Why would a leader with a good reputation affiliate himself with an industry that has a bad reputation?  If you’ve visited this website before, you might suspect that money is involved. And you’d be right. On May 29, the New York Times published an editorial calling for government action to address spiraling college debt. The Times
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The for-profit college industry contains many schools that regularly scam students and taxpayers. Large for-profits like Kaplan, DeVry, Bridgepoint, and the University of Phoenix spend big lobbying the federal government and providing campaign contributions, and in return the government shovels about $32 billion a year into the for-profit college industry via student loans and grants. These schools
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Last April, the Los Angeles Times reported that the “unemployment rate for veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq is 10.3%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For veterans age 24 and under, the rate is 29.1%, or 12 points higher than for civilians the same age. That compares with 8.2% unemployment nationally, and 7.5% for
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In many places, being the leader of a chapter of a political party is an honor. It’s a position that you can use to advance your party’s values and goals. But Virginia Democratic Party chairman Brian Moran — brother of Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) — is using his clout in a different way. In addition
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  The FBI raided campuses of Florida-based FastTrain College on Wednesday. The for-profit school has multiple ties to Representative Alcee Hastings (D-FL), who has been a fervent backer of for-profit education companies. This industry has lobbied Congress fiercely in recent years to avoid accountability for waste, fraud, and abuse at the expense of students and
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Bad actors in the for-profit education industry — leading for-profit colleges, private charter schools, and other education profiteers — are accelerating a profitable scam: online education. As my colleague Lee Fang documented in a cover story for The Nation last year, these “online learning” companies have infiltrated American schools, extracting millions of dollars for software
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Last week, President Obama made headlines when he signed an executive order designed to protect U.S. troops, veterans, and their families from the predatory abuses of some for-profit colleges. The executive order takes aim at some deceptive recruiting practices by these colleges — which soak up taxpayer dollars with little accountability — and requires them
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Michelle Rhee writes in the Huffington Post that “some have questioned” why she would speak at the upcoming annual meeting of the largest trade group of for-profit colleges, APSCU, and she offers an answer.  I first raised this question 10 days ago, so I want to evaluate Rhee’s response. First of all, Rhee, the former chancellor
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