January 31, 2018

New Report Underscores Corinthian-Zenith College Debacle- and DeVos Disgrace

  Attorney Clark Kent Ervin, the independent monitor for Zenith Education, a chain of career colleges, has just released his final report. Zenith was an experiment, pursued by the Department of Education, to see if a large predatory for-profit college chain that ruined many students’ lives could be purchased by a non-profit group with no
Continue Reading >>>

January 29, 2018

Infographic: Trump’s Towers of Corruption

Michael Wolff’s Fire & Fury quotes Steve Bannon as saying that Robert Mueller’s investigation is “all about money laundering.” If that’s so, Donald Trump may be in real trouble. A new report [PDF] released by Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA) collects the available evidence that Trump’s real estate deals — many of them involving known criminals
Continue Reading >>>

January 24, 2018

DeVos May Allow Troubling Conversion of Predatory College Chain

Politico reports this morning that Trump Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos may be ready to reverse the Obama Administration’s 2016 decision to reject the application of the predatory CollegeAmerica/Stevens-Henager chain to be treated as a non-profit school for purposes of Department regulation. That would be good for the chain’s wealthy operator, Carl Barney, but, as with
Continue Reading >>>

January 23, 2018

Report: States Flunk Test of Curbing For-Profit College Abuses

With Trump Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos starkly abandoning protections for students from predatory for-profit colleges, there is a real danger that bad actors in the industry will be able to once again accelerate their sleazy practices and ruin the lives of another generation of Americans. Can anyone fill the vacuum and protect against deceptive
Continue Reading >>>

January 17, 2018

Trump Terrible 10: S-Hole Edition

I will be announcing THE WORST PRESIDENT OF ALL TIME AWARDS on Wednesday at 5:00 o’clock. Subjects will cover Dishonesty, Corruption, Bigotry, Misogyny, and Incompetence. Stay tuned! We took a holiday break, and then decided to stop publishing this feature once and for all. But then, oh lordy. It writes itself. Since 2017, Republic Report‘s “Trump Terrible
Continue Reading >>>

January 10, 2018

Why Would DeVos Cancel a Student Loan Rule That Works?

The following are comments I made today at the Department of Education rule-making meeting on student loan issues. Many for-profit colleges get 80 percent, 90 percent, or more of their revenue from taxpayers. Taxpayers have a right to expect adequate performance and avoidance of waste, fraud, and abuse. Some for-profit schools do a good job.
Continue Reading >>>

January 9, 2018

Backing DeVos Repeal of Obama Rules, For-Profit Colleges Vilify Students

Today is the second day of the second round of the Betsy DeVos Department of Education’s regulatory meetings to repeal and replace the Obama administration’s borrower defense rule — a rule that was aimed at protecting students and taxpayers from predatory practices by for-profit colleges. The DeVos Department’s intentions already have been made apparent, with
Continue Reading >>>

January 8, 2018

DeVos Department Slamming Door on Defrauded Students

This morning in Washington, Betsy DeVos’s Department of Education resumed the stakeholder sessions that are required by law in order for the Trump administration to repeal and replace Obama-era rules aimed at protecting students and taxpayers from abuses by predatory for-profit colleges. As pro-student negotiators no doubt will make clear over four days of meetings,
Continue Reading >>>