The U.S. Department of Education this hour has released the first round of measures under its new contested gainful employment rule, which tests which career college programs, though a combination of high prices and low quality, leave too many of their graduates with overwhelming student loan debt. The requirements of the final gainful employment rule are
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Donald Trump’s public contemplation of picking ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be U.S. Secretary of State raises a range of controversies, including Tillerson’s dealmaking with Russia and close ties to Vladimir Putin. It also intensifies attention on ExxonMobil’s escalating court battle with the attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts over the question of whether the company improperly
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U.S. Secretary of Education John King today took the final step in the government de-recognizing the troubled Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS). King concluded that ACICS has “exhibited a profound lack of compliance” with its responsibilities as an accreditor. King’s decision means that colleges accredited by ACICS will have to find new accreditors if they
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The U.S. Department of Education today approved the application of the Apollo Education Group, owner of the University of Phoenix, to convert from being a publicly-traded company to one owned by private equity firms and still keep its eligibility for federal student grants and loans. But in a letter, the Department, expressly citing the multiple
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Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John McCain (R-AZ) held a hearing last week for the express purpose of attacking the Defense Department’s 2015 decision to temporarily ban the for-profit University of Phoenix from recruiting U.S. military service members. Even though the Pentagon’s action was based on significant evidence that the University of Phoenix had engaged in
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Soon after the election, I was one of those arguing that Republican electors should vote for someone other than Donald Trump when the electoral college convenes on December 19. My contention was simply that Trump is fundamentally unfit to be president. Many Republicans declared Trump unfit during the 2016 campaign, and Trump has a disturbing record of bigotry, misogyny and
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Former District of Columbia public schools chancellor Michelle Rhee is on the rumor list for Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education. (Fellow insistent public school “reformer” Eva Moscowitz apparently doesn’t want the job.) Rhee’s record as chancellor, pushing public charter schools and private school vouchers, and aggressively fighting against the D.C. teachers’ union, brought her to national
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As we walked down my Washington DC block on election eve, before the returns starting coming in, a stranger in a darkened doorway suddenly addressed me and my friends. “Are you ready,” he asked tauntingly, “to drain the swamp?” A few hours later, the remark seemed ominous. But of course, just days after, it has proved to be
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