The U.S. Department of Education used a misleading statistic in its rollout last month of proposed "gainful employment" regulations aimed at for-profit institutions, The Washington Postreported. Advocates for the sector had pushed back on the validity of the department's prominently featured assertion that graduates of 72 percent of programs at for-profits make less than high school dropouts. The Post looked into the argument on its "Fact Checker" blog, and sided with for-profits.
For starters, the baseline earnings calculation for high-school dropouts was not up to snuff, the newspaper found. The feds used a relatively high figure, relative to other data. And then the department, in both a White House briefing and in written material, used the figure in comparison to for-profit programs. That was an "apples to oranges" comparison, the Post said. One key reason is that the median salary for high-school dropouts did not include data for unemployed workers. It also factored in people who were many years into their careers, while using only recent graduates for the for-profit graduate figure.
The department defended the statistic, which the Post called "bogus." An official said the figure was merely a benchmark, and that problems with for-profits are serious. "However you cut it, one statement remains true: Graduates of a significant number of for-profit career college programs wind up getting jobs with very low earnings -- a fact that should cause concern for any consumer who’s considering those programs as a post-secondary option intended to prepare them for a job.”