Eddie,
Well stated - you really touch on the impact of the student/graduate role as a member of a productive community which is sometimes not mentioned when considering the purpose of higher education.
Traci Lee
I completely agree with you. Many people want to start somewhere and need that stepping stone to help them get where they want to go in life.
Wanda,
The challenge is getting the positive stories out to the media in a way that motivates them to publish the good side.
Traci Lee
I think that the media brings a lot of negativity into career colleges.
The media has influenced in a very bad way the regulatory environment in the education industry today.
I think that the media has influenced the education environment in a negative way. We hear reports almost on a daily basis that school 'X' has a crumbling infrastructure so more resources need to be allocated or that American children rate low on math and science scores so some regulatory agency must oversee curriculum. In some cases, the reporting causes a overreaction to the problem and bring in some agencies that do not have the best interest of the customer/student in mind. I am not saying that bad buildings and inadequate curriculum doesn't happen, clearly they do but the media's reaction to these things is almost always more regulation and I think this can be a hindrance.
Amman ,
Thanks for your comments. I agree that there are problems with some schools and while regulation is intended to help, some of the regulations do not seem to address the root cause of the issues while causing additional burden to other schools that are not part of the concern.
Traci Lee
As stated in one of our readings, "thousands of newspaper articles have been printed criticizing the industry as a whole..." and these types of articles will undoubtedly continue to be written. As a result of media scrutiny, educational entities must now exhibit more transparency and openness as it relates to their operations. At our school, we try to be transparent by communicating openly and regularly with students via email, telephone, written correspondence, television monitor, etc. The campus has also adopted the "spirit of showcasing" which was discussed under the section called, "Identifying Best Practices."
Susan,
Transparency is a great way to ensure a school is "doing the right thing" as it creates a culture of ensuring anything done can been shared openly.
Traci Lee
Definitely, the media influenced the regulatory environment in a very negative way, the education industry I has been affected in a negative way
I believe that the Telemarketing tools we have in place such as the "Do no Call List" protect the prospective students from aggressive forms of recruitment, and at the same time enhances the ability of higher Institutions to target the best markets and demographic possible to maintain the placement rates where they need to be from a compliance vantage point.
The media plays a big part in shining light onto current regulatory issues, but also someitmes provides a "sensationalist" type of attention to certain issues. For instance, at this time, some schools are being sanctioned by the Department of Education for issues specifically based upon attendance verifications and grade inflation. I am not sure that this is a huge issue for many schools, but it would appear that this is a big issue for all schools if you only paid attention to the media attention that is beign paid to the issue.
Juliet,
Great point - and that may be true of many items that we see in the media. It's a good reminder for us to put news stories in perspective and give context to the reality of the situation as a whole rather than "stereotyping" which the public may be prone to do.
Traci Lee
The media can definitely have an impact on the regulatory environment in the education industry either positively or negatively. As many of the students in this course have highlighted, it is common for a disgruntled student, employee or community member to quickly call the news media when they feel they have been mistreated in some way. Having a newspaper and marketing background myself, I think it is important to remember that the media can also be helpful to the education industry if we choose to employ it as an asset. Keeping the local media partners apprised of new regulations and how we are striving to meet them as well as boasting our successes will help in being proactive rather than reactive.
Johanna,
I agree so much with your comment of utilizing the media as an asset. While it may be more difficult to entice publication/broadcast of the "good" news, it is important that we continue to feed the positive successes and regulatory information to leverage the public exposure as much as possible.
Traci Lee
The media has influenced the regulatory environment in the education industry by exposing policy enforcement and regulatory inconsistencies and also at times data misrepresentations from a small percentage of educational providers. This exposure has led to increase scrutiny by academic accrediting and federal agencies.
I like this idea. Based on this, I think my school should implement distributing a document which lists the chain-of-command to the students. This document should explain to them to whom to address their questions or concerns. For example, 1- the Instructor, 2 - the Program Director, 3 - the Dean, 4 - the Director of the School.
One major branches of media that has had an explosive impact on our industry, is social media. Now customers can cut out the middleman and complain directly to the company via Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, ect.. My organization has had to become much more proactive in addressing a students concern much faster than before social media. One negative review can permanently damage an organization's image. Social media is almost worse than a newspaper, because they usually do some sort of due-diligence before writing a story.
Brian,
Great point - social media is playing an increasing role in the visibility of issues which are "unfiltered". It is interesting to see different school strategies on handling these - some opt to respond, some opt to ignore and some may not even be aware of what is posted about them. I think this will be an area to watch and develop solid strategies on for schools going forward.
Traci Lee
I believe that the media has influenced the regulatory environment in the education industry, specifically private for-profit institutions. Focusing on more stringent standards and outcomes. Most of the media outlets, such as news stations and periodicals portray private for-profit, whether large or small in the same negative light. Politicians, also play a large role in the negativity regarding for-profit institutions.
