Offshore schools may lose federal loans

[Miklos]

Originally Posted by azskeptic

http://www.thehill.com/thehill/expor...21405_med.html

Az gets the scoop of the day award. Very revealing. Well, we figured that someone had it in for the Carib. schools. Now we know who.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) offered the language as part of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s contribution to the massive budget bill. As House and Senate negotiators inch toward a conference agreement on the legislation, the three foreign-based medical schools are furiously working to protect a lucrative stream of federal funding.

According to Sessions, these schools are tantamount to diploma mills that were “created to serve American students who cannot get into American medical schools.”

Americans choose to study in the islands because there are too few open spaces in domestic medical schools to accommodate them, countered ***** ****** ******, DeVry’s senior vice president for government and regulatory affairs.

Sessions emphasized that he is not trying to target unfairly these Caribbean medical schools but instead wants to transfer the loan money that their students currently receive to students at medical schools on U.S. soil.

“We are working desperately to maintain a strong student-loan program,” Sessions told The Hill. “You need to ask yourself what your priorities are,” he said.

“I’m of the strong view that we need to be thinking about how to improve our own, world-class medical schools,” Sessions said.

Both Sessions and ***** ****** cited a looming shortage of doctors in the United States to support their cases.

The American students who study at the Caribbean schools continue their education in residency programs in the United States and must pass American certification exams to practice medicine, ***** ****** said.
“We’re about to reduce our healthcare capability” if the language is included in the final bill, she said.

Sessions suggested that the current situation weakens the quality of healthcare in the United States. Because of the shortage of available residents, teaching hospitals are “so desperate to get bodies, they’ll take them from any school.”

He further observed that the for-profit owners of these three Caribbean schools stand to lose a large amount of their tuition if his language is adopted.

“That’s big money to them,” he said.

Sen. Sessions, the AAMC's man on the Hill, gets the demagogue award of the year from me. If the AAMC wanted to do something about their competition, they could do what their outgoing president suggested: expand enrollment.

Insert your favorite expletive here.

[Mods: Please note, the Senator IS a public figure.]

[swimguy23]

Originally Posted by Miklos

Az gets the scoop of the day award. Very revealing. Well, we figured that someone had it in for the Carib. schools. Now we know who.


Sen. Sessions, the AAMC's man on the Hill, gets the demagogue award of the year from me. If the AAMC wanted to do something about their competition, they could do what their outgoing president suggested: expand enrollment.

Insert your favorite expletive here.

[Mods: Please note, the Senator IS a public figure.]

my theory was pretty close.....

[Miklos]

Originally Posted by swimguy23

my theory was pretty close.....

You know, this whole thing may be AAMC sponsored (I'm only speculating), but I think that it may benefit DO schools even more than the AAMC. Unlike the AAMC, DO schools ARE growing like mushrooms after a rain storm. In other words, they are really well positioned to take advantage such a change.

BTW, I don't buy the second part of your theory (e.g. military). IMO, very few people can afford medical school without loans.

[armymedic2MD]

speaking of DO schools... a friend of mine at a DO school told me the other day that he had to spend an hour of class time holding one of his classmates head tryinig to feel the slightest vibrations of his classmates brain... whats up with that? too funny.

it kind of stinks to know that even though we have an extremely low default rate, congress might still get rid of the grandfather clause, and this will not end the problem they claim to want to end. comparing the 'big 3' to degree mills is sad and misguided and unfortunate. most bills are not even read in congress because there is not enough time to go through each line item and if this bill gets passed its just going to make it harder on us.

[Scott1981]

i personally feel that this guy is a complete misinformed hipocrite.
im a diehard republican and all........ but he joins other republicans in stating that democrats should visit iraq before making assumptions about how the war is going.

WHY IS HE MAKING FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT AUC, SGU, and ROSS by calling them diploma mills? did this premadona actually go visit those schools before making that ridiculous assumption?

why not a fact finding tour?.............. hell...... im sure the admin from all 3 schools would pay for it.

[options]

His comments are completely ignorant. Stating that hospitals will take anyone because they are desperate may be true, but I don't see how eliminating us from those spots makes things any better. All it would do is allow more true foreign graduates to get those spots, which are not any more qualified than carib grads.
As someone stated before, all they have to do to get rid of caribbean medical schools is increase enrollment of domestic medical schools. If they did that, the majority of us would have gotten into medical school in the U.S. and we wouldn't be stuck on banana island anyways. We are all down here paying the price for the poor planning of the medical educators and now they want to screw us by taking our loans away.
Either he is ignorant about the situation, or he has an interest group he is working for. I'm guessing it the later. One good thing about that article is the blurb at the end about McKean being on our side. Hopefully this turns out for the best and we can all forget about it.

[suziriver]

I just read where the House has passed a bill that includes health and education spending cuts. Does anyone know if this is the bill that we've desperately been trying to stop? Any info would be great! I'm stressing over here!!!



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Please continue here.

[Scott1981]

or maybe ignorant about the situation AND working for an interest group.

[SARGOD]

Originally Posted by Scott1981

WHY IS HE MAKING FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT AUC, SGU, and ROSS by calling them diploma mills? did this premadona

Premadona or Intelligencia? Is there any difference between academic dogma, religious dogma, or political dogma? Maybe, but I know one thing they all have in common....EGO's.....Many who claim to be educated enjoy standing upon the soap box delivering their eulogy of knowledge.....So will be all our fates once we have an M.D. after our names! Or, perhaps, we will remember that the strength of an argument lies within its content of truth and not in the letters of it's speaker.....

[Nebakanezer]

Hehe... I think it's funny, if someone does something that SGU/AUC/Ross doesn't like, they are every nasty word under the sun. However, if someone does something they like, they are lauded for being an enlightened visionary... The level of partiality is rather disturbing...

If this effort by Sen. Sessions keeps more students on American soil to study medicine (MD or DO), in the end, it’s for the better. I know he is receiving a significant amount of support from many individuals and organizations regarding his stance on this issue. I will have to make a sizable donation to show my support, and encourage others to do the same.

Anyone who feels the same way should consider something similar.