Getting help from watchdog isn't easy

ATLANTA --- For Jessica Hernandez, a tiny for-profit trade school turned out to be just what she was looking for, with the flexibility not available in a government-run school.

Ms. Hernandez graduated from the now-closed Savannah River College in Augusta. The private school was willing to work with her after she struggled with Augusta Technical College over when she could start and how many classes she could take.

"They welcomed me with open arms, and they said everything was so peachy, and I said, 'Are you sure?' " Ms. Hernandez recalled. "I remember being very, very reluctant."

As the number of unemployed rises, more people are enrolling in private trade schools searching for skills that will lead to secure jobs and better pay. Television is full of their advertisements, which are often the only real source of information on these education businesses.

A seven-person state agency, the Nonpublic Postsecondary Education Commission, is responsible for overseeing the 132 degree-granting schools and the 148 that only issue certificates.

Exempted by the 1990 law that created the agency are schools for flight, medicine, law, divinity and colleges in existence 10 years before enactment.

Enrollment has been growing during the recession, but so has the number of schools closing their doors, roughly two dozen in Georgia last year.

Savannah River College, the school Ms. Hernandez attended, closed last month. Learning details about the school's financial condition was difficult for her and the other students.

"Everybody I asked had a different version of what was going on," she said.

The state regulators wouldn't have been an easy source for information. The agency's Web site merely lists the schools it supervises, some blank forms for the schools to complete each year and a link to the state's legal code.

Though the site explains the agency's mission in part as "provides consumer information and protection," there are no pointers on picking colleges, no evaluations of the schools or notices posted when schools are sanctioned or in financial trouble.

Students, parents and those trying to pick a place to complete their education can gain detailed information only by filing a formal request under the state's Open Records Act.

William Crews, the long-time executive director of the Nonpublic Postsecondary Education Commission, said early release of information that a school is in financial trouble could lead students to leave and hasten its closure.

"We don't want to jeopardize any students as long as the school is going," he said. "It's a balance."

At Savannah River College, enrollment stopped a year before the closure, so only 10 students were stranded when the doors closed.

The agency grew out of a national movement when the federal government began cracking down on diploma mills that had lax academic requirements and schools that were deceiving applicants into signing up for large student loans that flowed to the institution even after the students had dropped out. The 1990 law moved the task of regulation from the Georgia Department of Education to the new, separate agency with the power to issue fines of as much as $1,000, withhold licenses and investigate student complaints.

Yet, almost no one knows about the agency -- even people in the education community.

Rep. Bill Hembree, a 14-year veteran of the General Assembly and chairman of the House Higher Education Committee, only learned of it by reading a newspaper article last year.

"I was a little surprised that this agency had such oversight," said Mr. Hembree, R-Winston.

One reason it might not appear on the radar of legislators is that schools pay annual fees that more than fund the agency, eliminating the need for an annual appeal for appropriations.