SACRAMENTO -- When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger struck down a bill last fall that would have extended regulation of California's for-profit colleges, he promised to deliver real reform of a broken oversight system and to defend the interests of students.
But the governor has released a new plan that would do exactly the opposite, according to advocates for students.
"I want to work with the Legislature to pass legislation early next year so that our students will have the protections they deserve," Schwarzenegger said in his veto message last September.
However, it wasn't until late last month, less than three weeks before the end of the legislative session, that his administration produced a proposal. Opponents contend that the plan would actually relax state oversight and benefit the trade schools rather than the 400,000 largely working-class students they serve.
Consumer advocates argue that student protections are vital because the schools -- many of them national chains that are sometimes called "diploma mills" -- owe their loyalties to shareholders. To boost enrollment, some schools mislead applicants about programs, degrees, graduation and job placement rates and earning potential, according to lawsuits and government investigations.
Schwarzenegger's plan would eliminate minimum graduation and job placement standards for state-licensed schools, leave more of the regulation to regional and national accreditation bodies and impose a higher threshold for students to prevail against the institutions in court.
Since 2005, the trade schools have spent more than $1 million on lobbyists to advance their cause before Schwarzenegger and the Legislature, state records show, while industry regulation has essentially vanished. The state law that governed the schools' actions and the agency charged with enforcing it expired at the end of June, leaving 2,500 for-profit colleges unmonitored.
"I think it's telling the students that they're being forgotten because the trade schools can then do what they want," said Heather McKeon, an attorney with the Quisenberry Law Firm in Los Angeles.
She represents 100 students in a class-action complaint filed in December that accuses Maric College of enticing them to enroll at its North Hollywood campus by telling them the school was accredited for a national X-ray technician exam, even though it was not.
