May 16, 2019

DeVos Department Denies Directing Dream Center to Deceive

In a new letter to Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and other members of Congress, Diane Auer Jones, Betsy DeVos’s top higher education aide, reaffirms the Department’s claim that it never advised Dream Center Education Holdings to publicly misrepresent its accreditation status — contrary to an allegation made to me last year, and reaffirmed again to
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May 9, 2019

Citing Dream Center Debacle, Arizona Revokes License of Woz U

The Arizona board in charge of regulating for-profit colleges in the state has unanimously rejected the application of Steve Wozniak’s Woz U to renew its license to operate. In doing so, members of the board, many of whom are associated with for-profit schools, and which has generally been supportive of for-profit schools, cited the fact
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May 6, 2019

Shielded By DeVos, But College Chain Faces Accreditor Sanctions

Months after a hushed-up dismissal of its lawsuit against the Betsy DeVos Department of Education, the college chains operated by the Center for Excellence in Higher Education face new sanctions from their accreditor, ACCSC. By notice dated May 2, ACCSC renewed accreditation for two years for CEHE’s CollegeAmerica schools, but in a letter dated the
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April 22, 2019

Swampy Ex-Trump Officials Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke: They’re Back!

Former top Trump environmental officials Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke, both forced out of their jobs last year under the weight of, for each, an absurdly large number of ethics scandals, have now resurfaced, with each accepting influence-peddling jobs in industries they previously regulated. The two also appeared jointly at a recent Texas Republican event
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April 18, 2019

No Mr. Barr, Trump Did Not “Fully Cooperate” with Mueller

Attorney General William Barr’s press conference this morning in advance of his release of the redacted Mueller report was more like the warmup act at a Trump campaign rally. Playing to his audience of one, Barr repeatedly invoked Trump’s “no collusion” branding. And on the issue of obstruction, Barr’s conclusion was utterly false. Barr indicated
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April 16, 2019

Ryan Zinke Turns Trump Tenure Into Goldmine, Literally

As the Department of the Interior’s inspector general did the right thing and began a conflict-of-interest investigation of newly-confirmed Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt, the previous Interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, continued his own egregious course of doing the wrong thing. As the AP reported Tuesday, Zinke has accepted a job with Nevada-based U.S. Gold
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April 11, 2019

DeVos Takes A Page From Trump: Blame Obama

Faced with a roomful of Democrats, now in control of the House of Representatives, who questioned her hard about the Department of Education’s failures to follow the law, help students, or prevent ugly collapses of bad-acting for-profit college chains, Secretary Betsy DeVos took a page from her boss, Donald Trump: She repeatedly blamed Barack Obama’s
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April 8, 2019

On For-Profit College Shutdowns, Lobbyist Gunderson Has No Shame

Regarding the recent epidemic of for-profit college closures, Steve Gunderson, the chief lobbyist for that industry, has taken his shamelessness to new heights — brazenly suggesting that the shuttered schools have no connection to his lobby group, CECU, when he knows full well that they used to be members, and mischaracterizing industry critics’ views on
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