Senator Durbin Seeks Investigation of Westwood Campuses’ Use of GI Bill Benefits

March 9, 2011, 10:14 pm

In a letter sent today, Sen. Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, asks the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to step up its efforts to identify colleges that are abusing the new GI Bill’s education benefits. The letter, which comes a week after the department announced that it had withdrawn eligibility for GI Bill benefits from three Westwood College campuses in Texas, specifically asks the department to investigate Westwood’s 14 other campuses and online program. Senator Durbin also wrote to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates requesting information on any colleges that have been denied access to tuition assistance for active-duty service members.

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realtyannie

An Illinois politician taking the high road. There is hope for us yet!
Guest

Research how Grant Funds are accounted for. It’s free money from the government for students who qualify. I believe students are being awarded Grants in terms they never completed. It’s free money. I am aware of some schools that pay the Grant amount, as much as $5000, at the beginning of the term then offset the payout when Grant funds are received. There is a problem when students do not finish the term. Grants should be repaid. I wager they are not being accounted for properly.
midevilprof

Indeed. I wonder how low tuition at the college where I teach would be, were we to follow Berea’s model as far as we could. With an endowment a fraction of the size of Berea’s (our endowment is closer to Berea’s revenues in FY10), would our tuition be able to be reduced by that same fraction? If our endowment is a tenth of Berea’s, would we be able to reduce tuition by a tenth?

And then, supposing that we had students working every appropriate job on campus–buildings and grounds, food service, housekeeping, and so forth, obviously excluding teaching and administrative jobs–I would figure that the impact on the local economy would be negative. All the people who currently work here in those positions would presumably have to be let go in order to give the work to students. The college would save on the salaries and benefits paid to those employees, and the savings could be passed on to students in lower tuition, but in our area, which is not vastly different from much of Kentucky, I see no particular advantage to taking jobs out of the local economy.
wingedwarrior

In my former life on the “dark side” as an administrator, I always did my best to help people get where they wanted to go. I lost some people I didn’t want to lose, but I also gained some people others didn’t want to lose.
aruether

I agree that providing more money or a better title won’t make someone happy enough to stay at a job they don’t like for very long. I also agree that no one is indispensable. But one thing I don’t understand in the article, many of the comments, and at my own institution is the ease with which people will let a talented person leave. Given that it is hard to find great people, if you have a high-performing person, why not try to figure out creative ways to make them stay? Hiring someone is a gamble. If you are trying to make your institution the best it can be, don’t you need the best people?
happyprof

I agree that “retention packages” just breed resentment among the other faculty. Even as a graduate student, I knew the details of every such case at my university because the other profs would let it slip in their less retrained moments. Once the information slipped out, it was out forever and became the stuff of legends.

As someone who did make a mid-career move, my experience was that a retention offer wouldn’t have made me stay, anyway. I wouldn’t have been willing to risk the potential downsides of making a bid to move just for new perks… I truly wanted to go, and specifically told the admins that there wasn’t any reason for them to spend any political capital getting me a nice counter-offer.

Also, while I’m generally neutral on the issue of “opportunity hires” and the like for under-represented groups, I will say that this information also tends to get out, and can also be a source of resentment among peers. The fact that this takes place also makes it harder for meritorious and coincidentally underrepresented hires to function at their departments, since the assumption is that they, too, were opportunity hires.
nzumanu

Retention packages must be proactive and not used to stop somebody who is working on his departure arrangements.
dietaspbajarpeso

When folks are truly that unhappy or feel that unappreciated (or
underpaid), I always side with wishing them well. Help them pack.

consejosparabajardepeso.org/dietas-para-bajar-de-peso/
singfasola

I must be particularly uncharitable today. The disgruntled parties didn’t want to leave, but the institution couldn’t give them the opportunities that were awaiting them in other greener pastures. I’m hoping that the university explained why those opportunities weren’t going to be available, because often that has nothing to do with the individuals involved, but with institutional priorities, lack of funds, etc. It seems these individuals took this personally, despite having since thrived in the new environments. Did they want to have their cake and eat it too? Not in this economy, for sure, and not often in any context.
razorbrass

I’m amazed to hear so many people say to let them go. I guess the only people worth retaining on campus are administrators and coaches. Think of the millions schools could save if they would use the same approach with those two groups.
juliewhite

I have mixed feelings on this issue. Sometimes it is just time for a person to move on. But I also have seen that, often, it’s the most innovative, out-of-the-box people that tend to move on. On one hand, higher ed. institutions are bureaucracies, and bureaucracies function best when people fit their particular role well. But the down side of that bureaucratization: don’t we lose innovation and creativity when we can’t find a way to help people grow within the institution, when they are ready?