Open the Books: U.S. Department of Education wastes billions each year

[Dill]

(04-10-2019, 11:32 AM)Benton Wrote: Back 8-9 years ago I did a story over a local community college. It was nationally recognized for a number of programs it implemented, one of those being its successful adult education.

I found out two employees out of four person team in the adult education department had been on administrative leave. I asked around and found out the school was investigating the people altering grades to give more positive outcomes. And attendance. Some of those enrolled allegedly stopped showing up halfway through courses, but passed courses anyway. One of them talked to me off the record and said everyone did it as the regents were pressuring the higher up folks to have a successful adult education program, so they in turn pressured the departments to improve scores and success rates through any means necessary.

But since the college fired the employees who did it, they got to keep their grants and other revenue streams like it never happened.

I have a story along these lines. 

When I was on a military base in Qatar, I overheard two soldiers talking about a college course that gave away free I-phones. I talked to the field rep for that college and he confirmed. It was a course in C++ which was downloaded on the free phone. So it was like an online course, which allowed students to work their way through at their own pace.  No administration/instructor/classroom costs.

I then talked to an administrator buddy at the ed center unaffiliated with any college (AAFES salary I think) and he said yes, there were 32 people enrolled in the course. Plus it was a two-semester course costing $4,000, pretty much a full year's allotment of Tuition Assistance. And this had already been going on for a year (i.e., soldiers signing up to get the phone).

I said "don't they have to pay back that tuition if they fail?" and he said so far as he knew, there was no final exam, no transcript accountability.  Soldiers were just signing up to get free I-phones which cost the taxpayer 4,000 apiece.  I asked the field rep about the final exam and he Carter Paged it. Couldn't get a straight answer.  Don't know for sure how this played out for the soldiers.  

At the time I pegged it as one of the many abuses of taxpayer dollars which float deployed sites, like illegally trafficked labor, just one of those things that goes alongside "the mission" far from US accountability. Someone in that college who knew how things worked downrange, especially the gaps in accountability metrics, figured out this phone gimmick to "serve the soldiers" far from home and rake in their TA.