This morning, the House Science Committee is holding an unusual hearing, at which the committee’s chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), apparently aims to justify subpoenas he already has issued to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, and eight organizations and foundations concerned with the issue of whether Exxon deceived on the public on
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I’ve been on some radio shows this week to discuss the collapse of predatory ITT Tech, the fate of students, and the future of for-profit colleges. If you love talk radio, tune in: Background Briefing with Ian Masters, Sept. 6 The Agenda with Ari Rabin-Havt, SiriusXM Progress 127, Sept. 8 The Source, Texas Public Radio,
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This morning, one of the nation’s biggest for-profit colleges, ITT Tech, announced that it has permanently shut down its academic operations and fired the “overwhelming majority” of its more than 8,000 employees. In a typically self-pitying, remorseless statement, the company blamed all its woes on the U.S. Department of Education, which, ITT claimed, acted with “a
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The U.S. Department of Education yesterday took a momentous step, deciding that the CollegeAmerica / Stevens-Henager / CEHE chain of colleges, despite formally converting from a for-profit to a non-profit enterprise, is still acting like a self-interested business corporation, rather than a charitable institution, and thus should remain subject to the handful of rules that
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An audit report released earlier this month by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General could potentially trigger efforts in Congress to eliminate a critical legal requirement for college programs to receive federal Title IV student grants and loans. That would be a dangerous development, according to a long-time higher education policy expert
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As we reported this morning, the U.S. Department of Education today rejected the request of the CollegeAmerica/Stevens-Henager college chain to have its status changed from for-profit to non-profit for purposes of federal financial aid rules. The Department concluded that the chain’s conversion to non-profit status appeared primarily to benefit the for-profit chain’s owner, Carl Barney, rather
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In a critical decision to protect students and taxpayers from fraud and abuse in higher education, the U.S. Department of Education this morning rejected the request of the CollegeAmerica  / Stevens-Henager college chain to have its status changed from for-profit to non-profit for purposes of federal financial aid rules. The Department concluded that the chain’s
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For years, DeVry University, like other big for-profit colleges, forced its students to sign agreements that they would take any dispute with the school to private arbitration, rather than sue in court. When, this year, it appeared that the U.S. Department of Education was moving in the direction of banning or limiting such mandatory arbitration agreements
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