Feds begin crackdown on schools with unmanageable student debt

January 10, 2017

Is it too much to ask for students to be able to get the education they need to get a good-paying job at a reasonable price? No, says the Obama Administration who is cracking down on schools whose career-training programs are underperforming and overcharging students.

In numbers released by the Department of Education Monday, about one in four career-training programs at U.S. colleges is at risk of losing federal funding because they are saddling students with potentially unmanageable debt. The schools range from the defunct ITT Technical Institute to Harvard University.

Under the Administration’s new gainful employment regulations, if schools fall in what the Education Department refers to as a “zone” rate for four straight years, their programs would be ineligible for federal funding. The goal of policing this sector is to get these schools to either lower their prices or eliminate poorly performing vocational programs.

This first-of-its-kind evaluation is just one of the ways the Administration is trying to tackle the student loan debt crisis Americans are facing right now. According to the latest numbers, student loan debt is at a staggering $1.4 trillion, and growing $2,726 every second.

“When a student makes a personal and financial decision to attend college, the student must feel confident that it is a sound investment in his or her future, not a liability that will further defer his or her dreams,” Education Secretary John B. King Jr. told Bloomberg Monday.

For decades, attending college has been touted as the best path to getting a good-paying job in your career field, but as the changing economy is showing us a traditional college education is no longer necessary. WorkingNation has highlighted some programs like Generation, Year Up, and College for Social Innovation that are working to give young people the hands-on skills they need to achieve success on a professional level. You can read more on these programs here.

The path to success in America’s workforce doesn’t have to come saddled with tens of thousands of student debt, and changing the model of traditional college institutions is an uphill battle that may not be popular but is necessary to stay competitive and flourish in this new global economy.

Read more of Bloomberg’s article here.

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.