High Time for Stringent Standards

At a time when national leaders call upon the poor and struggling to work hard and resist the lure of the easy way out, it is only right that everyone encourage those who are seeking to improve their lot by going to school to study and learn. But some unscrupulous trade schools still peddle dreams and deliver disillusionment and debt to the students who enroll in vocational courses with the hope of a good job and a better life.

A bill by Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) would impose stringent standards on the approximately 3,000 vocational schools in California. The schools teach a wide range of specialties, from lab technology to cosmetology to underwater welding. There is no doubt that many vocational schools provide a needed service to the people who most need job training: the poor, the undereducated and immigrants. But there are several dozen schools that aggressively recruit students and use them just to attract government funds--without giving the students the training they bargained for.

A Times investigation last year by staff writer Henry Weinstein found that although vocational schools derive more than 75% of their income from government money, they are not obligated to demonstrate any record of success. Too often students drop out because of shoddy equipment, lackadaisical instructors or course work that is not applicable to the specialty. And many students have no chance of success because they have language and reading problems.

And when students fail, they fail not only for themselves but for the taxpayer who winds up paying for government-backed loans that usually pay for courses that can cost as much as $6,000 for six months. While vocational students receive less than one-quarter of all federal student loans, they account for 35% of the loan defaults.

Waters’ bill would impose several requirements that would expand state authority over vocational schools, guarantee more rights for students and improve the quality of the education they receive. The state could revoke a substandard school’s authorization to operate, ensure that a school disclose its success rate for past students, give students more legal rights and expand the minimum education standards, among other things. Increased licensing fees would cover the $6-million enforcement costs. The bill complements another meritorious bill by Sen. Becky Morgan (R-Los Altos Hills) that would overhaul and make consistent the regulation of vocational schools and private postsecondary institutions.

The good schools have nothing to fear. But if the Waters and Morgan bills become law, as they should, time will run out for schools that operate for the sole purpose of fleecing unsuspecting students and taxpayers.