Let's face it...news sells and bad news sells best. We need to include our students in every aspect of their college experience so there are no surprises and no "got-cha" moments. A student's education must be a team effort or the student will look to blame when their expectations fail to be met.
The media always shows the negative side of everything. This, of course, always brings repercussions. For us, it's usually in the for of stiffer regulations.
The media has influenced both the regulatory and education industry in several ways from where I sit. First, the media influences a number of consumers awareness about the education industry. Second, the regulatory industry has to respond with measures which protect and provide transparency to consumers based on media findings. Finally, education like most things have become a business traded on the NYSE and require checks and balances for consumers to potentially benefit from educational opportunities which the media highlights both the tangible and intangible.
The increase in negative media coverage particularly “for-profit career schools and colleges†has raised many questions. Claims of fraud, aggressive and abusive recruiting, and loan practices by some schools has called for regulatory bodies to focus on reviewing and establishing new more stringent regulations.
Media can influence regulators with the investigations and findings of colleges and career institutions who violate their own policies. This can bring more strict regulations from legislators.
Linda,
I agree that we need to ensure keeping focus on the student. It's sad that the regulations meant to protect students actual cause schools to incur costs that could take away from investing in the educational side. School's need to find the right balance to ensure student satisfaction while also maintaining compliance.
Traci Lee
Media is making it difficult as they are giving students a reason to find things wrong when any issues arise. I find at our school we are truly there for the student and go above and beyond to make them successful. There is no room for error for the faculty & staff. In addition schools are being forced to look to other areas to make up the lower enrollment numbers caused by the media and this could take the focus off the student. Media needs to do better research and see how hard faculty work to help sutdents in the private arena before passing judgement.
The media can work two ways:
Promoting our school or looking for negative things to report. Primarily their job is to sell news, unfortunately even if it means to provide negative publicity they will do so because it sells. Negative news spreads faster than positive news.
Why as school officials we have to be careful what we say and who we say it to, follow all procedures in case of auditing, we don't want descrepancies.
Charles,
Well stated...it's too bad that well-run, compliant schools are also exposed to the additional regulatory pressures.
Traci Lee
The media has had a major effect on the operational processes of the education industry. Fortunately, questionable processes and procedures were exposed and new regulations were implemented to ensure that these practices did not continue. Unfortunately, The major part of the industry was in compliance and had audit procedures already in place but the media enhanced the exposure to the point that additional reviews were developed to decrease the possibility of error. The trade off is positive but the additional cost is significant.
The media does influence the regulatory environment in many ways. It influence in positive and neagtive things. We have to try to keep our students happy but there will always be some students that won't be happy no matter what we try to do for them.
In my geographic neighborhood, the media tends to be more unfriendly towards my school than anything else. This tendancy has made us much more aware of how we advertise and promote ourselves as a school that provides real, viable options for career training. In this sense the media is a catalyst for self-inspection and change at my campus.
The media has made our industry much more accountable due to their exposure of bad practices, and the resulting increased regulation for various agencies. This can really only be a good thing for the students and consumers out there. Deceptive enrollment practices do need to be exposed. It is important to remember, however, not to paint all proprietary schools with the same broad brush of ignorance.
Pamela ,
I hear what you are saying - I think certain job markets are more at risk than others and I would like to see a way that the regulations could protect against bad practices while still supporting schools that fulfill training needs across all industries.
Traci Lee
News organizations acted with intensive investigations utilizing research, statistics and in some cases Mystery shoppers. The investigations studied several issues such as recruiting practices, job placement statistics and tuition costs. Their work generated television programs like 60 minutes and Frontline encouraged the GAO to perform investigations of their own.
The media has had a huge influence on education industry over the last few years. They have shone a bright spot light on the for-profit sector. The media’s intent appeared to once again call out diploma mills, which would have been fine if not all online distance education schools were then going to be scrutinized.
The university I work for is a small, online for-profit school and we want our students like most other schools to meet their educational goals. However, when the economy has a bleak outlook, the gainful employment regulation could be looked upon has a no win situation for any of the parties involved.
Timothy,
Agreed - getting the facts out and encouraging positive news items (i.e. events, graduate success stories, etc.) is an important way to share with the public.
Traci Lee
I think most of the time the relevant facts are not included because of ignorance. All schools, especially career schools must strive to get the facts out to the public.
Timothy,
I agree that there is more public awareness of issues as a result of media attention. Unfortunately, I think there are times when important, relevant facts are not included to ensure an objective perspective.
Magdali,
I think you well summarized the pros and cons of the media influence. Nice job!
I feel that the media has influenced the regulatory environment by informing the public about issues in education. I believe the issues that media have brought to the public are narrow in focus, however, regulators in education have responded to those issues by modifying rules that we abide by.
