Federal Department of Education Considers University Studies as Producing "Non-Gainful" Employment

Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) -- an appropriate double entendre, considering what financial aid specialists do when they reach a new financial aid disbursement record -- released an opinion letter regarding the implementation of the following U.S. Department of Education gainful employment (GE) regulations approved October 29, 2010 and effective July, 2011.

The IFAP summary provides insight about how much of a waste the Department of Education tacitly considers certain tertiary education programs to be! Which programs? The breadth of this classification may surprise you!

The following excerpts from those regulations speak volumes:

Excerpt 1
Non-GE Domestic Public and Domestic Nonprofit Institutions
"Programs that lead to a degree, including associate's degrees, bachelor's degrees, graduate degrees, and professional degrees."

Excerpt 2
GE Program Information to Disclose
"The job placement rate for students completing the program."

Note the Department of Education is holding the privately funded or "proprietary" educational institutions to a double standard of all-encompassing GE regulations, whereas the tax-funded or "nonprofit" educational institutions get a free pass to ignore GE regulations throughout their baccalaureate and advanced degree programs (as well as for associate degrees and other courses creditable towards a four-year or higher degree).

This is an arbitrary distinction; comparable curricula, faculty, and facilities should result in comparable levels of gainful or non-gainful employment, irrespective of funding mechanism. And if you take seriously the caterwauling by public higher education administrators and nonprofit faculty, then you refuse to demand evidence that higher instructor compensation equals superior graduates; the institutional fallacy stands.

The appeal to fairness for faculty -- in a system that is inherently unfair to those who pay money to be in the presence of the same -- rests not upon absolute quality but on relative compensation in comparison to what for-profit schools pay their academic staff. Again, this logic -- that higher compensation should reasonably be expected to attract superior educators -- has weak empirical findings at best. The unsupported affirmative is the argument touted by academic staff at public universities when it comes time to whine about how they need raises "to maintain quality of education."

So by that standard, the public educator advocating for a pay increase to maintain competitiveness with his or her private-sector counterparts either feels the for-profit schools are indeed acquiring better instructors than are found among public sector peers -- or that money-grubbing public educator is disingenuously claiming impaired quality of instructors, degraded student achievements, and loss of academic reputation at his or her institution when none of those imagined injuries are perceived by interested would-be students, let alone resembling anywhere close to reality.

02-18-2014 Update:
Directly from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) client services help files maintained at CustHelp.com, the formula used by FAA to compute comparative value of educational credentials is:

"Four years of progressive study, or 120 semester hours, meets the degree requirements. For study at a business, technical or trade school, 36 weeks of study (20+ classroom hours per week) is comparable to 1 post-secondary academic year."

For those needing a simpler interpretation: Half a year of trade school in any vocational program is weighed as heavily by the FAA as an entire year of university studies. What does that tell you about how ill-positioned liberal arts graduates are to be employed? And it's not just the Federal Aviation Administration but also the Department of Education and IFAP saying this.

It immediately becomes clear that degree programs from a public institution WOULD NOT be considered by the Department of Education as leading to gainful employment, if the private sector standard had been applied! Why do tax-funded universities get a pass on providing job placement statistics when they are technically classified by the DoE as "leading to gainful employment" -- and why is this discrepancy ignored by the mainstream media and by educational journalists? Who's paying them off?

The higher education hucksters do, simply by manufacturing an endless supply of politically "progressive" journalism grads and sympathetic readers who will turn off their critical thinking and toe the line on political correctness just to get an internship or to fit in with their brainwashed peers. Not beholden to the university propagandists, I may very well be the first blogger to have mentioned the DoE, IFAP, and FAA all commenting on the superiority of vo-tech school as career preparation vis-à-vis university studies.

So the next time an educator or career counselor drops a factoid about "higher mean income" for college graduates, you can fire right back with the indisputable fact that the Department of Education classifies state university degree programs as "non-gainful employment" programs. The entire public -- and especially every naive youth who INFERS occupational promises from college programs which have NO JOB PLACEMENT STATISTICS -- deserves to know this.

Communications Director Matt Guidry of The United Council of UW Students, Inc. has graciously informed me of a survey which it is conducting in conjunction with One Wisconsin Institute to sample the average debt, living conditions, geographies, and demographics of university graduates who are either paying student loan debt or are in deferment on payment of one or more student loans.

Although the sponsoring organizations as based in Wisconsin, all university graduates in arrears are welcome to participate because there are questions to segment respondents by state and by ZIP code. And yes, the survey really does require only five minutes maximum, even if you tab through the page elements rather than use the mouse.

University Graduate Student
Loan Debt Survey

Click here to access the survey!

Addendum: Congratulations if you paid your way through university without loans or paid off your debt really quickly with a high-paying job right out of college, but we're looking for university graduates who are still under one or more student loan debt obligations, whether they've graduated this May or have been a graduate for many years but have been unable to repay all student loan debt -- thanks!

You can do better; go to trade school!

Custodian at "Palooka University" UW-Milwaukee; To Be Hired via Random Number Generator

http://wisc.jobs/public/job_view.asp?annoid=23049&jobid=22564

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Job Title: UW-Milwaukee Custodian

Job Announcement Code(s): 07-01844
County(ies): Milwaukee
Classification Title/JAC: Job
Working Title: CUSTODIAN 07-01844
Type of Employment: Full Time (40 hrs/week)
Part Time (less than 40 hrs/week)
Evening 2nd Shift (3pm to 11pm or similar hours)
Evening 3rd Shift (11pm to 7am or similar hours)
Seasonal (minimum of 600 hrs/year but less than 1828 hrs/year)
Salary: The starting pay rate is $11.284 per hour (schedule/range 03/08), including an excellent benefits package. A 6-month probationary period is required.

Special Qualifications:
Must be able to lift up to 60 pounds and push/pull up to 100 pounds; must be able to bend, twist, stoop, push, pull and climb ladders.

Contact the UWM Human Resources Department for further information and application procedures:
Phone: 414-229-4463 Fax: 414-229-4102

Bargaining Unit: Non-Represented
Area of Competition: Open
Deadline to Apply: Open
Exam Information: 89161-010 CUSTODIAN
Preview Exam: http://wisc.jobs/public/ExamApplicantPreview.asp?txtExamID=5732
WARNING: Question not assigned

The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee is currently accepting applications to fill custodian vacancies on campus. UWM, a doctoral/research intensive university, is Wisconsin's premier public urban university and offers a comprehensive liberal arts and professional education at the undergraduate and graduate level to its 30,500 students. UWM takes pride in being a student-centered institution that is deeply committed to diversity in its student body, faculty, staff, and programs. UWM's 103-acre campus is located on Milwaukee's upper east side, one of the city's most attractive residential areas and home to many faculty, staff, and students. For more information, please visit our Web site at http://www.uwm.edu/.

We interrupt this post for a word from our sponsor:

Thank you for visiting our sponsor!

Job Duties:

Provide general cleaning and maintenance in offices, classrooms, restrooms and all similar areas at the University. Sweep, vacuum, mop and wax floors, scrub walls and fixtures; dust, move furniture and equipment; replace light bulbs, empty waste receptacles, replenish supplies, shovel snow and perform miscellaneous related household duties. Working Conditions: Work inside State-owned/leased space in a variety of environments. Dust, chemical odors and noise commonly encountered on job. Occasional outside work, including extreme weather conditions during snow and ice control. Equipment used to perform essential functions: Brooms, mops, buffers, scrubbers, shampooers, vacuum cleaners, measuring tools, shovels, scrapers and snowblowers.

Special Notes:
This position will require a criminal records review. A pending charge or conviction will not necessarily disqualify an applicant. In compliance with the Wisconsin Fair Employment Act, the University does not discriminate on the basis of arrest or conviction record. For information relating to the campus security report for UWM, please visit the following: http://www.cleryact.uwm.edu/.

Job Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
Qualified candidates will have the ability to move furniture, operate floor and carpet equipment, and work an 8 hour shift; the ability to use professional cleaning products; the ability to read and understand work instructions and schedules, warning signs and instruction manuals for equipment operation; and the ability to communicate effectively with supervisors, co-workers and building users. This position requires material handling up to 60 lbs. and pushing/pulling up to 100 lbs.

How To Apply:
Complete the Application for State Employment form, which is available online at http://oser.state.wi.us/application.asp or by calling the UW-Milwaukee Department of Human Resources at (414) 229-4463. List Job Announcement Code 0701844, check employment area (AREA 40) and send to UW-Milwaukee; Department of Human Resources; P.O. Box 413; Milwaukee, WI 53201-0413. There is no deadline as this is a continuous recruitment. A computer-generated, random numbering process will assign rankings. Applicants will remain eligible for three months. For additional information contact the UWM Human Resources Department at (414) 229-4463.

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The employment application asks for contact information, EEO characteristics, and availability of both time and geography. It does not ask for employment history or criminal records. Why? A random number generator determines applicant ranking! UW-Milwaukee uses the meritless, socialist method of selecting job applicants via raffle.

One cannot earn multiple drawings per period, either; it is purely luck of the draw and not influenced by any KSAs you may have developed. An institute of higher education, built upon the premise that education is necessary and good for advancement in life, posts a job vacancy which explicitly states that skills, experience, and education (such as vocational college) will not be considered towards the employability of an applicant!

Fortunately, a semblance of merit comes into play when the applicant needs to renew his/her application, which expires every three months. Those with the perseverance to re-submit an application up to four times annually will have better chances than those who let their application expire without resubmission.

Nonetheless, it is employment practices such as these random drawings for new hires which give Wisconsin government a bad reputation as a haven for those who are unemployable in any other organization. To be fair, the qualifications for high-level state positions such as budget analyst and program evaluator are pretty stringent in that you need at least five years of relevant experience. (I recently placed 4^th out of all applicants on the civil service exam for budget analyst, but the results did not show specific item scores or the total number of applicants.)

The lack of union representation keeps the starting wage of $11.28 per hour lower than what state employees are known for, but the lack of prior experience or even any requirement of “excellent interpersonal skills” or “friendly demeanor” justifies an even lower wage. This is without considering the benefits, which bring total hourly compensation to a minimum of $13.50. I witnessed many custodians at work while I toiled at my student jobs, and they were never in a hurry. They each had a half-hour lunch break during which they could watch television in the break room, as I would see this while busing tables to collect trays whenever I had cleaned all dish carts in UWM Restaurant Operations.

The custodial work at UWM is nothing compared to the frantic pace of Pizza Hut and its demanding customers. The floors don’t complain when they haven’t been adequately waxed. Custodians need not please members of the public but rather only need to tape off their work area and post “wet floor” placards to keep people from walking over wet surfaces. The custodians I saw at UWM never smiled unless to each other. In short, they would do horribly in customer service. I suppose misanthropes who need some legal income can always become a university custodian. Why enroll at UWM when you can win its employment lottery and be set for life working as a custodian?

Dec. 7, 2013 Update: As of this writing, no one has responded as to why anyone earning a decent wage and benefits as custodian would ever spend money on a university education. While for some it might be a "hey, I'm middle class now in THEORY" kind of deal when you enroll and eventually graduate, the economic motive is severely lacking.

I'll say that if you're that Hell-bent intent on getting some "higher education," then go to trade school, get some hands-on job placement through a formal apprentice program, and earn some money instead of competing in the surplus labor pool of fellow over-educated higher education rubes university graduates.

Patronize your library and reliable information sources on the Internet. THEN, if you STILL believe you somehow need a university degree to validate your own personal and professional competence, then by all means blow $30,000 or whatever for a chance to network with people who won't care.
"Here's your &!##@^%^&# education!"