Chancellor Fingerhut Decides:
Career College Students Deserve
$0.00 Financial Assistance

Remaining OCOG funds earmarked for students attending state-supported and private colleges

(COLUMBUS – posted June 24, 2009) One of Chancellor Eric Fingerhut’s remedies to the state budget crisis thundering through his Board of Regents office and across all government agencies is to eliminate financial assistance to all career college students. As he’s currently determined, each of the more than 22,500 students currently receiving needs-based financial assistance as they work toward associate degrees will lose all aid, which averages $2,871. If he gets his way, eligibility for the Ohio College Opportunity Grant for current and future career college students simply disappears.

Over the past two state fiscal years, the OCOG has provided $418.7 million dollars in financial assistance to all college students based upon their individual financial needs. Career college students working toward associate degrees received $107.6 million. The remainder – $311.1 million – was earmarked to help students attending taxpayer-supported and private schools.

Mr. Fingerhut is now telling the governor and legislature all Ohio College Opportunity Grant monies – slashed to a scant $171 million for the next two years – should now be divided about equally among taxpayer-supported and private 4-year colleges. He apparently believes students attending career colleges (proprietary institutions as the state defines them) are somehow less worthy than other students and therefore ought to receive nothing, regardless of their financial needs.

Ohio: 1 of 10 states to lose 10,000 or more employees to mass job cuts just last month

The chancellor’s plan is a slap to the faces of thousands of Ohioans who want a hand up, not a hand out; who know they need to re-train, who want to be self-sufficient with decently-paying jobs, who understand that persons with college degrees earn much more money and pay higher taxes than do those with no degree… and who want to do their share in helping to re-invent Ohio’s economy, as Governor Strickland has pledged to do.

Ohio currently ranks 38th in the nation in number of residents who have earned associate degrees. In addition to setting bad, unfair public policy, the chancellor’s agenda ignores solid research:
• Ohio’s career colleges graduate students with associate degrees at a rate greater than 2.5 times that of state-supported 2-year community colleges.
• More than 80% enter well-paying jobs within 90 days of graduation.

Ohio’s career college students tend to be “non-traditional” and already are employed:
• 70% of career college students are women (many are single mothers with one or more children)
• 30% are minorities
• Their average age is 26
• About 40% previously tried and rejected the “government-supported college experience.”

Since nearly all career college students are employed at least part-time while attending a nearby career college, nearly all graduates stay in their local communities. Career colleges are major players in helping to reverse Ohio’s troublesome and growing “brain drain.”

Broken promises, wasted money and futile efforts?

During budget deliberations two years ago, Chancellor Fingerhut demanded that if students attending career colleges wanted to continue to receive OCOG assistance, their colleges would need to receive a certificate of authorization from the Ohio Board of Regents. The legislature agreed. Prior to this change, career colleges only needed approval and certification from the Ohio Board of Career Colleges and Schools for students to remain eligible to receive state financial assistance.

The chancellor said he wanted to ensure that if the state was to support needy students attending career colleges, their associate degrees had to be equivalent – as viewed through the Board of Regents lens – to those awarded by taxpayer-funded two-year community colleges.

Of the 35 career schools in Ohio offering associate degrees, 33 have pursued a certificate of authorization from the Ohio Board of Regents. During budget bill testimony two years ago, the chancellor stated to the house finance committee that the certificate of authorization process for all schools that might apply would take about 22 weeks.

More than 2 years have passed since the legislature made this change. To date, only 10 colleges have received “provisional approval,” another 10 are waiting for the chancellor’s signature and 10 more are still in process. 3 schools have withdrawn.

This certificate of authorization process – for the Ohio Board of Regents and for career colleges – has become ridiculously burdensome, and, for the colleges, very costly. To date, these 30 schools have spent more than $2 million in applications fees, consulting stipends and travel/lodging expenses paid to the Ohio Board of Regents to “process” their certificates of authorization.

Colleges have spent too many months submitting their programs for review and responding to multi-day campus inspections and never-ending questions from Ohio Board of Regents’ consultants and staff – to simply ensure deserving students might continue to be eligible for OCOG financial assistance – assistance which, if the chancellor has his way, is gone. After what appears to be a huge bureaucratic charade, career college students need to know why the chancellor has now decided they deserve zero needs-based financial assistance.

Again – why are career college students treated differently from those attending state-supported or private non-profit institutions?

“It’s not over until it’s over”

Yogi Berra is right, and so was Winston Churchill, when he demanded that WWII Britons “never give up.” So, write, email or call your state representative, senator and the governor’s office NOW! If you’ve already done so (thank you), please do it again!

All throughout our effort to Save OCOG for career college students, it has been important to tell them what you think. Instructions are posted here on how to contact your legislators, with tips on letter-writing and sample messages. Please also write to or call Governor Strickland’s office – as we head toward July 1, it’s more important than ever! Visit the Save OCOG page on Facebook and talk it up!

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small… never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
– Winston Churchill, during the Battle of Briton, 1941