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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A blockbuster, year-in-the-making investigative series about the for-profit college industry appears online in the Miami Herald today, and, as industry analysts at BMO Capital Markets predicted earlier this week, “Obviously, this is not going to portray the industry in a positive light.” It doesn’t, but that’s because the industry practices and conduct that the Herald found are simply abominable. (I have studied
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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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Parroting a familiar talking point by bad actors in the for-profit college industry, Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO), appeared last week to blame students for their high student loan burdens. After questioning Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday about regulations aimed at for-profit colleges, Blunt, a member of the Senate
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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:
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