February 5, 2019

Clash Over Ashford Univ. Casts Doubt On VA Protection of Students

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is charged by law and principle with shielding veterans from predatory abuses — deceptive recruiting, high prices, low-quality programs — by colleges seeking to profit off the GI Bill, which helps veterans pay for higher education. But as the Trump administration, especially the Betsy DeVos Department of Education, has
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November 20, 2018

Accreditor Stalls Bridgepoint Education Plan To Become Non-Profit

In a filing this morning with the Securities and Exchange Commission, predatory for-profit college business Bridgepoint Education discloses that on Monday the accreditor WASC Senior College and University Commission told Bridgepoint’s Ashford University that “pending the receipt and review of additional documents, they are deferring any action on the change of control application filed by
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March 13, 2018

For-Profit Bridgepoint Says Its Colleges Will Become Non-Profit (But It Won’t)

Sunday we wrote about the new gold rush in education: for-profit colleges converting to non-profit status, allowing them to shed the stigma and special regulatory requirements of for-profits, notably the federal 90-10 rule, while retaining parallel for-profit entities that could keep getting paid by the non-profit, and thus keep getting rich off an endless flow
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July 12, 2016

Bob Dole Lobbies for For-Profit College Facing Fraud Probes

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Twenty years ago this summer, he stood on a San Diego stage and accepted the nomination of the Republican Party for President of the United States. Last week, Bob Dole, now a retired U.S. senator from Kansas and an endorser of Donald Trump for president, registered as a lobbyist for Bridgepoint Education, a for-profit college
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March 19, 2016

Another Univ. of California Leader Quits Another For-Profit College Board

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Late on Friday, controversial for-profit college company Bridgepoint Education reported in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Marye Anne Fox, Chancellor Emerita and current Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, San Diego, had resigned from the company’s board of directors on Thursday, “effective immediately.” Bridgepoint’s filing says, “Dr. Fox’s decision to
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October 6, 2015

For-Profit Colleges Appear to Use Random WASP College Name Generator

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Yesterday, Birmingham, Alabama-based for-profit college company Education Corporation of America (ECA) announced the new name for the campuses, until now called Kaplan College, that it recently bought from Graham Holdings Company. The schools will henceforth be known as “Brightwood College.” Are the schools to be named after New England education pioneer Jebediah Brightwood?  Nope. It appears that there
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November 12, 2014

Scam: Websites Promising Jobs And Medicaid Are Instead Bait for For-Profit College Telemarketers

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A network of U.S. marketing companies run glossy websites promising jobs, health benefits, food stamps, and heating assistance, sites with names like localemploymentnetwork.org or medicaidinsurancebenefits.com. But according to former employees of a company connected to these operations, the real purpose of these sites is a classic bait-and-switch: to get low-income people, single mothers, veterans, and unemployed older people on the
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December 12, 2013

Steve Forbes, The Olympics, Congress and Other Stuff For-Profit Colleges Buy With Your Tax Dollars

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America’s for-profit colleges are receiving as much as $33 billion in a single year from your tax money, and billions more from the pockets of students, a lot of whom are left deep in debt and jobless from their encounters with predatory schools.  Many of the biggest for-profit colleges get close to 90 percent of
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