Today on her television show, in honor of the upcoming Mother’s Day, Ellen DeGeneres gave a $25,000 college scholarship to Courtney, an Oklahoma stay-at-home mom who wants to be an ultrasound technician.  That’s fantastic. Except that the scholarship is to attend the for-profit University of Phoenix, which even with a $25,000 scholarship could turn out
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A Politico profile of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan quotes just two commenters regarding the Obama Administration’s effort to curb abuses by for-profit colleges, and both of them have been long-time lobbyists for the industry: bulldog lawyer Lanny Davis and former congressman Steve Gunderson (R-WI), who heads the industry’s main trade group, APSCU.  Only Duncan is
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The New York Post today reports on an astounding fact that has been in plain sight for more than a year: Washington business scion Donald Graham has co-founded a scholarship program for young immigrants that is sending some of its students, and donor dollars, to colleges owned by Donald Graham’s own for-profit company. When I read
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Merchants of Doubt, a new film by Robert Kenner, explores the history of paid “third party” front groups, designed to appear as legitimate scientific or academic organizations, that act to mislead the public on policy issues on behalf of their corporate benefactors. The film goes through the history of groups that were paid to raise
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Quad Partners, a New York private equity firm that is invested heavily in the for-profit college industry, and whose founder has aggressively opposed regulation of that troubled industry, has acquired a controlling stake in the respected trade publication Inside Higher Ed (IHE), which often reports on for-profit colleges and the policy disputes surrounding them. There has been no public announcement,
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Another CNBC interview, another slow pitch interview for a fossil fuel executive. Not too long ago, Republic Report caught a CNBC producer soliciting climate change denier pundits to “balance” a report about the costs of inaction on carbon emissions. Last weekend, CNBC brought on Gregory Boyce, Peabody Energy’s chief executive, to uncritically discuss how his
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At an event in Washington DC this morning, speaking alongside Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), financial guru Suze Orman at first seemed to deny what is a documented fact: that she teaches a personal finance course at the nation’s biggest for-profit college, the University of Phoenix.  Then Orman admitted it, but offered a wholly unconvincing explanation.
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Are “Susan and Dave” a for-profit college student, or the parents of a for-profit college student?  From the comments they posted on two different websites this week, seems like, both.  Actually, it seems like a lie, perpetrated by a wealthy industry that will say or do anything to keep tapping billions in taxpayer dollars, even as it
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