Higher education officials want to ensure students attending for-profit schools aren't ripped off.
They presented to the Education Interim Committee Wednesday a draft bill that would allow for criminal background checks and require such schools to carry surety bonds so students won't be left with nothing to show for the thousands of dollars spent in pre-paid tuition.Fees also could be increased based on the school's size to allow the Utah Board of Regents to review programs more easily.
The committee will discuss next week whether to endorse the bill.
Meanwhile, the Task Force on Learning Standards and Accountability in Public Education presented its draft legislation to the committee. No standards are included in the bill -- that will come later.
The bill proposes schools administer a series of tests, including new sixth- and ninth-grade writing tests and short-answer exams, and report scores. Schools also would report data such as dropout rates and elementary students reading on or above grade level, to provide a full picture of a school. Current law requires district report more items than the proposed list.
The committee will discuss that bill Tuesday, too.
In presenting the for-profit school regulation bill, Commissioner Cecelia Foxley of the Utah System of Higher Education noted that most for-profit institutions were fine. "This is just to catch those that are not."
She alluded to February's sudden closure of Certified Technical Institute, a computer networking and certification school in Draper. Some 200 students lost more than $1 million in pre-paid tuition to CTI, whose owners owed nearly $500,000 in taxes and said they would file for bankruptcy. CTI's founder had spent a year in the Utah State Prison for theft by deception.
"He was allowed to operate a business in our state when he should not have," Foxley said. "We don't want this to happen again."
Utah's Postsecondary Proprietary School Act regulates some 70 such schools, ranging from computer training to some dental assistant schools. Schools tied to religion or accredited by national or regional associations, as is the University of Phoenix, are exempt.
The act requires schools every two years to file a registration statement with the Utah Board of Regents saying they will comply with the act and officials and staff have not violated certain laws. The bill would let regents check for criminal history.
Schools would have to have a surety bond, certificate of deposit or credit letter to register so students could recoup tuition if the school fails. Regents would set the required bond amount and could boost fees, now from $50-$100 and grossly below that of other states. Some states have tuition recovery trust funds as an additional safety measure.
Regents could examine schools as they mature, demonstrate instructional capabilities and financial stability, to see if the bond could be whittled down, said Harden Eyring, executive assistant to the commissioner of higher education.
Policy also could be set to have tuition paid periodically rather than all up front, Foxley said.