Badin vs. Fredericktown
Miamisburg graduation 2012
Valley View vs. Greenville
Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.
Scott Elliott is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He writes about education, city and suburban issues, politics, business, workforce and consumer issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > May > 30
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Editorial: Miami Jacobs can’t promise and not deliver
If students are being scared away from Miami-Jacobs Career College, the school has only itself to blame.
Some students are complaining that the for-profit college’s promises aren’t being kept. Miami-Jacobs is struggling with accreditation issues in both its licensed practical nursing program and its respiratory care programs, which can affect the value of their degrees.
The college is expensive, which helps explain why it has a disturbing student loan default rate. There’s a real question whether students always understand everything they need to know before they sign up.
President Darlene Waite admits that, in the nursing program, the college provided sloppy oversight. She promises a quick turnaround.
State Rep. Clayton Luckie, D-Dayton, who has been putting the heat on Miami-Jacobs, says he plans to introduce legislation that would require more transparency from for-profit colleges about their costs and accreditation. He also wants a more consumer-friendly way for resolving complaints.
The ideas he’s pushing are good ones.
The criticisms of Miami-Jacobs are not unique to it. Many for-profit colleges have gotten in trouble for using hard-sell techniques, saddling students with crushing debt and giving inferior instruction.
Nonetheless, for-profit colleges are booming in the United States. More jobs require college degrees, and some people are in a hurry to get more skills. For-profit schools can make sense for those who are prepared for fast-paced instruction and require the flexible scheduling the schools are known for.
But consider the dilemma, for example, with getting into licensed practical nursing: The wait to get into that program at some (but not all) area community colleges like Dayton’s Sinclair, Piqua’s Edison State and Springfield’s Clark State can be two years (although, students can take some basic courses).
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Miami Jacobs costs about $11,400 a year to attend. The comparable numbers for Sinclair ($1,620), Clark State ($2,900) and Edison State ($3,570) are much lower.
The differential, not shockingly, is reflected in student loan default rates. Miami-Jacobs reported about one in five students defaulted on student loans in 2007 and 2006, the most recent years NCES reports data. Student loan default rates for 2007 were 9.4 percent for Sinclair, 10.2 percent for Clark State and 5.4 percent for Edison.
Ms. Waite concedes her school’s numbers are too high, and she insists its default rate will drop to 11.8 percent in the next report.
Overall, Miami-Jacobs also has by far the lowest retention rate in the group, according to NCES. That’s a big problem because if students start a program, pile on debt and then wash out, they’re inevitably in financial trouble.
(Miami-Jacobs disagrees with the way the national center counts those who drop out, saying it’s at a disadvantage because the center doesn’t look at all students.)
Miami-Jacobs, once locally owned, has expanded dramatically since it was bought in 2003 by Delta Career Education Corp. It’s now up to about 1,800 students — about six times what it was. The rapid growth could be a factor in the school’s problems.
Miami-Jacobs wants its critics to think there’s an innocent explanation for every one of its problems. Trouble is, when you take them all together, the picture is not confidence-inducing. Given that so many of its students are far from wealthy and that they’re often mortgaging their future to quickly get a degree, the school has to deliver.
Having educational options are all to the good. But Rep. Luckie is right that he — or more broadly, the state and the board of regents — can’t just sit by when students are paying good money for less than they deserve.
The responsibility is Miami-Jacobs’ to show it’s providing all that’s required and all that it promises.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Education, Scott Elliott
TweetEllen Belcher: Foreclosures coming to business property near you
There’s something especially heart-breaking about certain foreclosures downtown.
The Kettering Tower, Dayton’s tallest building and the place from which the late Virginia Kettering watched so protectively over the city, is in receivership. The former Fifth Third Center, a lovely modern building that was built on the belief that downtown would always need classy office space, is, too.
Now the Kuhns building at Fourth and Main, a gorgeously and lovingly renovated architectural gem, is headed toward foreclosure. Oakwood’s Robert Shiffler is struggling to refinance the debt that he ran up to make the building a show place for what can be done with old buildings.
If someone else now gets to come along and buy a stunning piece of history with good tenants at a fire-sale price and Shiffler loses his shirt, that’ll be so unfair. The scenario, however, is not an outlandish possibility.
For the longest time, public attention on the mortgage crisis has been on homeowners whose residences are underwater. (That’s shorthand meaning that the value of a property is less than the amount that’s owed.)
But experts who follow financial matters also are warning that commercial real estate is overvalued, too, and that very many developers who have loans that have to be renegotiated will be out of luck.
Unlike home mortgages, commercial mortgages are written for shorter periods, often five years. Loans that were taken out when real estate prices hadn’t started to tumble are coming due.
One government expert says that half of the commercial real estate loans nationally could be underwater by the start of 2011.
Banks are under pressure by federal regulators to limit their exposure on commercial properties, so they’re not eager to refinance loans or extend the life any that look even marginally risky.
Dayton and indeed the region will not be special. They can’t get through this period without some investors taking hits, even though prices didn’t skyrocket here the way they did in some other places.
Buyers will swoop in and make out because of other people’s losses. But the shake-out won’t be pretty.
Even if the price of office space comes down because new owners are buying investments for a steal, that’ll prompt turnover that leaves someone else hurting.
For instance, if you’re in office space where the rent is X amount, but you know that a building down the street is renting for much less, you’ll want a price break or maybe you’ll even move. If people are just changing spaces but there’s no net increase in tenants, that’s not progress.
It’s hard to even know what’s happening with foreclosures. Montgomery County Clerk of Courts Greg Brush is right that his office needs to start tracking the trends, separating out commercial foreclosures from residential ones.
No one really has a handle on how this is all going to end. Policy makers certainly haven’t gotten far in resolving the home mortgage crisis, and they’ve had plenty of time.
It’s also clear that governments — certainly not state and local governments — will not be rushing in with bailouts or even small handouts to developers. They have their own problems, what with property tax collections down on account of residential and commercial foreclosures, and sales tax collections running tepid because consumers have become more cautious.
The fabled invisible hand of the market is going to be slapping people down and doing so visibly.
Once upon a time, real estate was thought of as a good and safe investment. It was something you could see and touch, and so long as you didn’t speculate wildly, your bet was usually secure.
But like so much about this economy, old truisms just aren’t holding.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: City of Dayton, Columns, Economy, Ellen Belcher, Local Business, Local History
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