratic member of our committee, Mr. Miller, for any comments he may have.

http://edworkforce.house.gov/press/press109/first/03mar/statement030105.htm