About: David Halperin
Twitter: @DaHalperin
Bio: David Halperin is the co-founder and editor of Republic Report. Halperin, a self-employed lawyer based in Washington DC, engages in public advocacy, investigative work, and legal representation on a wide range of issues, including higher education, climate change, democracy, corruption, open government, and national security. He also advises organizations and companies on strategy, policy, communications, and legal matters. He is of counsel to Public.Resource.org, a non-profit focused on making legal and government materials available for free to the public.
Halperin’s investigative and advocacy work on predatory for-profit colleges since 2010 has spurred reforms in policy and regulations, triggered law enforcement investigations, and led to the closure of numerous deceptive schools.
Halperin was from 2004 until 2012 the founding director of Campus Progress and senior vice president at the Center for American Progress. Before that, he was: senior policy advisor for Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign; founding executive director of the American Constitution Society; White House speechwriter and special assistant for national security affairs to President Clinton; co-founder of the Internet company Progressive Networks (now called RealNetworks); counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee; law clerk to U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell (D.D.C.); research assistant to Robert S. McNamara; and research analyst at the Arms Control Association.
Halperin has represented clients in the U.S. Supreme Court and various state and federal courts. Among many other efforts, Halperin helped represent Greenpeace in an unprecedented 2004 Miami criminal jury trial over protest activity, resulting in a directed verdict of acquittal; aided climate groups facing investigation by the House Science Committee during 2015-16; and represented Public Resource in landmark copyright litigation from 2012 to 2024 over efforts to make federal regulations publicly available online without charge.
Halperin writes at Republic Report, and his articles also have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Nation, Politico, Slate, Foreign Policy, and other outlets. In recent years he has testified before the House Oversight Committee and at several federal agencies, and he has spoken at major conferences and events across the country. Halperin has served since 2007 on the board of directors of Public Citizen.
Halperin graduated from Yale College and Yale Law School.
Financial Aid Administrator Group Questions Policies Aimed At Curbing Predatory Colleges
In recent weeks, the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) — whose members are financial aid professionals from colleges and universities across the country — has lent its prestige to supporting policy positions similar to views being pushed by the for-profit college industry, a higher education sector where many schools offer a toxic
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It’s Smart To Target Pell Grant Increases to Types of Colleges That Do Better For Students
Within the Build Back Better social spending bill on Capitol Hill is a provision that increases the maximum annual federal Pell grant for college students, currently $6,495, by $550. The measure excludes for-profit colleges from that modest increase. A decade of government and media investigations have shown that many for-profit colleges have offered a toxic
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Students Want Court to Dump DeVos Rule Protecting Scam Colleges. Biden Team Opposes.
The Biden Administration is urging a federal judge to keep in effect, for now, a rule, issued by Trump education secretary Betsy DeVos, that weakened the power of the U.S. Department of Education to curb abuses by for-profit colleges. The 2019 DeVos rule was basically a one-line cancellation of a 2014 Obama administration rule called
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California Opens Fraud Trial Against College Now Owned by Arizona
California’s attorney general this week began presenting evidence in his office’s long-awaited fraud trial against for-profit Ashford University. In the case, filed in 2017, the state alleges that Ashford engaged in unfair and fraudulent business practices, with school recruiters fueled by a “boiler room” culture that demanded they meet enrollment quotas. The recruiters, in turn,
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Education Dept. Delays Renewal of For-Profit College Accreditor
The U.S. Department of Education announced this morning that it is delaying a decision on renewing approval of the Accrediting Commission on Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC), one of the outside accrediting bodies charged with evaluating the educational quality of colleges. Department recognition is crucial for accreditors, because without it, schools accredited by an agency
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Video: Should College Baron Arthur Keiser Lead A Federal Advisory Panel?
Some critics of wealthy, politically-connected for-profit college baron Arthur Keiser made and sent me this video laying out concerns about Keiser’s record — predatory practices, law enforcement troubles, conflicts of interest (which we have written about here before). The video questions whether Keiser should remain the chair of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Advisory
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Questions About California Community Colleges’ New Deal With For-Profit College
This week, American Public University System (APUS), whose name obscures the fact that it is a for-profit college, announced it had signed an agreement with the chancellor’s office of the California Community Colleges (CCC) system that will enable graduates of these community colleges “to seamlessly transfer to APUS as a junior – with no loss
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Shuttered For-Profit College Was Run By Industry Perennial
When a for-profit college chain abruptly closes, locking out its students and leaving their futures in doubt, the industry is often quick to disavow the dead school as a wayward abuser, an outlier. In reality, though, many of the surviving for-profit college chains use the same predatory playbook as the collapsed ones, and leaders of
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