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24 8,000 students enrolled in 95 graduate programs located
25 in 22 states. The average total enrollment per school,



1 as was alluded to earlier, is 143. Schools range from
2 about 20 students to a maximum of around 600, so these
3 are small institutions. 26 of the 56 schools are
4 private -- are considered private proprietary
5 institutions, or for-profit, that are offering graduate
6 programs, many of which will be negatively impacted
7 without reasonable revisions to the GE regulations.
8 Three of these institutions actually happen to be
9 located in Texas, and three of the institutions -- or at
10 least two of them are providing testimony before you
11 today.
12 So, first, I want to emphasize that ACAOM
13 fully supports the concept of Gainful Employment and,
14 more fully, the protection of student loan borrowers
15 from any institution that employs misleading, deceitful,
16 or predatory admissions, financial aid, or other
17 practices that negatively impact students.
18 Second, ACAOM supports the Department's
19 decision to delay implementation of the regulations
20 pending an appropriate review or revision process to
21 eliminate the unintended consequences that the current
22 regulations will have on the institutions that ACAOM
23 accredits. You've heard some of the issues already. My
24 comments are based on the perspective from the
25 accreditor and this limited narrow field of acupuncture




1


and Oriental medicine.









2

The fact is all

of our programs are

3

graduate health care programs

in a developing field.

As

4

As a developing field, there are


few full-time salaried






5 positions, and the majority of graduates who choose this
6 profession by default typically become small business
7 owners. These regulations simply do not accommodate the
8 differences between established and mature professions
9 with salaried positions in large organizations and
10 developing professions where you have to create your own
11 path and your own business. Any of you that have
12 started your own business know that it takes a while
13 before you're able to bring home the paycheck.
14 There are a couple of other reasons these
15 regulations need refinement. The GE regulations purely
16 are discriminatory between private proprietary, or
17 for-profit institutions, and nonprofit institutions
18 based purely on their organizational structure, and have
19 assumption of things that -- or perceptions of things
20 that have happened in the past, rather than an actual
21 practice or institutional outcomes. As an accrediting
22 agency, we monitor these outcomes, including default
23 rates, graduation rates, national Board scores, and I
24 can tell you, there is no statistical, significant
25 difference between the schools that we accredit when it

1 comes to their organizational status. Whether they're


2 for-profit or nonprofit, it makes no difference. For
3 example, loan default rates. The national average right
4 now for grad schools for nonprofit institutions is
5 6.5 percent. It's 14 percent for for-profit
6 institutions, nationally. Within ACAOM schools, those
7 numbers are 4.16 percent for nonprofit and 4.43 percent
8 for the for-profit institutions. So, basically, there
9 is no difference in those institutions.
10 ACAOM graduate programs lead the licensure,
11 currently, in 46 states and the District of Columbia.
12 And the program length, which is the primary determinant
13 of an overall program cost is, in large part, determined
14 by state regulation and accreditation standards.
15 Therefore, schools have little control over the income
16 thresholds encountered by their graduates and the known
17 challenges with utilization of the Social Security
18 income data. They have very little control over that,
19 and so it's very challenging to hold schools responsible
20 for those issues.
21 As far as the Borrower Defense to Repayment
22 regulations, in our evaluation of that, there are two
23 examples of areas that we believe need revision to
24 include -- which include the low burden of proof
25 required to initiate claims of misrepresentation --



1 MR. MARTIN: Time.
2 MR. McKENZIE: -- and then due process
3 issues inherent in THE regulations regarding letter of
4 credit requirements. So I thank you for your time.
5 Appreciate the opportunity.
6 MR. MANNING: Thank you.
7 MR. MARTIN: Okay. We're going to take
8 approximately a 15-minute break and we'll reconvene at
9 2:30. Oh, I should say we do have available time slots
10 for the afternoon if any of you wish to sign up for
11 those. Okay. On second thought here, we do have
12 somebody here. Ms. Pamela Gant-Lee here?
13 MS. GANTT-LEE: Yes, I'm here.
14 MR. MARTIN: Why don't we have you come
15 speak now, and then we have one other person after that.
16 That's Pamela Grant-Lee, G-r-a-n-t L-e-e, is that
17 correct?
18 MS. GANTT-LEE: It's G-a-n-t-t.
19 MR. MARTIN: Oh, I'm sorry. It's Gantt.
20 Pamela Gantt, G-a-n-t-t hyphen L-e-e. I'm sorry.
21 MS. GANTT-LEE: Good afternoon, everyone.
22 MR. MANNING: Good afternoon.
23 MS. GANTT-LEE: The right to education.
24 Education is a fundamental human right and essential for
25 the exercise of all human rights. It promotes




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