The second largest for-profit college company, Pittsburgh-based Education Management Corporation (EDMC), is facing severe challenges. The company, 41 percent owned by Goldman Sachs, held a conference call for investors last week, and the data was not good — enrollment and revenue remain down. Market analyst reaction was lukewarm at best, and the company’s stock price plunged
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A year ago, if you were Jack Massimino, CEO of  Corinthian Colleges, you might have been feeling pretty good.  Despite extensive evidence from congressional and media investigations that Corinthian, along with other big for-profit colleges, has been abusing students — luring them with deceptive recruiting, offering high-priced, low quality programs, and often leaving them without
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Developments are happening at lightning speed on for-profit college issues. This morning: 1. The Department of Veterans affairs launched a new website, the GI Bill Comparison Tool, allowing vets, and to some extent other students, to compare college options. The initiative is part of action on President Obama’s 2012 executive order to protect vets and current service
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Federal agencies have this morning launched a new online complaint system where veterans, service members, and their families can report on problems with colleges and universities receiving federal education aid. As numerous investigations have revealed and President Obama has noted, for-profit colleges have engaged in widespread abuses of vets and military families. The new complaint
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The New York Times Wednesday published a story on the deal between the U.S. Olympic committee and the for-profit DeVry University, under which DeVry is designated an official education provider to Olympic athletes. The Times reported that DeVry had “landed” 15 U.S. athletes headed to Sochi, but it noted that the terms of the overall deal have not
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In tomorrow’s State of the Union address, President Obama will likely revisit his plans to hold America’s colleges and universities more accountable for helping U.S. students train for real careers.  But while a stalemated Congress still blocks progress in many areas, a bipartisan group of state attorneys general just took a major step to help
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Last week, the political news website Real Clear Politics hosted a Washington DC event (video) targeted at an elite media and policy audience. Held at the gleaming Newseum, site of many such events, it was entitled, “U.S. Energy Policy: The Road Ahead,” and appeared to be a genuine policy discussion. It was, in fact, an infomercial.
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In the wake of the April 2103 West, Texas, chemical plant explosion, which killed 15 people and injured 160 more, President Obama issued an executive order directing federal agencies to improve the safety of our industrial chemical plants.  Right now, a working group of federal officials is conducting “listening sessions” around the country to hear
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