Higher Education Inquirer : Search results for predators

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Thursday, June 6, 2024

Dangerous Spaces: Sexual Assault and Other Forms of Violence On and Off Campus

US colleges and universities are often physically unsafe. And there is no sure way to know how dangerous they are. Incoming students and their families should conduct reasonable steps, talking seriously, and in enough detail, to remain safe on and off college and university campuses.

Cover Ups are the Norm

The US Department of Education keeps formal records of crime on campus, but most crimes, as much as 80 percent, go unreported. Efforts to increase transparency about violence through institutional-level victim surveys have never been required.

Under the previous Trump administration, which sided with predators over victims, formally reported numbers became even more questionable. If Mr. Trump is elected this November, people should expect him to again roll back Department of Education regulations meant to increase transparency and protect crime victims.

Higher education institutions (and their affiliate organizations) have also been known to systematically cover up crimes, particularly sexual assault. Campus police and campus services may or may not be supportive. Knowing that a school does not protect students, or that it may even punish victims, ensures that that fewer will report crimes. The NCAA and Greek governing bodies have also not done enough to reduce predators and prevent students from becoming victims.

Crimes just off campus are also of concern, especially in off campus housing and fraternities, where alcohol and drugs are readily available and there is a culture of rape and violence--and where serial offenders are protected from prosecution. Hooking up with dating apps can also be dangerous.

Conduct Independent Research

It is estimated that 20 to 25 percent of all female students are victims of violence. Male students are also frequent victims of violence, particularly from other men. Those most vulnerable are (1) women, (2) underclassmen, (3) racial, ethnic and sexual minorities, (4) sorority women, (5) students with disabilities, and (6) students with past histories of sexual victimization.

Sex crimes include unwanted sexual contact, forcible rape, incapacitated rape, and drug- or alcohol-facilitated rape.

Elite universities, religious schools, and military service academies are not immune to violence, rape culture, and sexual harassment. Sexual harassment may come not just from fellow students but also faculty and staff.

Consumers should independently research whether there have been victim surveys at the schools they are planning to attend. Anonymous surveys and criminal lawsuits indicate that the discrepancy between formal reports can be enormous. Consumers may be (and should be) alarmed at some of the victim numbers at America's most respected schools.

Finding little information does not guarantee that the school is safe for students. Especially when institutions value reputation over safety.

The Talk and Plans to Stay Safe

Incoming students and their families should discuss how to stay safe on and off campus. This may be a particularly difficult conversation, but one worth discussing in detail. Awareness is essential before and during the college years. Colleges themselves may or may not be supportive.

Staying away from male athletes, fraternities, and other male-dominated spaces, avoiding places where drugs and alcohol are used, and traveling in safe groups are obvious strategies not just for women, but also for men. But that may still not be enough to avoid being preyed upon.

Effects of sexual victimization on suicidal ideation and behavior in U.S. college women (S. Stepakoff, Suicide Life Threat Behavior, 1998)

Understanding the Predatory Nature of Sexual Violence (Sexual assault Report, David Lisak, 2011)

Article Institution-Specific Victimization Surveys: Addressing Legal and Practical Disincentives
to Gender-Based Violence Reporting on College Campuses (Nancy Chi Cantalupo, Trauma, Violence, and Abuse, 2014).

Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to Action (The White House Council on Women and Girls, 2014).

College sexual assault: 1 in 5 college women say they were violated (Washington Post, 2015)

Education Department withdraws Obama-era campus sexual assault guidance (CNN, 2017)

Measuring campus sexual assault and culture: A systematic review of campus climate surveys (Krause et al., Psychology of Violence, 2018)

Climate Survey On Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct (Association of American Universities, 2019)

Campus-Level Variation in the Prevalence of Student Experiences of Sexual Assault and Intimate Partner Violence (C. Moylan, et al, Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 2019)

Preventing College Sexual Victimization by Reducing Hookups: A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Personalized Normative Feedback Intervention (M. Testa, et al., Prevention Science, 2020)

After pandemic pause, more incoming college students may face sexual assault risks (PBS News Hour, 2021)

After Rape Accusations, Fraternities Face Protests and Growing Anger (NY Times, 2021)

Don’t send your daughter to college here: University rankings for sexual assault (Nassir Ghaemi, 2021)

Due Process: A look at USC’s sexual assault culture (Twesha Dikshit, Daily Trojan, 2022)

Colleges rely on honor system when checking sexual assault background of student athletes (USA Today, 2023)

They ‘broke her’: Family files wrongful death claim against Air Force, alleging academy failed to follow sex assault, suicide policies

Read more at: https://www.stripes.com/branches/air_force/2023-11-08/air-force-academy-sex-assault-suicide-11973994.html
Source - Stars and Stripes

They "broke her": family files wrongful death claim against Air Force, alleging academy failed to follow sexual assault, suicide policies (Stars and Stripes, 2023)

Liberty University fined record $14 million for violating campus safety law (Washington Post, 2024)

Campus Sexual Violence: Statistics (RAINN)

End Rape on Campus

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

College Inc. Redux is Overdue

We desperately need a PBS Frontline updating of College Inc. This 2010 documentary by Martin Smith and Rain Media took us behind the curtains, into the big business of US for-profit higher education. At the time, College Inc. made an important statement: that for-profit higher education had become a racket, funded by greedy Wall Street investors, and that government oversight was necessary to rein in the worst abuses at schools like Corinthian Colleges and Ashford University.

From 2010 to 2012, the Senate Harkin Commission researched and exposed the systemic abuses of the largest for-profit colleges. And under President Obama, some of these abuses were addressed through policy changes at the US Department of Education, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Department of Defense.

Times Have Changed, Not In a Good Way

Much has happened in the last decade and a half since College Inc. was produced. US higher education did not become less predatory, even as a number of for-profit colleges (Corinthian Colleges, ITT Tech, Art Institutes, Le Cordon Bleu, and Virginia College) were shuttered. Republicans worked to ensure that meaningful policy changes, like gainful employment safeguards, were blocked. And some of the worst predators (Kaplan and Ashford) morphed into businesses owned by state universities (Purdue and University of Arizona).

Online education has become pervasive despite concerns about its effectiveness. Content creators and facilitators have replaced instructors at large robocolleges like Southern New Hampshire University, Grand Canyon University, Liberty University Online, and the University of Phoenix.

The for-profit (aka neoliberal) mentality has spread. Online Program Managers (OPMs) have brought for-profit education to non-profit institutions, carrying with it an enormous cost to consumers. Advertising and marketing has become out of control, helping fuel a manufactured College Mania of anxious parents and their children.

Despite the College Mania, folks have become more skeptical of higher education, and for good reason. Student loan debt has further crippled the lives of millions of Americans as Republicans have stepped in to block debt forgiveness. Community colleges and some state universities have gone through significant enrollment declines. Small colleges have closed. And elite colleges have become more wealthy and powerful and controversial. Something not on the radar in the 2010 documentary or in popular culture at the time.

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Why the Higher Education Inquirer Continues to Gain Popularity

The Higher Education Inquirer (HEI) continues to grow, with no revenues, no advertising, and no SEO help. And for good reason. HEI fills a niche for student/consumers and workers and their allies. It provides valuable information about how the US higher education system works and what folks can do.

We cover layoffs and union organizing and strikes in higher education, and we expose predators with some degree of risk-risk that other outlets often won't take. We take a stand on holding big business accountable and we side with struggling student debtors and their families. We question and interrogate higher ducation technology and credentials. And we dispel myths, disinformation, and hype.

We research documents of all sorts, including information from the US Department of Education, Securities and Exchange Commission, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense, Department of Labor, and Federal Election Commission.

The Higher Education Inquirer provides trustworthy information and expert opinions and analysis. Our list of authors is diverse and impressive, for many reasons. HEI treats our readers with respect. It gives students and workers a voice, accepting information and evidence from whistleblowers. And it allows for comments (including anonymous comments), comments that we value.

When others do accept our research, we appreciate it. HEI has been a background source for the NY Times, Bloomberg, Chronicle of Higher Education, ProPublica, Forbes, Military Times, the American Prospect, and several other outlets. We strive to be ahead of the learned herd.

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Are “Best for Vets” and “Military Friendly Colleges” Rankings Believable?

[Editor's Note: This article is for US servicemembers, veterans, and their families.]

GI Bill benefits are a well-deserved reward for your years of military service. They are also an important, but not endless asset for you and your family to transition back to civilian life and to have a good future. In a 2018 Military Times opinion piece, I suggested 8 tips for choosing a college. Those tips are an important primer, but even more education is necessary to spend your GI Bill funds wisely. Military Times, GI Jobs, and others have compiled “Best for Vets” and “Military Friendly School” lists for servicemembers and veterans, but are their lists credible?

Military Friendly?

Whether you are on post, off post, or surfing online, hucksters are trying to sell you their schools, calling them “military friendly.” Servicemembers, veterans, and their families are inundated with advertisements and recruiting for schools--and often these schools are what I call “subprime,” meaning they have questionable value and use questionable tactics to recruit. These messages appear on billboards, ads at the top of your Google or Bing search, on your feeds on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media, in ads embedded in internet articles, and in local newspapers, and magazines in unemployment offices and in grocery stores. And once they get your personal information, subprime schools may end up sending you a slew of texts and phone calls pitching their messages.

Military Times, GI Jobs, and other media produce college rankings specifically for servicemembers, veterans, and their families. This lists have some valuable information, but they should not be used exclusively for making the best college choice. You should be particularly skeptical of advertisements in these and other sources, which may or may not be helpful in making college choices. In some cases, websites posing as informational tools for veterans are actually internet predators.

Military Times’ “Best for Vet” Lists

Military Times (publisher of Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Times) produces a “Best for Vets” list that includes separate lists for 4-year colleges, two year colleges, online and non-traditional colleges and vocational colleges. The schools are ranked by factors such as: whether they have a veterans center, military retention rate, military graduation rate, and affordability for people using DOD Tuition Assistance and GI Bill funds.

The Best for Vets four-year college list has schools with value, with University of Texas, Arlington, Colorado State University, University of Nebraska, Omaha, and Syracuse University topping the list. But while these schools may be good for many veterans, high-performing veterans may be better served at highly selective schools like Columbia University, Cornell University, and Stanford. If you have done well on the SAT or ACT and shown promise in your educational work, Warrior-Scholar and Service2School may be important allies.

Military Times’ lists of 2-year schools and vocational schools includes community colleges that have reasonable value, but they may not be the best choice if a student doesn’t plan to stay in the area. The list of online schools does include, Excelsior College, New York state’s college for working adults completing their degrees. Other schools on the online list, however, are particularly troubling (Colorado Technical University and American Intercontinental University, for example). Rather than being best for veterans, some are considered bad actors by organizations looking out for veterans and other consumers. To muddy the waters even more, Military Times accepts advertisements from subprime schools that have the money to post half-page ads in the magazine.

Subprime Colleges

By subprime college, I am referring to schools that have:

high tuition in relation to community colleges,
low graduation rates, and
low student loan repayment rates*

You can find this information at the Department of Education’s College Scorecard.

Subprime schools also spend a great deal of their revenues for advertising, marketing, and recruiting and little on instruction. Subprime schools often sell themselves as accredited, but accreditation, even regional accreditation, sets a low bar for educational quality. These schools have also been called “bad actors” and the “bottom of the barrel.” The Department of Veterans Affairs GI Bill Comparison Tool provides some information on complaints made to VA. If a school has more than 30 GI Bill complaints, consider another school.

Subprime colleges are often for-profit, but they may also be non-profits or state universities that operate as bad actors. University of Phoenix, DeVry, Colorado Technical Institute, and Purdue University Global (formerly Kaplan University) are glaring examples of subprime schools that have used shady tactics to recruit servicemembers, veterans, and other consumers.

GI Jobs “Military Friendly Schools”

GI Jobs’ Tier-1 university list includes selective, well-respected schools like Carnegie Mellon, NYU, Columbia University, and University of Connecticut. If you look at the schools by state, you’ll find a much smaller list, which will have schools of varying in quality and value. Unfortunately, the Military Friendly lists you may generate with the filters do not compare the schools as transparently as the Military Times lists.

Schools that use an outdated Military Friendly logo should be particularly suspect. In this case, the schools may have lost their ranking or designation and are using their most recent award. If the designation was not issued after 2017, the school may be considered subprime.

Predatory Lead Generators

Do an online search for “military friendly schools” or “GI Bill” and you may find results that are even less helpful than Military Times or GI Jobs: results that may make take you down a wrong turn in your career and college decisions. Scam websites use internet lead generators to take your personal information, to sell you a degree or certificate that won’t be a good investment. In some cases, these lead generators pose as military friendly sites with flags and people in uniform. Lead generators have been fined and shut down for misleading veterans but that has not deterred others from continuing their predatory behavior.

Sunken Investments

If you have found that the school you went to while in the military is a “bottom of the barrel” college, you have lots of research to do before using your GI Bill benefits. Think twice about investing your GI Bill money into a school that will not lead to gainful employment, even if that means starting over if you have to. You should also contact VA and Veterans Education Success to register any complaints about a school you have attended.

*Unfortunately for consumers, student loan repayment rate has been removed from the new College Scorecard.

Helpful Links

Warrior-Scholar (college preparatory boot camps)

Service2School (free application counseling)

Veteran Mentor Network on LinkedIn

Veterans Education Success (tips in enrolling for college)
8 tips to help vets pick the right college (Military Times)