This morning, in a packed room on the 8th floor of a K Street building, the U.S. Department of Education resumes talks in pursuit of a “gainful employment” rule aimed at penalizing for-profit colleges that leave students deep in debt and without decent paying jobs. It’s called a “negotiated rulemaking,” bringing together representatives of schools, students,
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The lobbying group of America’s for-profit colleges, APSCU, announced today that Michael Dakduk is its new Vice President of Military and Veterans Affairs. Dakduk had just left the job of executive director of the Student Veterans of America (SVA). You heard that right. SVA’s stated mission is “To provide military veterans with the resources, support, and
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The Federal Trade Commission may be ready to get tough with America’s for-profit colleges. That makes sense. The agency’s core mission is “to prevent business practices that are anticompetitive or deceptive or unfair to consumers.”  The business model of many for-profit colleges is built on deception — if students actually had all the relevant information,
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On Friday, prosecutors in Miami charged the politically-connected CEO of for-profit Dade Medical College, Ernesto Perez, with the felony charge of providing false information through a sworn statement, plus two misdemeanor counts of perjury. When Perez was named to Florida’s Commission on Independent Education — a panel charged with overseeing schools like his — he omitted
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The lobbying group of for-profit colleges, APSCU, today released a report, “Best Practices in Recruitment and Admissions.” State and federal authorities, and private lawyers, have been investigating for-profit colleges, and winning settlements, arbitrations, and jury verdicts in cases where recruiters used coercive tactics and made false promises to prospective students about college costs, job placement rates,
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Representative John Kline, Republican of Minnesota, chairs the House Education and the Workforce Committee. He also is a living symbol of the Republican Party’s shameful loyalty to big for-profit colleges that have added to the corruption of U.S. politics, systematically ripped off taxpayers, and ruined the futures of countless students. On Friday, Rep. Kline will
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Last Thursday, California’s attorney general, Kamala Harris, sued Corinthian Colleges, one of the country’s biggest — and worst — for-profit college companies, for “false and predatory advertising, intentional misrepresentations to students, securities fraud and unlawful use of military seals in advertisements.” Harris’s lawsuit claims that Corinthian, which operates the schools Heald, Everest, and Wyotech, deceived prospective students, investors, and
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The for-profit college industry is under pressure. Many of its biggest companies are being investigated by federal agencies and state attorneys general for fraud and misrepresentation — deceiving students, regulators, and investors about job placement rates, costs and quality of programs, transferability of credits, and other matters. Enrollments are down, and share prices have been
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