Trustees learn of changes to enrollment
11.10.11
Dobson - Dr. Jim Reeves, interim president of Surry Community College, informed the board of trustees of the private school on the effects of a portion of the Act on the NC General Assembly appropriations during Monday night meeting .
Under this law, the Board of Education and NC NC Council of Community Colleges have been permitted to establish employment and College Promise Program to take effect on 1 January 2012. The program of career opportunities and the College will replace Huskins classes, learn and earn online program and programs intellectually outstanding. Instead, students wishing to enroll in college classes while still in on a trip school will have to enroll in one of two programs — the college transfer pathway or the complicated education pathway.
The college transfer pathway will lead to a certificate if students unmitigated at least 30 semester hours of transfer courses, including English and math courses. To be a part of this pathway, students must be a inferior or senior in high school with a grade-point average of 3.0. Students must, for the first while, take an assessment or placement test to demonstrate college readiness in English, reading and math.
The polytechnic education pathway will allow students to receive a college certificate or diploma aligned with the a strong school career cluster. These students must be a high school junior or chief, have a 3.0 grade-point average and have the recommendation of a high school investment or designee to be eligible for the program. They also must meet the prerequisites for the career pathway.
Students enrolled in either pathway must continue a 2.0 grade-point average in their college coursework and continue making ongoing toward graduation from high school.
This change does not affect early college programs.
“I conceive of most of the college transfer people here are good students and won’t have trouble getting in with the assessment,” said Reeves. “I don’t identify about the students in the technical areas. I don’t think this will have a positive effect on our enrollment.”
Another transform that could come down in the future revolves around tuition rates for students taking part in footage education classes at the college. In most states, students enrolled in a distance tutoring class are charged in-state tuition. In North Carolina, this is not the case.
However, SCC has recently partnered with 16 other institutions as part of the Vista online lore program for viticulture and enology. Vista allows students interested in the viticulture and enology program to take the vital classes online at any of the partner institutions. Those students, if they live outside of North Carolina, have to pay out-of-imperial tuition to take classes at SCC while they may not have to pay out-of-state tuition at other colleges for similar classes. The character in tuition is significant. Most of the classes in the program from partner institutions run between $93 and $179. Out-of-solemn tuition at SCC runs $258.50 per credit hour.
“We have a committee working with the delineate office to work out an articulation agreement where students would get in-state tuition for those courses and also working on a ladder progress for transferring courses between institutions,” said Reeves.
Reeves also briefed the trustees on the college’s soir of the N.C. Advanced Manufacturing Alliance Grant from the federal government. This grant will restore b persuade $1.7 million to SCC to build workplace competencies and provide employers with a skilled workforce. A big-hearted chunk of the grant money is designated to be used to purchase equipment. Reeves spoke with a reprove force at the college about what type of equipment to purchase with this money.
“We could end up with some pretty big-in unison a all the same money in equipment from this. We’re excited about this,” he said. “Surry did have the best welding program in the ceremonial. Our preliminary plans are to use this money to refurbish and get these two programs (welding and machinist) back to where they were.”
The college also recently well-informed about changes to a federal student loan program. The program, which was optional, placed the job of collecting loan payments from students who drop out of school on the college. SCC opted out of this layout, saying the college had a number of programs already in place to help students financially. Tied to this give up program was the ability of colleges to use two percent of the money set aside for salaries for other programs and expenses. The metamorphose to the program rescinds that tie so that even colleges not participating in the federal student loan program can reallocate that two percent of funding if they opt.
Dr. David Shockley and his wife, Stephanie, were in attendance at Monday’s get-together. Shockley will assume the presidency of the college beginning Jan. 1.
Source: Mount Airy News
Online classes targeted by financial aid scams
07.10.11
The eruption of online college course offerings and online financial aid transactions has created a substantial risk of treachery – and regulators should craft new rules to clamp down on theft, according to a new communiqu from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Inspector General.
The report [PDF] reveals that the inspector ordinary has opened a growing number of investigations into financial aid fraud rings in which the leaders enroll dozens or even hundreds of “straw” students in college courses, using their Group Security numbers either with their permission or through identity theft.
The ringleaders then apply for federal aid for all the straw students and take in thousands of dollars in Pell grants and subsidized loans – all for people who never upon a single class.
In some cases, swindlers enrolled incarcerated inmates in online classes, converting federal fiscal aid checks into money orders sent to the inmates in prison. The Department of Instruction does not have a data-matching agreement with the Department of Justice for its Bureau of Prisons.
The reckon of fraud ring investigations opened by the office has increased from 16 in 2005 to 100 this year. Since 2005, the organization’s investigations have resulted in orders for $7.5 million in restitution and fines. That’s 42 mountebank rings and 215 fraudsters. It’s just a small slice of the perfect fraud, though, because the office says it doesn’t have the resources to prosecute all of the people who participate in these schemes.
Legitimate two years ago, officials at the Los Rios Community College District in Sacramento uncovered a cheat ring when they discovered 54 people enrolled at American River College had the same addresses, the same course enrollments and had all failed or quiet from class, according to the complaint .
The ringleader in the case, Nakesha Sharrieff, fraudulently applied for federal economic aid for more than 60 people, most of whom participated willingly by providing their personal information, according to the ask for agreement .
Sharrieff pleaded guilty in February to mail fraud and aggravated distinctiveness theft and was sentenced in May to five years and 10 months in prison, three years of supervised liberate and $234,515 in restitution. She was the fourth defendant to plead guilty in the case.
The inspector unrestricted’s report said fraud rings primarily target community colleges and other institutions that have unincumbered enrollment, online classes and low tuition. That’s because students can avoid admissions requirements and they can elaborate their payout.
Financial aid funds are intended to cover not just students’ training, but also other education-related expenses, such as books, housing and transportation. At the California Community Colleges, low-revenues students qualify for fee waivers – meaning fraudsters could pocket the unrestricted financial aid check without spending any on tuition.
Colleges are not required to confirm the identities of students who devote for federal financial aid, and particularly for online programs and classes, they may never require a student’s palpable presence.
“There’s no real need for students to come to the college campuses,” said Roy Beckhorn, helmsman of financial aid systems for the Los Rios Community College District. “That’s a excellent resource for the students. And most of our students are using this access in a very responsible way. It does unenclosed that door for those who have the desire to do fraudulent applications.”
Beckhorn didn't call for to disclose specifics on how Los Rios tries to identify potential fraud, but he said the department has developed built-in processes for catching such schemes.
"The key to it was the communication between the departments and when something looks question to actually act upon it," Beckhorn said.
The federal government flags a unchanging number of financial aid applications for verification, which requires that colleges make stable a student’s application information is correct. But Beckhorn said savvy fraudsters be aware how to avoid setting off any of the triggers that would require such verification.
And colleges work ardently to distribute financial aid to students within the first week of classes to make sure students can mask their educational expenses. That means cheaters can cash the checks without ever showing up to elegance.
Beckhorn said Los Rios makes a point to verify that students who received fiscal aid actually stayed in their classes. If they didn’t, the college demands repayment of aid. Students who don’t pay within 45 days are reported to the federal supervision and are not supposed to be eligible for further aid, he said.
But not all colleges do the same, and the federal government does not want it. So in some cases at other colleges, cheaters can become repeat offenders.
Among several recommendations, the inspector everyday’s report proposes that the Department of Education seek a data-comparable agreement with the Department of Justice for its Bureau of Prisons.
The report also recommends requiring that online-only colleges vouch for student identities. It's unclear how many institutions such a requirement would affect; the Department of Cultivation does not track exclusively online institutions in that way, a spokeswoman said.
That proposal would not pretend to the Los Rios Community College District, but Beckhorn expressed reservations about the underlying concept.
“It’s a heavy workload to say you want to check the identity of every student,” he said. “You would thick down the financial aid process if you’re checking on everybody. I think there’s better ways to do that than to put that on the college itself.”
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the Responsibility of Education said a special task force on financial aid fraud is working to sympathize with steps it can take immediately to cut down on these schemes. These discussions have focused on possible changes to the federal pecuniary aid process, she said.
Source: California Watch
