This morning the U.S. Department of Education convenes what may finally be the last session of its negotiated rulemaking on a proposed “gainful employment” rule, a measure aimed at cutting off federal aid to career college programs that fail to train students to earn a decent living.  The latest draft regulation from the Department would
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It’s a busy time for APSCU, the trade association of America’s for-profit colleges.  The group spends its time trying to block reasonable measures to hold the worst actors in its industry responsible for their systematic abuses of students and taxpayers, as if the industry is permanently entitled to the enormous amounts of federal taxpayer money
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The Wall Street Journal today published an op-ed by former Senator Bob Kerrey and private equity man Jeffrey Leeds attacking the U.S. Department of Education’s new “gainful employment” rule, which is aimed at reducing taxpayer aid to career colleges that consistently leave students with insurmountable debt. The piece is riddled with misleading arguments about for-profit
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The lobbying group of for-profit colleges, APSCU, today released a report, “Best Practices in Recruitment and Admissions.” State and federal authorities, and private lawyers, have been investigating for-profit colleges, and winning settlements, arbitrations, and jury verdicts in cases where recruiters used coercive tactics and made false promises to prospective students about college costs, job placement rates,
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What connects all of these terrible events – the 1984 pesticide plant disaster at Bhopal, India, which caused 20,000 deaths; the Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks on the U.S.; and the recent deadly chemical plant explosions in West, Texas, and Geismar, Louisiana? What connects these events is the looming danger of a massive terrorist
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Earlier today I posted a piece with images of Arthur E. Benjamin of Delray Beach, FL, and Dallas, TX, posing and socializing, mostly at charity events, with the likes of George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Flo Rida, J.R. Ewing, some socialites, and a dog that Mr. Benjamin seems to like very much. I expressed concern that
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Yesterday President Obama delivered a forceful message to the predatory for-profit college industry. In response to a question at an event Friday at Binghamton University in New York state, Obama said these businesses were “making out like a bandit” preying on veterans and other students, as well as taxpayers. He warned that if these for-profit
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Among the many questions raised by Jeff Bezos’s purchase of the Washington Post newspaper is: What will become of the rest of the old Washington Post Company, publicly traded and run by the Graham family? The fact is that the Post Company was already dominated, in several respects, by its lucrative Kaplan education subsidiary, which
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