In keeping with the strong populist economics theme of her campaign rollout, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton today took aim at the predatory for-profit colleges whose overpriced, low-quality programs are ruining students’ lives. The former Secretary of State, participating in her first campaign event, an education roundtable discussion at Kirkwood Community College in Monticello, Iowa, said:
Continue Reading >>>

The Internet loves infographics. So websites seeking clicks are always looking to run infographics, and marketers are always seeking to supply websites with infographics — infographics that steer people to their products. Yesterday, super-popular website Buzzfeed allowed one of its contributors to post an infographic sharply criticizing for-profit colleges — as a sector run by
Continue Reading >>>

The U.S. Department of Education is now engaged in a series of public hearings on higher education issues, including reforms to curb the abuses of predatory for-profit colleges. It is also accepting written comments from the public.  I attended the opening hearing last week in Washington, DC, and I tweeted (May 21) about the powerful presentations
Continue Reading >>>

  The controversial for-profit college industry, threatened by the Obama’s Administration’s efforts to hold it accountable for a torrent of waste, fraud, and abuse at the expense of students and taxpayers, bet heavily on a Romney and GOP victory in 2012.  The industry, which gets $32 billion a year from taxpayers and whose biggest players
Continue Reading >>>

  Since last week’s election, the Fox News Channel has featured several corporate executives complaining about the results. But it’s likely that few are as upset as CEOs of the troubled for-profit college industry. This sector, which is deeply dependent on the federal government, bet heavily on a Republican victory. Mitt Romney, who has a
Continue Reading >>>

Todd Nelson resigned as chief executive of Apollo Group, parent company of the University of Phoenix, in 2006, in the wake of two controversies that ended up in court.  In the first case, Apollo, the nation’s largest for-profit college business, paid $9.8 million in 2004 to settle a U.S. Department of Education complaint that it
Continue Reading >>>

Is Mitt Romney “severely conservative,” as he put it during the primary season, or is he instead the semi-compassionate moderate he has portrayed since the first debate? It’s the question pundits keep asking, and of course it’s important to his political strategy and the outcome of the election. But to understand how Romney would actually govern
Continue Reading >>>

      Lorna Hernandez taught graphic design and animation for eighteen years at a for-profit college, The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, until she quit, last Thursday. Unlike some of her faculty colleagues, Hernandez, chair of the school’s animation department, was not laid off in last month’s major downsizing by Pittsburgh-based Education Management Corp.
Continue Reading >>>