Education Policy, Business and Technology

Nassirian and LeBlanc debate new federal experiment on noncollege job training

Inside Higher Ed: Last month the U.S. Department of Education unveiled eight applications it had selected to participate in an experiment to allow students to use federal financial aid to attend programs run by colleges and nontraditional providers, including boot camps, companies offering online courses and employers. Each partnership also features a quality-assurance entity, which will act like an alternative form of accreditor.

The project -- dubbed Educational Quality through Innovative Partnerships program, or EQUIP -- has both fans and critics. So Inside Higher Ed moderated a debate over email between Paul LeBlanc, president of Southern New Hampshire University, who helped create EQUIP during a stint at the department last year, and Barmak Nassirian, director of federal relations and policy analysis for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, who has questioned aspects of EQUIP. The exchange follows.

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