For-profit companies that help colleges create and recruit students into online programs cannot represent themselves as part of those institutions, nor can they claim that their virtual credentials are equivalent to in-person ones, the U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday. Doing so would likely be considered misrepresentation and could result in the Education Department fining
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The Biden Department of Education announced today it has approved $4.5 billion in loan debt cancellation for 261,000 borrowers who attended for-profit Ashford University between March 2009 and April 2020. It also announced it would seek to ban Andrew Clark, the CEO of Ashford’s demised parent company, Zovio, from contracting with the federal government. The
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At the start of President Biden’s last week in office, U.S. Department of Education Miguel Cardona this morning announced a new student debt relief package that includes automatic debt cancellation for 73,600 borrowers who attended any school owned by the Utah-based Center for Excellence in Higher Education between 2006 and the school chain’s collapse in
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The owners of shuttered for-profit Hussian College have sued the school’s former president and CEO, Jeremiah Staropoli, seeking $162 million in damages and penalties and claiming that Staropoli and close associates in the company embezzled funds and then conspired to cover up the alleged misdeeds. On September 5, father-and-son Hussian owners David and Joshua Figuli
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The Idaho Supreme Court today ruled, in a 4-1 decision, that a lower court erred when it ratified the University of Idaho’s sneaky concealment of its deal to buy the predatory for-profit University of Phoenix. The ruling is one more indicator that this deal is a mistake, and Idahoans should reject it. Here’s more, from
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I spoke today at a Capitol Hill press event organized by the Debt Collective. Other speakers, who included senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Ed Markey (D-MA), Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA), and Ashley Pizzuti and Valerie Scott, two of the student borrowers who organized the event, properly focused on the urgency of the Biden administration cancelling
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Struggling online program management operation 2U has this year been under investigation by both the Federal Trade Commission and California’s attorney general, filings in federal bankruptcy court reveal. Maryland-based 2U, which has faced scrutiny and lawsuits over alleged deceptive practices and has struggled with heavy debt, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal court in
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Donald Trump’s second-choice pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi, in 2013 received from Trump a $25,000 donation for a political action committee supporting her campaign to be re-elected as Florida’s attorney general — just days after a Bondi spokesperson told the media that her office was reviewing a lawsuit brought by New York’s attorney general
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