Category: Uncategorized

nice little (partially humorous) reminder…

In its final “Gainful Employment” rule, the Obama administration has made many major concessions to the for-profit higher education industry. But perhaps none is more damaging than the fact that administration officials have significantly delayed the point at which the worst for-profit school programs would be in jeopardy of losing access to federal financial aid. By doing so, they have made it many times easier for career college lobbyists to kill the regulation before the Department of Education can effectively shut down even the most irredeemable programs by removing them from the aid programs.

Under the proposed rule, which the Education Department released a little less than a year ago, career college programs that leave low-income and working class students buried in debt but without the training they have been promised could have been kicked out of the federal student aid programs as early as next year. Under the final regulation, however, these programs will be allowed to continue operating “with no requirements to improve,” as the research and advocacy group Education Trust points out, until at least 2015.

Unlike the draft regulation, the final rule takes a “three strikes” approach to disciplining the worst programs (those at which fewer than 35 percent of former students are repaying their Pikalainaa loans, and where graduates have a debt-to-income ratio greater than 12 percent of their total income and 30 percent of their discretionary income). Instead of immediately losing access to federal financial aid (as the proposed rule required), these programs would have to fail each of these tests at the same time three out of four years in a row before they could become ineligible.

Given current political realities, this delay could prove fatal to the rule. Had the original timeline stuck, the elimination of at least some of the most exploitative programs would have been virtually guaranteed. That’s because the penalties would have gone into effect prior to the 2012 elections. With Democrats in charge of the White House and the Senate (and with Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) leading the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee), the chances that the industry’s friends in Congress will be able to block the Education Department from enforcing the rule are extremely slim.

Now, however, that the penalties will not be imposed until after the elections, all bets are off. That’s especially true because with so many Democratic seats in play, control of the Senate appears to be very much up for grabs.

Don’t forget that the Higher Education Act will be up for renewal in 2013. A Republican-controlled Congress would surely attempt to strike the language in the law requiring for-profit colleges to provide “gainful employment” to their students in order to be able to participate in the federal student aid programs. Failing that, they would likely be tempted to come to the aid of for-profit college companies that at that point will be in imminent danger of losing access to federal aid funds. Either way, the regulation could be gone before any schools are penalized.

This may seem like a far-fetched or overly pessimistic scenario to some. But at Higher Ed Watch, we believe that it is a very real possibility — in which case all of the administration’s hard work on this regulation over the last two years (as well as that of the consumer advocacy groups that have been fighting for it) will have been for naught.

Published: Jun. 08, 2011

Category: Non-Fiction » Sports & Outdoor Recreation » Hiking
Category: Non-Fiction » Self-Improvement » Motivation and inspiration

Words: 85681 (approximate)

Language: English

Ebook Short Description

In July 2008, Moire O’Sullivan made a solo attempt of the Wicklow Round, a gruelling run spanning 100 kilometres over 26 of Ireland’s remotest mountains.

Mud, Sweat, and Tears tells one woman’s story about her passion for mountain running, a passion that has brought her to the heights of some of Ireland’s most impressive mountains and to the depths of her own human limitations.

Extended Description

Moire turned up to her first mountain race with the wrong shoes, wearing too many clothes, and with a body verging on obese. Though tempted to pull out and go home, she reluctantly runs.

Little did she know the race up Corrig Mountain would inflict such physical blows: Her lungs catch fire, her legs explode, her heart hits record speeds. And though it’s a gentle summer’s evening back in Dublin, on top of Corrig Mountain the wind screeches and the mist swirls as she lunges and lurches over grass, rocks, and rutted bog.

The next morning, everything hurts. But still she perseveres. Every week, she’d battle it out with the other mountain runners, adversaries on the hill. But by 9 pm, she’d join her new friends in the pub, discovering the wonderful healing powers of a proper pint.

Over the next three years, Moire competes in all the mountain races she can possibly find, in all different shapes and forms: everything from ten kilometre sprints up summits, to one hundred kilometre…
(Read more)

Moire turned up to her first mountain race with the wrong shoes, wearing too many clothes, and with a body verging on obese. Though tempted to pull out and go home, she reluctantly runs.

Little did she know the race up Corrig Mountain would inflict such physical blows: Her lungs catch fire, her legs explode, her heart hits record speeds. And though it’s a gentle summer’s evening back in Dublin, on top of Corrig Mountain the wind screeches and the mist swirls as she lunges and lurches over grass, rocks, and rutted bog.

The next morning, everything hurts. But still she perseveres. Every week, she’d battle it out with the other mountain runners, adversaries on the hill. But by 9 pm, she’d join her new friends in the pub, discovering the wonderful healing powers of a proper pint.

Over the next three years, Moire competes in all the mountain races she can possibly find, in all different shapes and forms: everything from ten kilometre sprints up summits, to one hundred kilometre runs requiring map and compass skills. She even dabbles in adventure racing, doing multi-day multi-sport races in teams of four in the barren wastelands of Ireland and Scotland. But it is not until she sets her sights on the still unconquered Wicklow Round that she finally finds her nemesis.

In July 2008, Moire made a solo attempt on the Wicklow Round, a gruelling endurance run spanning a hundred kilometres over twenty six of Ireland’s remotest mountain peaks. After twenty one and a half hours she collapsed, two summits from the end. Battered and bruised yet undeterred, she returned a year later to become the first person ever to complete the challenge.

This is her story.
(Less)

Tags

ireland, running, motivational book, trail running, mountain running, wicklow round, ultra distance, wicklow mountains

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Reviews

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Review by:
Pete Power
on Jun. 08, 2011 :

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. A truely inspirational story of mountain running and extreme adventure. I was riveted by the challenge the author set for herself and her 2 year committment to achieving her goal. Something every athlete and adventurer should read before they die.

(reviewed the day of purchase)

“glowing red fireball heading this way” ha. anybody?

now that’s pretty cool…

mapping the “scenes” of austin tx

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources. It lives right where you do your work—in the web browser itself.

: FYI web2 is up…like you care…

Welcome to the Carter Work Project Application process. Please read the information below carefully.

From Nov. 5 to Nov. 12, 2011, the former U.S. president and First Lady will join hundreds of volunteers in Haiti, for the 28th annual Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project to help Haitian partner families rebuild their homes and lives since the devastating earthquake of 2010.