BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 410
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Date of Hearing: June 23, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
Jose Medina, Chair
SB
410 (Beall) - As Amended June 16, 2015
SENATE VOTE: 36-0
SUBJECT: California Private Postsecondary Education Act of
2009.
SUMMARY: Redefines "graduates" for purposes of private
postsecondary educational institutions (institutions)
calculating the employment rates of graduates. Specifically,
this bill:
1)Defines "on-time graduates" to mean the number of students who
complete an educational program within 100 percent of the
published program length.
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2)Requires "graduates employed in the field" (placement) to
include all graduates who have been awarded a degree or
diploma, that are gainfully employed in a single position for
which the institution represents the program prepares its
graduates, beginning within six months after a student
completes the applicable educational program.
3)Requires "license examination passage rates" to be based on
the number of graduates who have been awarded a degree or
diploma who take and pass the required examination within
specified time frames.
4)Requires "salary and wage information" to be based on the
placement rate calculated pursuant to (2).
EXISTING LAW: provides for, until January 1, 2017, student
protections and regulatory oversight of institutions in the
state pursuant to the Private Postsecondary Education Act (Act).
The Act is enforced by the Bureau for Private Postsecondary
Education (Bureau) within the Department of Consumer Affairs
(DCA). (Education Code Section 94800 et seq.)
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown. Negligible fiscal impact, as
determined by the Senate Appropriations Committee, pursuant to
Senate Rule 28.8.
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COMMENTS: Background. In 2009, AB 48 (Portantino), Chapter
310, established the Act, and required, among numerous other
provisions, non-exempt institutions to provide prospective
students a Fact Sheet containing information on graduation,
placement, salary and professional license examination passage
rates of its students. In 2012, AB 2296 (Block), Chapter 585,
revised the Fact Sheet requirements to add information regarding
student loan default rates, unaccredited programs, and to
require the Bureau to refine the definition of placement to
ensure that only those graduates "gainfully employed" were
counted for employment rate purposes.
The Bureau is currently in the process of establishing
regulations to implement the provisions of AB 2296. However,
due to what Committee staff understands was an inadvertent error
in the definition of "graduates" in the drafting of AB 48 and AB
2296, these regulations limit the scope of students included in
an institutions placement rate, examination passage rate, and
salary and wage data to only those students that graduated
within 100% of the published program length.
According to the proponents of AB 2296 and this bill, while it
is appropriate and useful for prospective students to know how
many students complete a program within the published program
length ("on-time graduates"), using that same definition of
graduates for purposes of job placement, salary, and licensing
data skews the results because it does not include the outcomes
for all institutional graduates.
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This bill would change the definition to require institutions to
publish "on-time graduates" data based on the number of students
who completed within 100% of the published program length. The
data regarding "graduates employed in the field", "license
examination passage rates", and "salary and wage information"
would be based on a definition of graduate, contained in
Education Code Section 94842, that includes all individuals
awarded a degree or diploma.
Purpose of this bill. According to the author, this bill will
address a placement rate miscalculation that is impacting
vocational training programs. Vocational training programs must
meet placement criteria from the Employment Development
Department (EDD) to be listed on the Eligible Training Provider
List (ETPL) and receive Workforce Investment Act funding. The
EDD relies on the Bureau's Fact Sheet calculations for placement
rates.
According to the author, the Center for Employment Training
(CET) has struggled to obtain ETPL eligibility because of the
Fact Sheet miscalculation. According to the author, if CET is
able to count all graduating students in a reporting year, the
placement rate numbers will meet the ETPL requirements.
According to the author, a majority of CET students experience
barriers such as poverty, English language learners, lack of
access to childcare and disabilities, and therefore often take
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longer to graduate.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
Center for Employment Training
Children's Advocacy Institute
La Cooperativa Campensina de California
Public Advocates
Proteus, Inc.
Opposition
SB 410
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None on File
Analysis Prepared by:Laura Metune / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960