Lorna Hernandez taught graphic design and animation for eighteen years at a for-profit college, The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, until she quit, last Thursday. Unlike some of her faculty colleagues, Hernandez, chair of the school’s animation department, was not laid off in last month’s major downsizing by Pittsburgh-based Education Management Corp.
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is in Charlotte today for the Democratic National Convention; he delivered an aggressive speech this morning to his state’s delegation, sharply criticizing the Republicans. But even in far-away Charlotte, Cuomo can’t avoid the growing chorus back home calling on him to reject the controversial natural gas extraction process of hydraulic
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You can fault the for-profit college trade association APSCU for many things, but not for loyalty. APSCU sticks by its members. In May, the FBI raided FastTrain College amid allegations of fraudulent marketing practices. In June, 20 state attorneys general forced marketing company QuinStreet to shut down GIBill.com, a website that deceived countless veterans into believing they
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Huffington Post published this piece by me yesterday, as part of its Shadow Conventions series: To grasp the harms caused when money dominates politics, start with for-profit colleges. This industry tripled in size during the last decade, spurred by deceptive recruiting practices, after its lobbyists loosened federal rules aimed at protecting students and taxpayers from
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I have a piece today on Politico proposing a new approach to the abuses of for-profit colleges. Here’s an excerpt: The for-profits have used our taxes to finance a race to the bottom: the more you abuse students, the more money you make. Their wealth may doom to failure the current approach to regulation, which has created
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While his House GOP colleagues are getting publicity for spouting bizarre ideas about rape and pregnancy, or jumping into the Sea of Galilee, Representative Marlin Stutzman of Indiana was planning to head today to the Fort Wayne campus of National College for an event promoted as a chance to inform unemployed veterans about new federal
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In late 2010, the foreign-funded U.S. Chamber of Commerce, perhaps Washington’s most powerful corporate front group, unleashed a lobbying blitz to weaken the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The FCPA is designed to punish U.S.-based corporations that bribe foreign officials abroad. Earlier this year, a subsidiary of Wal-Mart — which is a Chamber member —
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In Michigan, State Rep. Jon Bumstead (R) introduced a bill that would send the state back down the path of prison privatization. House Bill 1574 would re-open a private youth prison that was operated by GEO Group (then Wackenhut) that was shut down in 2005 and allow it to house adult inmates. The bill would
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