An audit by the inspector general of the U.S. Education Department has found gaps and errors in Baker College’s attendance records for distance-education students that could have allowed Baker, a nine-campus system in Michigan, to keep more federal student aid than it was entitled to. The audit recommends that the college, a nonprofit institution that serves more than 35,000 students, be required to develop policies for its automated attendance system and return at least $9,760 in federal student aid to the department. In its response, the college disagreed with all of the audit’s findings.
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6 Responses to Audit Finds Errors in Baker College’s Distance-Education Attendance Records
wmartin46 - August 26, 2010 at 4:17 pm
> return at least $9,760 in federal student aid to the departmentAll of this for $10K? Articles like this should have included the total dollars paid by the Feds, so we can see the magnitude of the billing error/disagreement.
11272784 - August 26, 2010 at 4:42 pm
This may be an oddity of wording, but:Attendance…..for DISTANCE ed students?Isn’t that an oxymoron?If they’re attending, they’re not distance.
akprof - August 26, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Sorry 11272784 – some of the distance course that I have taught are synchronous sessions that require actual participation at specific class sessions. Attendance via distance doesn’t have to be in person in a single classroom!!
snwiedmann - August 27, 2010 at 7:00 am
“Attendance” is sometimes used to mean ‘participation’. It is not unheard of for students to enroll in such courses (and get financial aid in the form of money in the student’s pocket) and not do any work. The Feds don’t like that. Unfortunately, instead of going after the scamming student, the Feds go after the institution.
haohtt - August 27, 2010 at 10:54 am
I have seen the same thing happen at traditional brick & mortar colleges and universities. Data entry errors, new administrative systems, or faculty/staff neglecting or forgetting to enter attendance can cause these errors. The only reason that we are seeing this is that it involves a distance education program (which, for many people, makes it worthy of suspicion). It this involved a for-profit institution, it would be the front-page headline. If it was a traditional non-profit face-to-face program, we would likely not even be reading about it.
jabberwocky12 - August 28, 2010 at 1:06 am
@haohtt, you’re spot-on. While it’s quite true that some institutions have tried to see distance education as simply money-making schemes, and while I think applying strict standards to distance education is great, they need to be applied across the board or not at all. $10K implies that the difference was so tiny, it would probably be found in most institutions, for exactly the reasons you give.This also happens with access to materials. The standards for access to electronic materials are strictly enforced (which is a good thing), but, at the same institutions, hardly legible hand-outs are given to students in f2f classes. The approach really should be: apply the rules across the baord or not at all.