Some of the largest for-profit college companies — including, last month, DeVry and Kaplan — have recently left the industry’s main trade group, the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (APSCU). The defections have come amid a rapid decline in the reputations and fortunes of many for-profit colleges — and the apparent failure of
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An email newsletter obtained by Republic Report reveals that the political action committee of APSCU, the main lobbying group of for-profit colleges, was headed in 2012 by Jack Massimino, CEO of the now disgraced, bankrupt Corinthian Colleges. The newsletter also highlights the active involvement in APSCUPAC of other for-profit college executives whose companies are now under
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It’s been apparent for years that the for-profit college chain Corinthian systematically deceived and mistreated its students. Less well understood has been the company’s abuse of its workers, many of them hard-working and sincere teachers and administrators.  Many were underpaid, many were misled by their bosses, and sometimes they were directed to be party to bad behavior or else lose their
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Even if predatory for-profit college companies can hang on for a period, restoring revenues while retaining their abusive practices, the era where they blatantly and arrogantly rip off and students and taxpayers, while Washington politicians and lobbyists do their bidding without apparent shame, is likely near its end. But to make that happen, the Obama
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Yesterday, Corinthian Colleges, one of the worst-behaving for-profit college companies, capped its dramatic collapse by filing for bankruptcy. A business that was getting as much as $1.4 billion a year in federal aid now has claimed in court that it has just $19 million in assets, but $143 million in liabilities. So who is owed all
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If you don’t think there’s enough to criticize in Corinthian College’s long history of abuses, or in the U.S. Department of Education’s handling of Corinthian, consider these facts. After years asleep at the switch, allowing predatory for-profit colleges to rip off students and taxpayers for billions annually, the Department finally took a decisive stand against egregiously bad
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An education technology executive who previously worked with the for-profit college industry told me last year, “The biggest misconception about for-profits is that they are schools. They are call centers that happen to have a school built around it.” That is a deadly accurate insight. Numerous federal and state law enforcement investigations, and media investigations,
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The 100-plus former students of for-profit Corinthian Colleges who have boldly asserted that they won’t pay back their student loans have garnered widespread attention and provided a powerful jolt to the debates about predatory colleges and our nation’s mounting student debt. A measure of the students’ impact is the meeting they were able to obtain last
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