Gainful employment reminder
The U.S. Education Department is reminding colleges and universities that they have until July 1 to update their websites to include certain information pertaining to federal gainful employment regulations.
The department this month sent to institutions a new template they can use for program information such as:
• Normal time to complete the program
• Total program costs, including tuition and fees plus books, supplies and equipment
• Median cumulative debt for Title IV students completing the program
• Licensure information for the program’s target occupation
• URL for the department’s College Scorecard
New, increased fees for international
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has increased certain fees and added new ones for international students and exchange visitors. The new fees start on June 24.
The Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) monitors more than one million international students pursuing academic or vocational studies (F and M visa holders) in the United States and their dependents. It also certifies schools and programs that enroll these students. The U.S. Department of State monitors exchange visitors (J visa holders) and their dependents and oversees exchange visitor programs.
Fee increases include:
• The I-901 SEVIS Fee for F and M international students will increase from $200 to $350.
• DHS will maintain the $35 I-901 SEVIS Fee for J exchange visitors in the au pair, camp counselor and summer work travel program participant categories, but increase the full I-901 SEVIS Fee for other J exchange visitors from $180 to $220.
• The SEVP school certification petition fee for initial certification will increase from $1,700 to $3,000.
New fees include:
• A $1,250 fee for SEVP-certified schools filing a petition for recertification.
• A $675 fee when schools file the Form I-290B, “Notice of Appeal or Motion.”
• DHS will maintain the $655 fee for an initial school site visit but will also charge this fee when a SEVP-certified school changes its physical location or adds a new physical location or campus to its Form I-17, “Petition for Approval of School for Attendance by Nonimmigrant Student.”
Promise database expands
The Upjohn Institute has updated and expanded its Promise Programs Database, which it created last year.
Fifty-five programs have been added to the initial 89 in the original database, bringing the total number of programs to 144. The database includes only scholarship programs that are geographically bounded below the state level and that create an element of early awareness around college-going in their respective communities.
The database also presents two measures of scholarship quality generated algorithmically from the data — intensity, which refers to the size of the incentive created by the program, and saturation, which refers to the proportion of students likely to be eligible for the scholarship. The online database can be used to:
• Generate profiles of individual Promise programs
• Compare up to three programs at once
• Search for programs by characteristics such as year established, state, type of funder and requirements
“We hope that this update will be of use to Promise stakeholders, researchers and media as the place-based scholarship model continues to spread,” the Upjohn Institute said in a press release.
