This article is particularly depressing for me, as someone who worked as a volunteer at the physical Dream Center back when it was a church-run homeless shelter in Los Angeles. Volunteers spent our days distributing food to poor children in the city, and helping homeless people get back on their feet. I believed we were trying to fulfill Jesus’ commandment to serve the poor.
Those of us who remember the “old” Dream Center are completely baffled that they went into the field of for-profit education in the first place, and are heartbroken yet not at all surprised at this outcome. I don’t understand why an organization that purports to help the needy would knowingly go into the exploitative field of for-profit colleges. I am not surprised that they failed.
11
Time to remove ethically-challenged, self-dealing members of the Trump administration. Problem is, where to start.
DeVoss should be impeached. Then prosecuted.
20
Is there any senior member of this Administration who isn’t tainted in some way? In my school days, we covered the Grant and then the Harding Administrations, and the professor assured us that there couldn’t be a repeat since we now had safeguards in place.
Yet, here we are, not a single Republican crying “foul”, and a large minority of the voters not caring a bit and continuing to support this creature in the WH and his own person mob of deplorables .
17
Just like every other Trump cabinet member, DeVos is in it for her own personal ambitions. When ever the word deregulation is used by anyone in the GOP, hold onto your wallets!
16
I guess our Department of Education is about more than just education. It's in favor of allowing students and the government to waste money on for profit colleges that don't educate their students.
9
It's ok.
Betsy loves Jesus and money, too.
13
This is what corruption looks like, in the federal government and for-profit higher education.
13
Beyond a narrow market for for-profit trade schools, for-profit so-called "colleges" are basically a scam. If you want a real degree, go to a public or non-profit one. Communities colleges and state colleges and universities provide better education at lower cost.
My guess is that an Argosy University degree would do you about as much good as a Trump University degree. I would not hire anyone with a BA or BS from any for-profit so-called university.
14
My compliments to you both, Erica Green and Stacy Cowley. You are heroic, and these Philistines and evildoers wish you weren't.
Turn off the lights, and the creepy-crawleys come out. Keep the lights on.
Hard as that must be on those of you who must breathe the same air as these swamp monsters.
8
Trump University Redux. Ms. Jones, "Lock her up!" Betsy DeVos, "Lock her up!" Liars and cheats in the trump administration, old news.
7
Another "Tale from the Swamp".
11
The greedy bottom feeders asked the department for more than the 40 million because they needed bonuses and future rent payments, after they weren't a school anymore.
What does it mean helping students land on their feet? Was all their debt forgiven? And those needing to restart a college program from scratch? It's not entirely clear from these bits whether the DOE knew, colluded, but it was entirely their job to know and act. I'll put my money on Betsy knew because she created a culture in which all education is to be for profit.
10
At this point the headline could read, “DeVos feeds kindergartener to for profit crocodiles”
And I could believe it to be true.
7
Great. She’s fired.
3
Cruel, corrupt and incompetent.
These seem to be the only modes of operation for this administration. Each Democratic candidate should have dozen salient examples at the tip of their tongues, for every audience.
8
"Emails Show DeVos Aides Pulled Strings for Failing For-Profit Colleges"
By this weary point in time, the only thing that would surprise me would be to learn that any Trump appointee had NOT used his or her position to advance their personal agendas and -- if the moment seemed right -- to profit by so doing.
One has to reach back almost one hundred years to the Harding administration to find equivalents to the levels of corruption, self-seeking and outright graft going on right now in Trump's administration.
And the Republicans -- who could choose to do something to stop all this if they wished to -- instead do nothing. Lining one's pockets? Okay by them. Private jets for personal trips? No problem. Violations of the Hatch Act? Pshaawww! Emoluments? Geddouttahere!
It's not a Dream Center that Ms. DeVos and her minions are defending; it's a nightmare. I wish we could all wake up and make it all disappear.
9
Nah, the Times doesn’t need my voice.
But I need to know what to do about this situation. How does one get “standing” to bring the corrupt Trump administration to task?
4
So has the swamp been drained yet? I'm thinking, not.
4
I know of some at the Culinary School in San Diego - students and teachers turned up to find locked doors - no advance notice.
https://www.artinstitutes.edu/closed-school-information-page
A tragedy for families with no experience with higher education. The DeVos family invests in private education and debt collection companies that preys on students. To think she was confirmed by the Senate!
7
A stinking Swamp sinks all boats.
Did anyone expect anything different?
Big Blue Wave in 2020 to correct the course of this nation...out of the swamp and away from the putrid administration that inhabits that swamp.
6
From the people who brought you Amway
10
DeVoss is part of the criminal administration.
8
Um. . .
Lock her up??
9
Corruption runs deep and wide in this administration.
An American tragedy writ large.
7
The rampant corruption of Trump cabinet heads is exemplified in the conduct of Betsy DeVos. Her job is improve public education, not help private for-profit schools which are undermining public schools by steering students to friends of DeVos get saved from their incompetence.
6
Of course DeVos pulled strings for failing and corrupt for-profit scam schools. It's consistent with her track record of corruption and self-dealing.
5
Trump has convinced his followers that regulations are bad for them, that they are the signs of a socialist state. They believe him and applaud him when he takes them down.
Trump has many faults, but his ability to convince people that black is white, lies are facts, and cold is hot is pretty amazing.
It is as if he has managed to completely reverse the logical reasoning of his followers. No becomes yes and false is interpreted as true.
We are witnessing a mass-psychosis on a scale that should have alarmed every behaviour scientist on the planet.
7
What? No way! And to think, I trusted Betsy DeVos and her absolutely no experience in public education whatsoever to do what was best for the country! How could this have happened?
7
Perhaps DeVos should have personal liability for losses by the government and students for this fiasco. Money is the language of education for her.
5
If we were to eliminate all of the corruption from this administration, no one would be left.
5
I bet a bunch of people made a bundle of money while students were ripped off.
6
The purpose of our government, if clearly understood, is to pump tax money, collected from the poor and middle class, to the rich.
4
Government backing of student loans for nominally qualified people going to for-profit colleges has been a problem for some time.
45
Why does this surprise anyone? No one is welcome in Trump's cabinet without being well schooled and regularly practiced in corruption. It's all a big game of Follow the Leader.
6
Devos knows how to run a scam. She’s one of the best. And the truth is neither her, nor her aides will suffer for all the damage they do to people’s lives & this country.
8
...and the surprise is?
Should I wait for it?
2
This story is excruciatingly painful. Many of these students who now have large debts to pay off for their essentially useless hard work are likely aspiring to become first generation college graduates. This is a big part of many peoples' attempts to reach for the American dream.
If there truly was karma in the universe, it would be sweet for them to sue Ms. DeVos personally for punitive damages that have been inflicted on them through no fault of their own. Just another example of this unprincipled administration's war against the weakest of our fellow Americans. Sad.
8
I wish we could sue government for bad policy created because of financial interests...but then we’re just suing ourselves the Taxpayer.
2
It's as if every governmental institution is a shepherd, on watch for the wolves that plague... and when this administration took over, they fired all the shepherds and handed each institution over to each respective wolf they were supposed to watch out for.
4
As a recent doctoral Argosy graduate, it is so jarring, enraging, and surreal to read this. Already, the impact of the Dream Center's misdeeds and incompetencies, fueled and blessed by the corrupt DeVos Ed dept has been immense. It took me 6 months to get a transcript when applying for licensure and my student loans are more than the cost of a home in most areas of the US. And, just before this all went down, my program was re-accredited by the APA for 10 years - the most possible that could be awarded. DeVos and the Dream Center destroyed viable, thriving programs across the country and threw the academic community's concerns and wellbeing under the bus. I have learned the hard way that although I have my degree, I have no recourse for the lost time without a license and lifetime of having a tainted organization on my CV. And many of my colleagues have it so much worse than I. What a truly disgraceful sign of the times.
7
@Bubba & Co.
No offense, but graduates from diploma mill schools are immediately evident once you test them on their knowledge. Even without this scandal, your CV would be tainted.
1
That this woman is even allowed near anything regarding “education” makes, well, as much sense as Trump (and Pence) being allowed near government.
6
Still more corruption, at the highest levels. I’d be interested to know more about the “bonuses and rental payments...issues.” They look at our Treasury as something to be looted.
4
The Trump Republicans worship at the alter of business. They think they elected a businessman to the White House, and that a businessman is who should lead our nation.
Mr. Trump is neither a billionaire nor a successful real estate developer. He just played one on TV.
===
There are two types of business:
1. Real business people provide value to their customers. They provide goods or services, and their customers agree to a fair price. Both parties end up ahead. As it should be.
2. There are rent seekers. They are business people who believe in a zero sum game. "For me to win, you must lose." That is the ethos of the Trump administration. Including his family, Wilbur Ross, and Betsy DeVos and her brother, Erik Prince (Blackwater, Academi), and so forth. Jared Kusher's slumlord business is another example.
For-profit education is a prime example of a crooked rent-seeking scheme to defraud Americans.
The rent seekers' business model is to skim a piece of every transaction that drifts through their transom. They add no value. They provide no goods or services. They make nothing. They are just takers.
===
Folks, this is today's Trump Republican Party.
They don't represent honest and good business (#1); they represent #2.
There are plenty of honest business people in America, who actually make something or provide a meaningful service. None of them are working for, or represented by, the grifters, crooks, and rent seekers in Trump administration.
5
My brother-in-law attended a for-profit culinary school in Manhattan about 15 years ago. He is still carrying the 5-figure student debt. He now works in a different industry.
6
De Vos simply failed to understand for who the Department of Education exists and whose interests that department is mandated to serve, it's not the schools, it's the people of the United States, and in particular, students. In trying to help this failing business she directed students to waste their resources and assume debt in return for nothing. In effect, she robbed the students to help people who were not able to do what they had pledged.
4
Why, how lovely of this administration - made up of "business" people - helping their fellow "business" people make more money. Clearly, this is the free market at work. Not socialism, no sir. And the rest of us who don't have the proper connections will just keep having to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Yeah, that's cool.
6
Our corrupted Education Secretary would not abide a for profit school to fail because it would point out the flaws in her plans to create more for profit schools.
6
Infiltrate the government, take the tax-payers' money, and change the rules of the game.
That's the new Republican way to keep the status quo for the rich (and white).
4
Historically, Republicans advocated for limited government. But they still saw a role for government in a few sectors of the economy, such as defense, education, and infrastructure -- and police, fire, and EMT on the local level.
Today's Trump Republicans see a business opportunity, where they can personally profit from the public purse. This is especially true in the Prince family. Erik Prince seeks to privatize the military (Blackwater, now Academi). And his sister, Betsy DeVos, seeks to privatize education.
This is the cult of the private sector. This is the new feudalism. MAGA = Modern American Gilded Age.
===
The private sector and competition provide for most of our wants and needs. However, there are a few sectors of the economy where the public sector offers a better solution. The Prince family (like most of the Trump administration) are nothing but grifters, hiding behind an ideological myth and a faith-based worship of profit and hatred of government.
4
So what else is new. The whole Trump administration is up for sale...are you surprised. My only hope is that they will follow the money and prosecute those for bilking students. If they can get Betsy behind bars, education in this country would be far better off.
2
I am not sure what is worse, special treatment given or if not, that the department policy and procedures fail to safeguard taxpayers and students for these types of organizations. It is a shame that we continue to subsidize these low performing institutions that have no credible track record of success.
1
Educational strategies based on faith, ideology, and profit are toxic. This was an egregious use of public resources and Betsy De Vos must resign.
5
For profit=for the wealthy. Case closed.
3
So what % of these for profit colleges to the De Voses own or hold investments in?
2
Dear Americans,
If you are thinking of going to a for-profit college,
1. Consider a community college.
2. Consider a state university.
(possibly going to a community college for the first two years)
You will get a much better education, and for much less money.
9
there's a reason these for-profit colleges fail. all they care about is the federal funding, which now we see had inside help. what does it take to bring charges against this kind of criminal activity? well, i guess it takes an independent judiciary department, which we don't have. what a farce. what a tragedy. what a sad day for our country.
1
Under this administration,there isn't a single department run by competent individuals. Most hate government- have no experience or recycled from previous failures:
The Justice Department, Department of Education, Transportation Department, Department of the Interior; Defense Department- Department of Agriculture-Department of Housing...
Every-single-day, another revelation;another outlandish or criminal action...and it's all reported like the latest Dow Jones Industrial Average.
4
"students were left with no degree after paying tens of thousands of dollars in tuition"
In other words, things worked out quite well for this "megachurch". Perhaps they can become part of Amway, as well, speaking of cons.
3
Administrators at a failing Christian for-profit university asking the federal government to dip into a $75 million escrow account to pay, among other thing, "bonuses"--makes the Democrats they decry as "socialist" look like amateurs.
17
Steve Bannon, KellyAnne Conway, Scott Pruitt, Stephen Miller,
Rudy Giuliani, Betsy Devos, Matthew Whitaker, Tom Price,
Sean Spicer, Ryan Zinke, Michael Flynn, Rob Porter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Paul Manafort, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, the list goes on and on and on, ad nauseum.
My grocery store has a reduced price aisle where they keep the dented cans, expiring-date items and soiled merchandise in messed-up packages.
Never before in American history have we had a President remotely as corrupt as Trump who heads straight for his own reduced price aisle whenever he is in the market for dented, expiring date, soiled advisers and government officials; which is always.
I see them there with him in the dented can aisle all the time.
14
There will multiple volumes of books written after the Trump administration ends (soon, I hope), about the destructive, crooked, and immoral acts that have happened during this horrendous period of U.S. history. I hope we have enough historians to keep up with all of it. Each cabinet member who has contributed to Trump's disaster should be shamed.
11
Real journalism remains the one place some reality is still apparent. Facts not foolishness so far. Please don’t succumb to the darkness.
7
An educated guess is that the nation won't rebound from the massive wrongdoing of the Trump administration. An administration of know-nothings propping up other know-nothings and hurting people, here, seeking an education.
6
You mean for-profit “schools” along the lines of Trump University?
7
Devi’s is supporting fraudulent educational shells much like Trump University.
2
The Dream Center story is really a night mare which DeVos obviously closed her eyes to and actually abetted. Her total lack o experience in education at any level and her obvious bent on corrupting practices has cost the tax payer billions and destroy thousands of student lives.
5
Every day in every way we get worse and worse. Yet have not hit bottom it seems. Which slimy grafter will be in the news tomorrow?
4
Dear Democrats,
We won the House in 2018 largely due to suburban white women voting on the issue of healthcare. (The Republicans want to take away protection for preexisting conditions.)
The same constituency -- suburban white women -- also care deeply about education.
Betsy DeVos is the poster child of what we can run against in 2020. Do it!
---
Volunteer. Donate. And VOTE!
D to go forward. R to go backwards.
8
@MidtownATL
Pure nonsense. Hillary Clinton is also a “white suburban woman” as are the millions who voted for her in 2016.
DeVos does not represent white women any more than OJ Simpson represents black men.
2
Of all the terrible appointments made by this Imposter-in-Chief, Ms DeVos was the worst. She had no experience in or devotion for public education. She is a business woman and crony of Trump's. So thousands of young people get bilked. More "carnage" that was promised. Ms. DeVos should follow the lead of the conga line of Trump appointees and resign- so she can spend more more time with her money.
6
Not surprising. Michigan residents know the DeVos family is all in on profiting from charter schools at the expense of taxpayer-funded public education.
7
Maybe Attorney Holt's song should have read:
After so many years
We’d just had enough, but
Now, we’ve got a friend in Trump.
We're hauling money to the bank,
and our students to the dump.
3
DeVos and her fundamentalist cronies are a uniquely odorous blend of utter incompetence and corruption. She is a dilettante, educated at a fundie (read SECOND RATE) "college", and tried to give special treatment to a fundie scheme to turn schools into an income source. May she and all her dishonest ilk be prosecuted for crimes committed against the American people when a legitimate US government is seated (I hope in 2020).
4
They are ALL grifters and thieves, every last one of them....
7
I don't know if all "for profits" are the same, but I know young adults who enrolled in "for profit" two-year nursing programs.
They had to pay the entire tuition upfront, self-funded as a "loan" by the school.
When the students dropped out after a year, they lost the remaining tuition and are expected to pay the entire loan back to the school.
I know, they should have read the small print.
But a practice like that should be illegal.
15
I have written this many, many, many times. Please listen up people:
Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Education for this country, DOES NOT HAVE A COLLEGE DEGREE IN EDUCATION!!!!
33
That’s socialism Ms. Devon’s. You and your fellow Republicans hate socialism, remember?! Oh, I see. You like socialism when it’s just for your friends. Most corrupt administration ever.
24
Betsy deVos—socialism for me, capitalism for thee.
18
That's OK. Traitor Trump's mob never made it past high school.
12
To see in the e-mails these clowns couldn't even spell 'accreditators' correctly says volumes. Clowns to the left of us, clowns to the right of us,...lying and stealing as they go.
Then again to DeVos with the Amway scam as 'legit' then every kind of criminal and fraudulent action is 'OK'.
How low our country's administration has sunk...
9
For-profit colleges are to higher education what payday loan outfits are to banks.
44
@MidtownATL
Worse, payday loans allow people to buy necessities when they need them. These institutions take people's money in return for nothing. It's rent taking by crooks condoned by morons who think that they are preserving private enterprise and capitalism from socialism.
11
@MidtownATL
I'm all for private enterprise in the United States.
But there is a case to be made that for-profit colleges should be illegal (or at least highly regulated).
By and large, they are scams.
4
@MidtownATL
Correct.
Can anyone name even one "for profit" that compares to any of the state universities?
Don't even try to name one that compares to any of the elite universities, other than in how much the "for profits" charge.
4
"and hopefully funding from the LOC"
A business touts itself as amazingly more efficient and effective than the public sector version looks for regulatory treats and taxpayer money when it implodes from incompetence, arrogance and overreach. Never mind that future generations will bear the burdens of debt, unemployment, and lack of a decent education; there is no shame. Every day I wonder how these people sleep at night.
17
Show me a graduate of a for-profit college who got his or her money's worth and landed a good career, and I'll show you a unicorn.
The numbers are likely in the dozens.
19
I have been saying for some time that the intentions of the Trump maladministration have been to "outsource" as much as possible of the Federal Government.
Do the math.
The government has a roughly $4 TRILLION annual cash flow.
Companies that do business with the government under relatively common contracting arrangements get to bill approximately 3% as "profit" above their expenses. The expenses can include salaries, facilities rental, and all sorts of subcontracts in many cases.
The 3% alone on $4 Trillion ($4,000,000,000,000) is a mere $120,000,000,000, or $120 BILLION in pure profit, every year, if you can outsource the full $4 TRILLION.
If you own the facility in which the activity is conducted, and you rent that to the government (by way of your contract), you put more money in your pocket.
Oh, wait, ... Donald rented space to the Secret Service in Trump Tower, 725 5th Avenue, NY, NY during the 2016 election. He rents them space, golf carts, and sells them meals now in Mar-a-Lago. He gets paid tax money so that the Secret Service can protect him.
Yeah, corruption from start to finish, all in the name of "outsourcing" which is asserted to be better, cheaper, more efficient, more competent ... than the government.
Yeah, just like the "better. cheaper, more efficient" health insurance that Donald was promising, and which turns out, unsurprisingly, to be pie in the sky. Not sure if it is apple, lemon meringue pie, or just sour lemons.
223
@Joe From Boston
Yes! Follow the money. Expose all of the bought politicians.
Trump is probably laundering money for his dirty business partners, whether they are Russian, mob, or legit son-in-law businesses.
21
Very good article. It really is amazing that there is a scandal to be exposed in every corner of this current administration. These guys truly sees the government as their gravy train. Shame, shame, shame.
36
And in another shocker... unqualified Secretary of Education who owns interest in for profit colleges (through her investments in private equity firms) and debt collection agencies that specialize in hounding students over debts intervenes in helping a for profit college to rip of the government.
Thank god the Trump administration is "shaking things up" and "draining the swamp". Corrupt to the racist bone.
28
It's alarming to read yet again of another lobbyist's efforts to turn our system of government from it's efforts for the people, as Jefferson envisioned.
How can anyone still believe the same such ilk running other departments are "for the people"?
Shouldn't those who voted for an adminstration that promised to drain the swamp be up in arms?
17
Yeah Trump’s base should be up in arms but for them the means justify the ends...abortion, deregulation, big bad government except for big tax breaks for the rich b
Donald Trump has staffed his cabinet departments with leeches, lobbyists, liars, con artists and incompetents.
Betsy DeVos and Diane Auer Jones should be forced to resign and investigated for possible criminal conduct - including using their government positions in a conspiracy to commit fraud.
But even if that happens, nothing is going to change until Donal Trump is forced from office - hopefully in handcuffs for running this giant con on the United States of America.
28
Thank you for this detailed article, it’s important to know these things even when feeling powerless to stop them.
It didn’t seem to take much to profit from taking advantage of people trying to better their chances in this great land of opportunity. With the blessings of a megachurch and the sanction of the Devos Education Department, what could go wrong?
The writers of this enlightening piece included an email from a Dream Center executive named Barton in which he writes of the “accriditors” and refers to “Dianne” who is Diane Jones of the accommodating Department of Education. (Spell checker disabled?)
As I said, land of opportunity.
4
DeVos has no shame. Thank you, Rep Scott and the NYT, for documenting her sleazy shilling for the for-profit colleges in such damning detail. The fatuously named "Dream Center" lying to students about accreditation is just the tip of the ice berg. That DeVos has rebuilt the corrupt pipeline that carries millions of tax dollars to these sham colleges & universities speaks volumes about her character and that of her boss. Pity the thousands of unfortunate students who fall for these scams.
16
The bigger picture here is that there is a big new for profit "university" in D.C. It is called the Donald Trump Institute of Grift. The entire lot of them, this is how they operate.
9
So De Vos is yet another pro-corporate parasite. Big surprise.
Can anyone think of an instance where corporate interests aligned with the interests of we the people? It is time to rewrite the law for corporations from scratch, and make the C-suite personally liable. If you earning 500-1000 times what the programmers and engineers make, you ought not to be able to say "I didn't know" when things go south.
8
Good gawd, as if we need more proof that for-profit ed is a scam: do these for-profit scammers not have spell-check on their computers?! They can't spell a simple word like 'accreditation'. Idiots. :/
6
Betsy DeVos is an incompetent and corrupt administrator. She is ideologically biased to privatization of our educational system even though
for profit education fails to meet any reasonable standard of educational excellence.
She is the worst head of her department ever and fits in well with Trump’s cabinet of scoundrels.
She is horrific!
10
Can’t we, at the very least, impeach Betsy DeVos?
5
As long as Trump can keep conning a certain percentage of Americans, he can put fellow corrupt allies in power and keep sucking America dry. As long as Americans are too lazy to read the Mueller Report and to fact check what comes out of Trump’s mouth or Tweets, they are going to get exactly what they deserve. I never thought I’d live to see the day when our great country became a banana republic, but it’s here.
11
DeVos needs to be jailed, period. Her abuse of her office, her sweetheart deals and cozying up to her buddies more than qualify this old harridan for orange jumpsuits. Her corruption rivals that of her boss and overseer and both need to be locked up in a tupperware container and forgotten in the back of the fridge.
6
Hi neighbor....Betsy DeVos. Do you remember chasing me as a kid, yelling because i was a public school pupil and therefore was going to hell and burn their forever? Such a lovely church, such lovely people. NOT! I thought you were all horribly misguided in my early years. I was not wrong sweet little Betsy. If there is any after life you may have to sit in a class that teaches what Jesus actually taught.
Shame on you. More shame on your church. And of course you were not in that group of kids who chased and tormented me. Your group came later.
2
Another Paytriot.
8
The entire cabinet belongs in jail, but Trump supporters could not care less about gross corruption like this. They just enjoy MAGA rallies and Fox and Friends on TV.
Freedumb!!!
7
Wow. What a surprise.
3
Another DeVos & Trump University Chain arises, takes student's $, and collapses back into the swamp, leaving a trail of mirror shards and a toxic cloud of something called "retroactive accreditation". Good thing DeVose gutted pesky government regulations design to protect students from these scams. But the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau can help them. Oh wait...
3
A few years ago, this would have been a big scandal. In the Trump administration, we expect corruption and it barely registers.
10
Do NOT overlook the Christian dominionist roots of this particular Trump-inspired disaster. Betsy DeVos subscribes to dominionism which calls for a radical Christian takeover of the “seven mountains” of society, of which education is one, to create a theocracy that will speed Jesus’s supposed return. This latest debacle was a DeVos-sanctioned and nurtured religious takeover specifically in line with dominionism.
The New York Times is doing extraordinary journalism but needs to do a better job at putting front and center the role dominionism is playing in the current chaos of the administration. In addition to DeVos, Pence and Pompeo as well as many others are fast at work furthering its goals all over the federal government and in Middle East policy like that of the embassy move to Jerusalem, another evangelical obsession. It also needs to highlight the incredible incapabilities of religion and education in creating civic-minded citizens who accept all humans as full members of society despite race, sex, orientation, and religion or lack thereof. Religion does not belong in the higher education of a society that professes separation of church and state or wants to solve the science-based problems of the 21st century.
17
Simple answer. Get rid of government coerced student loans. Let the private loan funding industry scrutinize the for-profit education industry. Eliminate government coercion in loan repayment, so students can eliminate debts in bankruptcy.
For-profit education has a huge problem with scams and poor educational outcomes. Time to stop using taxpayer money and the US legal system to protect them from the marketplace.
3
This is what you get when you put an Evangelical Christian in charge of the Department of Education who, apart from believing in an imaginary being up in the sky, believes, more than anything else, in maximizing profits for herself and her friends in-faith, among them an LA megachurch and the mercenary group Blackwater. What could go wrong...
29
Until student loans become dischargeable/dismissable or whatever the jargon is (who understood felon murder until the Times article and how heinous that is!) -- the hucksters that set up these entities -- the banks or whatever entities provide the loans are IMO defrauding the American public and the victims that sign up for these programs. Want to call it socialism -- there is public $$ involved -- gone amuck or I prefer economic enslavement (that loan like the word of Damocles hangs over your head forever honey chile). Whoever the lawyers for whatever entity (investment bankers, etc. name names) are IMO wrong. (And one had Bill Clinton for its "provost." Huh?)
At least eighteen years of education - 1 thru community college or even four year college should be "free" But I care what people learn.. or don't learn. (See article on the topic of treading/ decoding - no construction of meaning versus content - history, science) . For whatever reason education is not taken seriously as it should be. It's babysitting for the parents and income, health insurance and pension for at least some of the teachers... an the administrators (union rules allow these to make out like thieves).
People can/should IMO be tested after taking whatever course to find out what they did or didn't learn. (Also helps identify effective teaching/learning methods.) Why in the world is knowledge judged by time in the classroom?
3
DeVos is not qualified to run a lap.
11
Remember Trump University!
Wondering if Don learned about milking educational $ Con from DeVoss.
8
That Barton email though. He's the Chairman of an "education" company? Really?
11
Barton cannot spell "accreditors" correctly - no wonder his school lost it's rating.
6
New chant: Fill the Swamp! Fill the Swamp!
6
Time for her and the rest of them to go.
7
the email screencap discussing "accridation" really is worth a thousand words. I'm sure the defrauded students find it less funny than I do, though.
7
Time for folks to force DeVos to resign. She's been a failure from the very beginning. Disgusting.
8
Right wingers want to shut down the Department of Education because it's wasteful, unnecessary, liberal, etc......
The right wing is looting the treasury and transferring treasury dollars under your noses to billionaires. Apparently a trillion dollar tax cut wasn't enough for them
Wake up people. Get the Obama bug out of your system.
It's YOUR people squandering YOUR money.
8
The Trump regime is one of the most corrupt and morally bankrupt collection of (self-edited because I don’t want to break community rules) to have ever existed.
They’re like a real life League of Doom.
Trump’s former labor secretary was the same guy who got Epstein his illegal sweetheart deal in Florida back in 2008. Trump partied with Epstein in the 90s. Erik Prince “of Darkness” has *air quotes” allegedly “air quotes” overseen too many human rights abuses and war crimes to mention. And his sister Betsy DeVos has done everything in her power to take resources away from good average people, and give the upper hand to crony capitalistic con men.
Watching people (news outlets, pundits and the media) create excuses for the Trump regime while resisting the opposition WHO WANT TO RESTORE INTEGRITY TO THE COUNTRY’S LEADERSHIP is like watching medieval villagers kill the cats that were keeping plague rats in check. Y’all REALLY think that’s a great long term strategy?
I seriously feel like I’m watching almost half of the country go slowly insane. I know Trump supporters are technically in the minority, but not by much, and certainly not as much as they SHOULD be.
8
Just another bunch of crooked operators brought into government by the most crooked President in United States history. Nothing to see here folks. Just business as usual.
8
Wait, so omeone in the Trump Cabinet is a con-artist, a fraud, a liar, and criminal profiteer? Shocker.
7
The Trump administration is the most corrupt administration since Warren G Harding’s administration. Hey, both of them are Republican administrations using the protection of government to enrich themselves and their friends. Any surprise here?
4
So much winning!
The worst administration EVER, full of grifters, liars, thieves, and just plain incompetent people.
This circus needs to be voted out while we still can.
4
He has said that he will refuse to leave, if he loses in 2020.
If the Trumplican party goes along with his decision, is there any article in the
Constitution that allows someone, not in executive branch, that can arrest him and drag out of WH, just like a PA judge was dragged recently?
In every corner of the Trump Administration it looks as though Trump Toadies are filling the White House, the House, and the Senate with Toxic Sludge, in vast quantities.
And as for former President Obama, let's give credit where credit is due when a president who wins both the electoral college AND the popular vote mitigates a Republican administration's disaster and cleans up after these utterly banal, self-absorbed influence-peddling SLOBS.
5
No surprise that virtually everyone in this admin is corrupt.
6
I was wondering is there any present government entity under this admin besides the VA that isn't corrupt to the core.
4
DeVos needs to pay back all this money to students and the federal government from her personal wealth Swampy
6
The Trump administration, yeah Betsy that includes you and your family and close friends have robbed our children of good educations. Betsy just like all the other cheaters and thief’s he gave jobs to steal from our children and will wonder why we will be ranked below all countries for an educated people. She will continue reaping millions as well as her friends. Yep Trump helps those who are helping themselves to all he’ll let them take of our tax dollars.
5
There's more to this than the usual DeVos corruption.
Suckering people into worthless colleges is a good way to keep the electorate as dumb as possible - i.e., ensure Trump's re-election.
6
Surprise: Grifters will not only grift but they will support other grifters. Con Artist in Chief saw a fellow grifter in DeVos and put the fox in charge of the hen house. She knows nothing of education because she paid no attention to education in her own life. Her experience is mainly with one of the largest and oldest con jobs, Amway which pretty much invented multi level marketing and combined its con with evangelical Christianity at its greediest and most ignorant.
6
Now we should find out who in the Education department and/or DeVos, Trump, or Jones families owned stock in Dream Center, when they bought it, and when they sold it.
4
"Too many regs, were way too tough" should have read "Too few regs, not half tough enough." But I suppose that would just be too much to expect of Betsy DeVos and her staff.
2
This is what happens when you have foxes guarding the henhouse. In a right and just world, this person would be fired before nightfall. In Trump-land? Circle the wagons, defend, deflect.
4
Lock her up! Send her back!
7
Another slimy move by another member of the Trump Administration. Such arrogance; such disregard for the rule of law and the Constitution.
5
The Boss cheats, lies every day, and plays favorites in a big way. Why wouldn't his employees do the same? This is why we had an ethics commission in the first place, but the head of that committee wisely resigned in disgust within the first 6 months of the administration's beginning. The people in this administration could go down as the most corrupt in the history of the country.
10
Corruption loves bedfellows, wherever they can find them.
7
The thing about the Trump administration and its appointees is that their corruption spreads like a social disease as their family members also seek financial gains. For example, not only do we have Donald Trump and his children. We also Mitch McConnell and his wife who has allegedly made decisions to benefit companies owned by her relatives in China. (Is anyone screaming “send her back!”?) And you’ve got Betsy Devoss’ brother Eric Prince doing sweetheart deals with the Saudi.
This is only going to get worse unless these crooks are removed from office by we voters in the upcoming elections.
11
No surprises here, one more example of allowing the wolf to guard the henhouse.
10
DeVos...just another corrupt cabinet member in the dirtiest administration. She wouldn't have gotten the job except for Mike Pence who had to break the tie. That tells you a lot. Even the GOP had to hold their nose.
14
I’m beginning to understand why the DoE lied and covered up my own for-profit law school’s various illegal misdeeds, which came at the expense of students, and then refused to provide to share any information from the investigation they conducted. DeVos and the crooked admin of a grifty “educational institution” are basically peas in a pod. Good grief. Is it 2021 yet?
11
This here's Miss Bonnie Parker. I'm Clyde Barrow. We rob banks.
This here's Ms. Betsy DeVoss and I'm Randall K. Barton and we rob students, taxpayers and the federal government.
At least, Clyde Barrow was honest about what he did for a living.
16
This corruption, and the harm to the public, is so sickening. How much more rot will be uncovered in this administration?
6
Let us pray: "Lord please welcome our accriditors [sic] into your grace, that they may grant retro accridation [again, sic] to our most humble and righteous subsidiary, that it may again profit from tax loopholes and educational lending programs funded by our evil government in support of our holy mission--to protect and preserve our ignorance."
Amen.
12
And deliver us from evil revenuers
2
Who is going to jail? Somebody? Anybody?
7
@Steve Ax Nobody.
2
Isn’t this all typical? What else can we expect from Betsy Devos? This is the new normal. No shame, just plain incompetence, greed. No shame
6
While we are at it; lets remove professional sports teams from public universities - 90% of them are HUGE money losers and are robbing the taxpayer dollars that should be used in the classrooms!
5
@Skeptic 488 But how would the wealthy get their spawn into colleges or universities?
4
Corruption aided and abetted by DeVos brought to you by the Republican Trump administration. Trump and his crooked cronies are stealing our country blind while he hides behind his false patriotism. Trump supporters actually believe he actually cares for them ... he stiffed his laborers and has lied to everyone of his wives. The sane and decent people like Mattis left and all for good reason ... Trump and his outfit are nothing but crooks.
3
Really? Not shocked she needs her fancy boats.
5
Pretty despicable: for profit schools in general. This abuse of the system under DeVos more so.
BUT: an example of why Sanders and crew "pay back of all higher education loans" is a truly moronic idea. It would only reqard these for=profit schools that should never even exist.
4
Talk about rigged systems! Trump and Co. are experts as corruption, predator kings of rigged systems.
5
Funny how DeVos answers to a boss who started and eventually sent a ‘for-profit’ University kaput...
7
Michigan natives know all about the DeVos family and their history with for-profit schools. By propping up these predatory schools, Betsy is just being a good sister/daughter and helping out with the family business...
7
Intellectually, morally and economically bankrupt.
Trump-GOP 2019
“ only the worst possible Administration....”
7
This smells from here to high heavens so the question is why are those known to be part of or assist in the deception have not been, at a minimum, charged or arrested. These egregious actions should be ideology blind and prioritized. Instead, we are given lip service and nothing happens.
8
Because it would require an ag that isn't a trump lap dog.
1
This goes beyond individual corruption, as there is an entire racketeering network at the Department of Education, created through a revolving door with industry, dedicated to putting ever-greater numbers of people into student loan debt and keeping them there by any means necessary. This network will stop at nothing: weakening accreditation, violating consumer protections, lying to Congress.
The nation's student loan crisis is in no small part due to the corrupt activities of this network, and will not be resolved until the network is broken up. Congress must not treat this an isolated occasion of perjury, but the tip of the iceberg.
7
The only thing that surprises me (in a good way) is that the emails from DeVos were actually obtained. This is a small miracle considering how opaque and unresponsive to FOIA requests the federal govt has been since 2016.
6
Investigative reporting like this is so much more illuminating than the usual condemnations of Trump's tweets, behavior and character.
8
More of the same with the Trump administration. Another cabinet secretary with little knowledge of what they are in charge of coupled with on-going attempts to enrich themselves and their associates. No big deal though....it's just our children's futures at stake.
1
Every cabinet member in the Trump administration was selected for their willingness to destroy the agency they lead, while injuring American citizens, and leaving taxpayers with the bill. Why anyone would vote for four more years of this is beyond me.
12
I think they should re-write the lyrics to their song.
We’ve got a friend in Trump
His ethics are down in the dump
We want more money — it's never enough
Too many regs made it way too tough
After so many scams
The Feds called our big bluff, but
Now, we’ve got a friend in Trump.
3
I work at a community college. We are always picking up the pieces and helping students who fell for one of scam-college that DeVos is helping. These young people get into heavy debt and get useless degrees and get tapped. Finally, they come to a community college to get a useful degree at a low price.
DeVos is doing so much harm to America.
17
That was the whole point of nominating her.
5
Now you know why Michigan schools went from about 27th in the country to 43rd. We are even lower when it comes to school funding levels where we are down 48th or 49th.Then there are the teachers salary's that have gone down 12%. DeVos funded state legislators have proudly accomplished this record. Oh yeah the roads are a mess. I could go on but it's depressing.
8
We are failing as a nation, everywhere.
This is but the latest example of greed triumphing over the common good.
6
There is no meaningful oversight when corporations and the richest control most of the government including the Supreme Court.
There is currently little hope for the American people or the country.
The American people are easily duped, and there are those like Mitch McConnell, Bill Barr, Donald Trump and complicit Republicans who are willing to betray the American people for their own gain.
4
We have an entire PUBLIC EDUCATION SYSTEM for which we pay taxes. Public education is THE bridge to success/middle class life/an elevated life for literally millions of Americans. Millions. Yet, the funding for this system is routinely cut at the state and federal level. Meanwhile our education department is working on behalf of a for-profit system with shaky accreditation at BEST. Cool, tell me more about how it's for enhancing consumer choice. Tell me more about how these additional choices with no educational merit or value are good for the market.
12
Public schools produce Democrats and private ones produce Republicans. Republicans became a minority Party early in the 20th century, mostly due to recent young immigrants who joined the Democratic Party. The Republicans try to weaken democracy and public institutions to retain their political power.
For over five years, it has been my thought that what is happening with colleges has some parallels to the house market that started the great recession. Like rising home prices, you can only jack up tuition so far before your customers balk at the price, even if they can get loans to make it work. At that point it becomes a house of cards. Just like the housing crisis, lack of responsibility from bad actors, along with a carelessly loose regulations have been major contributors to the problem. Yet here we are, again.
2
@Stew
Traditional Colleges and Universities are not profit making businesses trying to raise their stock prices to provide the governance with lucrative rewards, not even the most prestigious private schools.
The greed factor is strictly with the for profit institutions.
The cost of functioning in the contemporary world is expensive. Our automated systems give tremendous advantages with great convenience but it's very costly to establish and maintain. The better high education institutions are and must be very expensive to be useful. Unfortunately, this fact is not openly discussed as it should be.
Another mess caused by a business person in charge, bringing in business people to run agencies. They have huge conflicts of interest from being heavily invested in their businesses and being associated with others who have similar financial interests. Thus they make whatever decisions are most profitable for themselves and their cronies, not for the people or the country.
Many predicted De Vos would do just this sort of thing. Not surprising that the Pres, who set up a fake and failed "university", would bring in someone like her.
Business has a very important place in our country. But it must be controlled and regulated by government, not be in control of government and of de-regulation.
Bush & GOP deregulated businesses, which led to the 2008 crash. Trump's team of self serving deregulators will lead us there again.
We need a serious re-writing of the ethics and conflicts rules, with big teeth if someone violates them, and an agency enforcing them which cannot be influenced by a President or any elected politicians. We need absolute firewalls between business interests and politicians. GOP, always in the pocket of big business, will never do this. It will be left to the Dems to fix, whereupon GOP will scream that it's anti-business and un-American.
Vote for people who care about you and me, not for those who care mostly about themselves.
3
Why would the government guarantee any kind of loan for a for-profit business? Why on earth is the government involved in the student loan business at all, for-profit or otherwise?
6
Deregulate those businesses where there is power balance between competing entities. Education, heakth care, employment, etc must be regulated. Also - ‘things’ that we ALL need, but which a few can damage [air, water, open spaces - environment] must be regulated.
This Lady, Mrs DeVos, has nothing to do with education. She never had.
She, supported by almost all Republican arty, is all about Mrs DeVos's mission for benefiting her own organization and other for-profit institutions, besides infusing her version of Christian fundamentalism in American public education, which is already under serious threat from religious (mainly Christian and Evangelical) fundamentalism since Reagan era and now increasingly being mixed with white supremacy.
No wonder, basic literacy with more than 20 percent being "functionally illiterate", and, worse, science literacy in USA is now the worst among all 35 developed countries surveyed. Republican party seems to desperately need that spread of illiteracy and denying any meaningful education to promote its vote bank politics and influence of religion in electoral politics in the country to prop up "leaders" like Trump and many more.
5
And the corruption continues. Will it never end?
6
All the ways this administration is spending tax dollars on for profit services, rolling back regulations, enriching cronies and of course destroying the lives of average Americans caught up in these scandals and what do I read about today?
The move forward to eliminate Snap benefits for anyone not poor enough by Trump standards.
1
Megachurches should not be allowed anywhere near anything approaching education. And for-profit? Of course it was.
Something called “Dream Center” has no business enrolling students over the age of four and charging more than $25 per class.
But this is DeVos. And these are the Trump years. No decision is too insensible. No grifter is too bold in their greed.
5
No words. As a college student myself, I'm just incredulous at the mistakes this administration is making regarding education, and how DeVos never fails to disappoint. Unfortunately, it's going to be the younger generations and students that will have to pay for these mistakes..
5
A mistake would imply it was unintentional.
4
@Melissa
If you're stupid enough to go to these private colleges - especially one that looks like the one in the picture - you kinda deserve what you get.
At minimum, any private for profit college shouldn't be eligible for public loans. If you want a public loan (including VA loans) you should go to a public college.
Some preliminary questions: What is the name of Dream Center's controlling "Los Angeles-based megachurch"? ; Is it an evangelical institution? ; Are any of its leaders connected in any way with the Trump Administration? ; Has its leadership contributed to Trump's campaigns? I think that this story requires some additional investigative reporting. Where there's smoke there's fire or, in the case of this corrupt White House, a conflagration.
5
This story of yet more Trumpian slime and corruption, while it may be titillating and revelatory about the here and now, is not the Big Picture of the Trump/DeVos DOE. What this Dream Center crime represents is just a sliver of a full-on, long-term campaign to use DOE as one agent to dumb down vast parts of the American public by thwarting quality education from K through college, blunting development of skills that support career advancement, and suppressing and denying science and critical thinking. Do this in parallel with killing labor unions and what do you get? You get employees who cannot think analytically or critically, and can only become the docile and compliant labor force -- latter day serfs -- that the wealthy and their corporations dream of for their further enrichment. Toss in Trump's campaign to destroy the US Constitution and you only get to that goal faster.
The proof is right there in front of us: it is not the innovators, the educated, the strivers, the creative, or the risk takers who support Trump and his quest to destroy America for his twisted ego and personal gain. It is those who have already drunk his Kool-Aid.
3
The strategies of these "for profit" schools don't seem fundamentally different from the "welfare clinics" of the past - an organization taps into a funding stream/government contract and bilks it as much as possible. The only difference here is that the perpetrators are generally, white, rich, and evangelical Christians and so they get away with their criminality. Drain the swamp!
3
@Hector
The perpetrators aren't generally white rich or evangelical. The largest private college network is Laurents, and it has no religious affiliation or bent. It paid Bill Clinton $18 million for being its honorary chancellor.
What does anyone expect from De Vos and this adminstration. I'm surprised she hasn't resurrected Trump University. This corrupt administration would promote the University of Unicorns and Rainbows if it had been lobbied and promised campaign funding.
1
The only accreditation Ms DeVos requires for a tax payer paid bailout and subsidy is if the school is private, religious and a fraud. Why are my tax dollars going to pay for religious schools and Christian madrasa even when they pretend to be teaching a trade? Preaching is not a trade I want to invest in even if the best of them can con their followers to pay up for a private jet.
If DeVos wants to save or promote private educational scams, she can do it with her own money- she’s got plenty of it to waste- don’t waste my tax dollars!
3
There is no place for a profit motive in Education. Period.
4
Betsy DeVoss seems to think that her job is to maximize things in her own favor. It’s as though she thinks that anyone would do that and it’s ok.
She doesn’t understand anything other than pure selfishness.
3
Why are we putting people in charge of education that do not care about our children or education? DeVos and her crony Trump will not be satisfied until they pass the new federal law entitled, "Federal Official Rules Yielding Obliging Understanding" with the acronym being Federal Law FOR YOU. The new FOR YOU federal law's purpose is to promote Education and Instruction. All education will be allowed only on computers (this includes instructions that come with how to construct your new tricycle for your daughter) and you have to pay with a credit card to read the instructions, not included in the original purchase, or text book, or any instructional material of any kind, within so many minutes or the screen shuts off. Then you have to pay again to re-read or continue reading the instruction or educational or scientific material. Oops the screen shut off again. You have to pay again. All learning shall be reduced to a buy it by the minute computer screens. No money, no learning!
1
Betsy DeVos is a far right wing socialite who is totally unqualified for the role of Education Secretary. That is precisely why Donald Trump's oligarch puppet masters chose her for this role, and why the GOP Congress approved her nomination. Mitch McConnell wants all of the US schools to come down to Kentucky's level.
2
So typical of the Trump administration, isn't this? You take a President who is corrupt to his sole, who sees no value in being President other than enriching himself, he appoints people with major conflicts of interest, former industry lobbyists, people who haven't divested themselves of financial holdings, and no one should be surprised by the culture of corruption engendered. The swamp grows ever deeper and it seems only an anti-Republican uprising in 2020 can drain it down.
So, what's the bottom line here? Is Dream Center still in business? Still taking fed money ? How 'bout Argosy?
Whose idea was it that she should be Secretary of Education? Seriously! This administration wants to privatize everything in the interest of a handful of plutocrats. What's happened to our country?
2
The comments here are right on. I would just add that what DeVos is doing is emblematic of the overall "New Republican" strategy that is being consistently carried out by the current administration: hollow out the public coffers to subsidize corporate ventures across the board, including education. Other examples: outsourcing health care for Veterans, the subsidies to agriculture and finance built into our tax system. To keep is all going, in spite of public outcry, there's gerrymandered voting districts and judicial appointments heavily skewed to right-wing activist agendas.
29
Great! Next up: privatizing the global issuance of currency, under the benevolent control of Facebook. (Wait-- can we find a way to cut in the Megachurch guys?l
19
There has never been such a corrupt administration in the history of our country.
It's full of grifters, with the Grifter In Chief at the top. I cannot wait to see him leave our White House.
66
Obviously VH missed the Clinton crime syndicate. Bill and Hillary did nothing unless they received their piece. Why would a foreign government donate to their charity unless something was expected?
@Ross Burns
Stay on topic.
This article isn't about charitable foundations. It's about the misuse of public money given to for-profit universities that aren't properly accredited, ad how badly this has affected the students who got ripped off. This is a TRUMP scandal. Nothing to do with the Clintons. Why do Trump supporters always fall back on Hillary and Bill? Neither of them is President.
But since you insist on mentioning charitable foundations, how about that Trump foundation that was recently closed down because the Trumps were misusing the funds? Didn't see the Clinton Foundation being shut down, did we?
1
If you don't think that this is the swamp, I have a bridge to sell you.
54
This is a perfect Trump era story.
A church, incompetent at higher education, opened a chain of colleges for profit.
It expected it because Trump's Department of Education is run by a corrupt, incompetent Secretary, Betsy DeVos, who favors for-profit education, deregulates it, and makes it harder for students to get relief from bad student loans.
The church defrauded students, taking taxpayers' money to give out credits that were worthless.
Just the perfect storm of stupidity, greed, and a total lack of ethics.
94
@Jeremy
The majority of this fake school's fraudulent actions took place during the Obama administration. The school didn't start and fail in the last 2 years.
It wasn't helmed by Betsy de Vos when the Dept. of Education granted them accreditation as a legit school, when obviously it was not.
It wasn't lead by Trump's appointees when the VA promoted the school (and many others like it) to veterans. That all happened under the Obama, Bush and Clinton administrations.
Clinton, by the way, is a well known participant in the largest bogus for-profit school, Laureate, getting $18 million as an "honorary chancellor" for greasing the wheels in their quest for legitimacy https://www.vox.com/2016/9/7/12817676/laureate-education-bill-clinton-university
1
If I might summarize your comments...
Church is bad.
Trump is cause of all problems in the world.
I am smarter than you.
Next topic, please.
Everything you just said is correct
2
Oh. That song. Oh.
4
DeVoss has to go. She may be crooked but she is just plain a failure.
23
@Karn GriffenNot if your business is making money off of students.
I am shocked--SHOCKED--that our Betsy would do anything unethical. After all, she's a billionaire. And so is her brother Eric, the Prince of Darkness, whose XE Corporation is the world's largest source of mercenaries and other goons hired to kill on order...
61
Trump's blatant lies, crimes and childish statements are so ludicrous that they hide the damage that he and Stephen Miller have done to our every day government. Betsy DeVos, by all accounts unqualified for her position, has pushed the agenda of the silly for-profit schools. Is she the only one in America who doesn't see that she is an awful cabinet secretary?
17
How Betsy DeVos remains in office is inexplicable. She is deeply corrupt, but since she is unlikely to be caught sexually molesting anyone, she's likely to stick around; that seems to be the only basis for losing one's job in government these days.
33
The Department of Education under Trump appointee Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is aligned to serve not the public good but private business interests. Now comes this revelation identifying a specific example of government complicit in enabling corrupt business practices. Who is Betsy DeVos, we may well ask. She herself is a product of private schools, comes from a family of the billionaire class, her brother is Erik Prince who ran the notorious government contractors Blackwater. DeVos herself has donated money to an activist group who believe not all people can benefit from formal education and lobby to reform child labor laws making them less restrictive. This is the mindset that underlies the policies and agenda of the Department of Education under Betsy DeVos. One more shameful blot on America. As the Trump administration works to dismantle the democratic values that defined America.
27
@Rose. She is the product of private FUNDIE schools, which emphasize indoctrination into magical nonsense. They provide a poor education. She is a dominionist "christian" who is working to create a theocracy in this country, and is using her position at the Dept of Education to theocratize where she can, and generally destroy secular education in this country.
1
The theme of the Trump administration; greedy fat cats exploiting the masses to make America the most onerous Oligarchy. DeVos is among the worst.
22
Research conducted by @Kevin Kinser at Penn State and others (including me) reveals that although "for-profit" post-secondary institutions have been around for over 100 years, in the late 1990s a new type of for profit college or university appeared on the scene that was owned by a publicly traded, shareholder owned, Fortune 500-type corporation (the “Wall Street Era” of for-profit higher education). While comprising a relatively small share of the for-profit sector of higher education, the schools boasted enormous large enrollments, at their peak awarded around 5%-6% of _all_ bachelor’s degrees awarded each year in the U.S., and attracted huge volumes of capital as investors were drawn to them by the lure of large profits. The Obama administration cracked down hard on these schools after a series of scandals involving the schools abusing federal financial aid and circumventing legitimate accreditation regulations.The Trump administration, under Ms. DeVos, has either rolled-back or eliminated entirely almost all of the checks the Obama administration put into place.
And so the scandals have arisen once again. MAGA!
451
@cjprof2
Charter schools.
9
Greed, cruelty, corruption, and incompetence are the four horsemen of this apocalyptic administration—and hell on earth followed with them. I am a veteran with Post-9/11 G.I. Bill, but refuse to waste it on these cancers of education. They are more than happy to lie (everyone seems to lie now) and cheat and steal—though their students don’t cheat or lie and our reward is a worthless bunch of non-transferrable credits—thanks for nothing. Will you be taking my pension next?
38
@Daniel You are exactly the type of prospective student these schools sought to attract, largely because of the educational benefits (e.g., GI bill and related opportunities) available to ex-service members and those currently serving. The level of avarice of these vultures is, truly, mind boggling! Glad to hear that you did not waste your benefits -- good move on your part.
25
There’s still hope for a Trump University resurrection!
25
Meanwhile, public universities award degrees in subjects that result in students taking barista jobs at Starbucks. To add insult to injury, they could have $100,000 loans. How is this not worse than for-profit schools?
1
@Erik
Oh, because, um...the students may be happy? I have an undergrad in Modern Dance Performance. I could not make much money as a modern dancer for 24 years but not all of us are greedy looking for a life of only making cash. Some of us have souls that need to do something that does not just make money.
What have you done with YOUR life?!?
3
What’s worse? No education and owing $100,000 in student loans. That is what these student loan harvesting firms are doing.
By the way, most managers and administrators are not just graduates in technical and majors about managing things. They earned liberal arts degrees. And yes, STEM majors as well as law school grads do take low paying jobs before they get good ones.
3
Your pithy anecdote notwithstanding, there is hard research that shows the benefit of a college education on lifetime earnings
3
The same Dream Center, Los Angeles, uses anti-coagulant rodenticides which, through secondary poisoning, is killing our neighborhood’s community cats, raptors, and other wildlife here in Echo Park. They profess interest in switching to safer rodent control methods, and then fail to follow-up with this animal advocate. What’s going on with this organization? They raise huge amounts of money each year, but greed and disinterest abound. They can’t keep their own block clean, and it spreads outward in all they do. #DCNotTooBigToFail.
9
Trump hires only the BEST people to fill the swamp. Betsy DeVos is a good example of one of those hires.
17
Subsidizing a for-profit college by the US government using
taxpayers money by an administration that supposedly abhors
socialism. When does the hypocrisy end?
27
We (the tax payers) want our money back!
19
Just another day in the corrupt Trump cabinet...what do you expect from anyone appointed by this man?
18
Hey, if you can't make a dishonest dollar victimizing students, is life worth living?
22
Mr. Cariello (attorney for Dream) communicated that Mr. Johnson (DOE head of financial aid) “asked that I review the draw requests — there are a few we can’t have in there — bonuses and future rental payments were issues for him.”
Bonuses? To who? For what?
7
Let me get this straight: this school was a subsidiary of a mega church but was still run as a for profit enterprise? What is wrong with this picture?
45
@Kevin it was messy. Dream Center Education Holdings acquired a chain of for-profit schools and tried to convert them into nonprofit schools (the DOE gave that move a preliminary OK, but its final approval was still pending at the time the whole thing collapsed) — while still operating them with an eye toward making a profit that could in part be funneled back to the church.
Various legal and regulatory filings coming to light now show that the attempt did not go well, at all.
20
@Stacy Cowley
Is anyone being indicted for this illegal scheme?
2
By failing to declare and divest their assets into blind trusts you can't tell where the personal private interests of Donald Trump, Betsy DeVos, Steve Mnuchin, Wilbur Ross, Elaine Chao and Ben Carson end and the intetests and values of the American people and their Constitution begin.
17
Another reason why there is no excuse. . .Vote him and his minions out.
15
Associating Betsy DeVos with anything involving education is an oxymoron. This is just one more example of proof of that.
12
Why would a political appointee go out of her way to prop up a failing for-profit college industry that sells dubious college diploma's while ripping off students and taxpayers? The answer seems obvious: corruption.
25
Thank you NYT. There is a stench of rot that hangs thick in the air over this matter and it needs full congressional investigation, including careful examination of the Higher Learning Commission’s role in all of this. Did HLC really grant “retroactive” reaccreditation to a failed for-profit because of political pressure from the DeVos gang? Sickening if true. I don’t know why i continue to be surprised by anything this administration does. Totally corrupt.
15
The now quaint saying that a 'fish stinks from the head down' can be applied to not just most of Trump' cabinet appointees but ALL of them and Betsy De Vos leads this cavalcade of miscreants and grifters. Every cabinet post of this incompetent and criminal administration is the swamp personified.
12
What Donald Trump's administration has been trying to do since he took over the presidency is to turn Bedford Falls into Pottersville.
8
only the best and brightest. that just sounds wrong. the most inept,corrupt mega-money people are the best and DUMBEST. Sis we think this wasn't happening on a daily basis. Another scandal this week, what's next week ?
4
Corruption against the people, by our government officials that have special interests NOT the advancement of education or the country. Appointed and anointed by a person who should never have been given the reigns of govt. backed up by self serving GOP.
Why is anyone surprised and see this as news. This is what to be expected from our current govt. What a shame.
7
Ms. DeVos doesn't mind bending over backwards to help an unscrupulous for-profit school, whose chairman can't even spell "accridation," but her department can't be bothered to help defrauded student borrowers who were promised loan relief for public service. In this administration, all officials bow down to the god of Business Profit and laughs off the idea that they are there to serve the people.
13
In a separate article in The Times yesterday, it was noted that people who frequently know the least about a topic often have an attitude of knowing more than known experts in the particular field of study. I’m reminded of DeVos’ confirmation hearing debacle, and I’m not surprised by any stupid or corrupt thing the current DOE does. Is it just me, is the Trump swamp rising exponentially compared to previous administrations? I can see and smell it all the way here from Ohio....
4
Too bad my friend, a Republican and Libertarian, doesn’t get the NYTimes. Nobody out there in Republicanville gives a hoot that public schooling is being strip-mined while the inferior stuff is replacing it. Capitalism eats people for breakfast, lunch and dinner, who don’t believe in democracy but do believe in the so-called “free market.”
7
This further demonstrates that the current deregulated, overheated economy has invited and encouraged fraud, criminality, and incompetence. The never-ending distractions that are meted out to Americans on a daily basis via Tweets, rallies, sensationalized reporting, etc. are intended to mask the real fact that the public purse is being raided and Americans are being duped and robbed every second this administration remains in power. Continue to keep the blinders on at your (and your grandchildren's) peril.
302
@D Exactly.
Either vote Republicans out of office on November 3, 2020, or expect even worse along every front, as Mr. Trump's bad choices play out against everyday Americans.
50
An ironic aspect of this problem is that the students scammed by Trump University and the for-profit education industry tend to be Trump supporters. Maybe the old expression "you can fool most of the people most of the time but not all of the people all of the time" should be qualified with "unless they are MAGA files"
8
Having once taught at a for-profit college, I would advise anyone thinking of enrolling in one to STOP. Don't do it. The odds of your gaining anything worthwhile to improve yourself are slim to none.
The one I worked at 10 years ago advertised on TV heavily, promising high salaries for jobs as pharmacy techs, medical assts, corrections officers, etc. Most of the students were poor or foreign and sadly lacking in academic skills. They also believed the advertising--that once they were certified to be a dental asst or medical asst, the school would find them a job & they'd start off making $50K.
My 2nd year, I became subversive (after administrators forced teachers to sign NDAs). For a term paper, I had students findpotential employers and interview them about the job they wanted. A pharm tech student found out that Walgreen's trained their own techs who started out at minimum wage, no certification required.
I had a student in my freshman comp class who'd just graduated HS; she was illiterate. I spoke to the office about her & they insisted she'd sailed through her entry exams. My supervisor did everything to convince me not to fail her. (That's their plan--keep students until their financial aid money runs out). I failed her & next semester, she told me she was taking medical terminology!
Go to a community college. These overpriced for-profits put you in debt that you can't discharge, giving you nothing in return.
16
@Macktan
Foreigners get plenty in return - legal status and time.That gives them the opportunity to set up a life and dramatically increase their chance of obtaining a green card.
Most foreigners aren't as naive as you would like to believe. Yes, they lack skills, but they are extremely knowledgeable about how to get around rejection from immigration.
1
@Viv. Not from these schools, they don't. Most don't even graduate, but they've acquired a debt that will only increase over time.
As I said--go to a community college that is accedited and prepared to help its students, offering tutors and staffed homework centers. In many states now, community college is free to first time students.
I wouldn't advise anyone to get ripped off.
1
It would be an interesting exercise to see who owns those schools. I wonder if the DE Voss group is involved?
6
De Vos is an advocate for private highly profitable enterprises replacing non-profit educational institutions. Like her brother, she has a big fondness for having government serve as a cash cow for entrepreneurs looking for enterprises that collect rent from the public. What those clever business people do in return is just none of the public’s right to know.
14
Apparently, no one really cares.
Corruption and greed are the new American Dream.
12
@Grove
Nothing new here. The halcyon days of "sharing" capitalism were over by 1960--1980 -- and probably began only post the depression.. I don't know the history of this.
We may not have plantations and owners but we have economic enslavement all the same-- esp. in the various corrupt schemes worked up with banksters by many a president. Which president was responsible for the legislation that makes student loan non-dischargeable in bankruptcy? -- altho now it might be.
What else is new? Is the Grand Old Party still grand?
Another bunch of I got mine, now I want yours.
Is Mitch McConnell still electable? Only time will tell
8
First rule of business....never use your own money. These are tax payer dollars loaned to tax payers. I wonder what the federal tax rate is for most of the investors of these “for profit” schools? I wonder if they would let their own children attend their “for profit” school?
3
And you know what will happen? Nothing. Not a thing. Nothing.
Corruption is not the exception to the norm in this administration. Corruption is the norm.
Ir starts at the top.
Trickle down corruption.
12
@Paul McGlasson, agreed. With DeVos at the top of Dept of Ed, Trump in the President's seat and the GOP in charge of the Senate and Supreme Court it will be tough to foresee any sort of action being taken beyond giving the for profits even more freedom to bilk students and the taxpayer.
6
The knee jerk reaction is easiest here and the irony is that much in it is accurate. However, missing the details and schematic fails to focus on where things need to change.
Both sectors of the “education industry” are corrupt, morally bankrupt and lacking in accountability and leadership. But not everyone in all these institutions and businesses are individually culpable.
For profits are the worst offenders and easiest targets but non profits benefit from the distraction in that sector for own deceptions, lies and immoral behavior.
Not for profit institutions benefit from branding, self promotion and a paradigm that insures their existence and often ability to flourish. Their hierarchy and branding is the envy of organizations world wide. What better “stamp of approval” can anyone achieve than the moniker of “they are the Harvard of [fill in the blank]”. There is none -“Harvard” is the Ultimate brand. And they do not dissuade anyone from this perception.
For years I worked on recruiting assignments in the for profit sector. I became familiar with the players, landscape, methods and accusations against them. The best unintentional joke they would make was to complain about Federal regulation. However, they were blissfully ignorant of the hypocrisy since their “profit” came from the government. They’d accept students they knew didn’t have the financial wherewithal to repay loans or the intellectual capability to complete course materials. It was predatory.
3
@TrumpTheStain sure, not-for-profits can improve, but in general they do not have a repeated track record of going bankrupt, accepting substandard students and not providing a worthwhile education.
3
Another corruption at the Department of Education Agency under Betsy desVos. Outright lying at a Congressional Hearing by Ms. Jones and her representation of the Dream Center. How unusual.
And the poem "We've got a Friend in Trump" is so true. He is the friend of anyone who has money and donates to his coffers.
God knows that the rich need protection. What would they do without Trump at the helm.
Another disguising chapter in this Administration.
8
Since these "colleges" wouldn't exist at all without government loans, whatever happened to Betsy DeVos' hatred of socialism?
It's also amusing to note that an Obama-era attempt to make these money mills at least minimally accountable -- that is, provide a return on students' investment, to qualify for government money -- was eliminated by Betsy DeVos.
The free market is *so* great, when your snout is in the public trough and lobbyists run the government....
8
A fish rots from the head down. Why would anyone be surprised when DeVos is the Education Secretary, that these type of things happen.
However, now that I think about it, Trump is the head of the rotten fish. His promise to only get the "best" people is such a farce that it would be funny, if not so serious.
DeVos and her hires need to go. She is the next Secretary to show Trumps true colors. Who's next? The Secretary of Energy or Housing? Oh well, not big deal. There's an ex-lobbyist that can always be named "Acting" Secretary so they don't have to face questions from Congress.
4
It seems the owners of these for-profit “schools” wanted the government to bail them out after they had fleeced students, lost accreditation, and ultimately failed. They wanted a $75 million bailout? They wanted bonuses? For fleecing and failing? What gets me is they expected a tax-payer funded bailout to pay those bonuses. The corruption is astounding. How very Christian.
8
As soon as it was known that "Dream Center Education Holdings, a subsidiary of a Los Angeles-based megachurch, had no experience in higher education when it petitioned the federal Education Department to let it take over a troubled chain of for-profit trade schools....(and also that)... the organization’s chairman, Randall K. Barton, told the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, that the foundation wanted to “help people live better lives.” at that point the purchase should have been denied and all requests for financing denied.
There needs to be a criminal inquiry to determine how this fraud was perpetrated on the taxpayers. Certainly there is enough blame to go around to the Church, Dream Center, and the offices of Ms. DeVos. Did Ms. DeVos deliberately and knowingly mislead Congress? Who were the Church and College officials involved and what funds were distributed to them? Who profited.
We know that the students and the taxpayers lost. Equally corrupt or at least morally bankrupt are the rules that allow accreditation to be retroactive. It may have been beneficial to students but it was fraudulent financially in regard to liability and responsibility. It was a corruption of the accrediting process to allow retroactive status.
It also seems that because Dream Center was purchased by a church that Ms. DeVos and her underlings were acting because of their view that a Christian related college should be given financial assistance because it was assistance to a church.
7
Government for the rich, by the rich and of the rich shall not perish from this earth. This may be, not actually the "country", what progressives actually "hate".
4
A valuable lesson about valueless lessons.
7
I'd say the students did indeed get an education, though not the type they were seeking.
9
Medicine and education are two vital areas of society in which profit should have no part. Both are complex, labor intensive undertakings which are of too great importance to leave to people whose first interest is their financial gain.
The abysmal record of many for-profit “universities” should make regulators doubly wary
7
What is missing from this story? The name of the megachurch would helpful. The other missing element is how much the megachurch profited?The students wanted a better life and the megachurch wanted better profits. The two ideas are juxtaposed. When will the public realize that megachurches use religion to rob people of their hard earned money? Now they are also robing people of their dignity and ability to improve themselves.
9
@Barconti we went into a lot more detail on the church in a previous story -- here's the link. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/business/argosy-college-art-insititutes-south-university.html
The parent organization of Dream Center Education Holdings is the Dream Center Foundation, which operates the Los Angeles Dream Center and an affiliate network.
5
Barconti
I don’t know the name of this mega church. I did look into Liberty University awhile back because it is a Trump supporter.It is an Evangelical University run by Jerry Falwell Jr. They make their money not on the brick and mortar campus but on the on-line university. It is described like some of these for profit schools. The students are less educated and think because it says Christian School it has to be okey. Many don’t finish school and owe money they can’t afford to pay. Makes me sick.
4
The name of the church is Dream Center.
1
Well it’s not as if making false statements to Congress carries a penalty. Republicans can’t govern.
6
What a surprise! I’m shocked by this news. Our governmental agencies doing something nefarious? Say it isn’t so, Joe. Say it isn’t so.
If this article were about student loan debt and how many students struggle to pay back their loans, the comments section would be filled with ‘angry taxpayers’ mad about someone getting something for free. Now that the taxpayer is holding aloft a corporation, not so much. Maybe comments sections aren’t really reflective of Joe or Jane Q. Public’s real opinions.
3
The student debt for all of the students at this DeVos boondoggle should be forgiven. They should have full access to these funds if they wish to enroll in some other school. They should also have access to information and counseling about non-profits that teach the skills they are seeking. Unfortunately they can't be given back to time they lost on this fraud.
4
@Kim
Their loans should be paid out of DeVos’ personal fortune.
11
@Stuart
Great idea!
And it should come out of the Trump/DeVos pocket. Seems unfair to get this from middle class taxpayers, particularly since ‘smart’ people don’t pay taxes according to the Auditor-in-Chief.
1
Surprise surprise, another Trump cabinet member who lied to Congress. Not one of them seems to possess a conscience, a heart, or a soul. Their motivation stems from greed. When will they be gone?
6
@PJ and their supporters are right on board. This will receive zero coverage on Fox, Breitbart, etc., and those supporters will agree with what DeVos' team says in the article - that the students were given a chance to "land on their feet" - maybe from 20 stories up perhaps.
2
The bottom line is that the for-profit education movement has always been an investor vulture preying on (by definition) ignorant and naive people, and increasingly dependent on government subsidies paid for by the American taxpayer. When De Vos got in, the treasury vaults were opened wide to cynics and liars disguising themselves as moral crusaders. Even so, these so-called "educators" got too greedy and couldn't avoid collapse.
For more than twenty years they have been pounding away at public education. It will take at least that long to restore faith in American values and education.
4
As Ms. DeVos knows, a con artist can't con someone who isn't willing to be conned. Amway is all about that. She clearly used her position to do just what her boss, Donald Trump has been doing for years: stick it to the taxpayers. The American government has infinitely deep pockets and can subsidize the wealthy with tax breaks and with selective oversight.
6
Fire sale! Everything's on the block! Students' dreams only 2 cents on the dollar! Step right up!
7
This is corruption, pure and simple, and it's only an "issue" because the college(s) failed spectacularly. Without failure they would continue to overcharge and undereducate people on the government's dime (if not bankrupting students with outrageous loans).
DeVos is the face of for-profit education, so this is a scandal.
This is precisely why we need free community colleges, public schools to provide training in high tech and healthcare skills. I've taught in community colleges and for-profit schools, and there really is no comparison (the for-profit schools were a sham).
246
@Jorge
Predatory capitalism at its finest.
Unfortunately, these people control most of the government and are rigging everything to their own benefit.
MAGA
34
Trump provides the evidence that Republicans took a wrong turn with Reagan, despite how popular he was. His habits of mind were so determined by his career in entertainment that his critical thinking was shallow and he often preferred what he liked over what reason would indicate was the better way. His shallow appreciation of our public institutions and his careless appreciation of private ones led to choices which got us here. Trump really does represent the ignored but consequential result of their policies since 1980.
19
@Jorge
From what I read in the paper-- felony murder-- people better have training in law. I wonder how many might not eschew stepping over certain boundaries (what I'll call blue collar crime ) if they knew what the results might be.
BTW we also need people to do all those unglamorous jobs... which doesn't mean that people shouldn't want or be encouraged to study whatever. (Coursera, Udacity, EdX -- free courses online. I took bookkeeping for fun.)
3
When these institutions fail, the students are on the hook for the entire amounts of the loans which these businesses lost to insolvency. The owners are forgiven their debts in bankruptcy courts with creditors receiving a fraction of their money, but the U.S. government does not allow the borrowers to resolve their student loans debts in bankruptcy court.
The Department of Education has a fiduciary responsibility to it’s owners, the citizens, to assure that businesses which take their owners’ money through student loans are not taking the money and running at the costs of the Department’s owners. De Vos seems to think that citizens are enemies of freedom because they require businesses to follow regulations like courts require them to fulfill the terms of contracts.
45
@Casual Observer. The US government under Republicans doesn’t give a damn about these student losses or about these students. Indeed, it doesn’t care much about anyone or anything that doesn’t make a profit. The Republican Senate considers workers to be a good source to mine for money. And so far they are getting away with it under cover of “hate thy neighbor” or at least impoverish them first!
2
What makes anyone think that all universities and colleges are not for profit institutions regardless of their tax status? The student/administrator ratio has doubled in the past 30 years in most universities. And those administrators are well paid, unlike the adjunct teaching corps.
As to accreditation, the University of Alaska's Education Department was deemed unfit for renewal in 2018. The same process described here -- transferring credits to another accredited campus -- was used to "protect" students. Students whose education must be suspect given the lack of accreditation.
7
@Jumank in general, "for-profit" means there's someone other than the employees who's profiting
3
They are what they have shown themselves to be and have for centuries. Quit talking like a salesman trying to sell a turkey failing product line.
@Jumank it's not what anyone thinks, it is what it is. Look up the definition of for-profit and not-for-profit. Also research the loss or lack of accreditation rate for the non-profit and for-profit schools. No comparison.
1
These institutions are not genuine colleges nor trade schools nor even good training programs. They are businesses modeled to collect student loan money. There are not any Federal Laws that assure that when these firms receive the loans money that they are required to perform beyond depositing the funds in the firms’ bank accounts. Once they do, the borrower is on the hook with no way out. The borrowers may sue for breach of contract but they still must pay back the loan.
83
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the article,. The nyt called these for-profit TRADE schools. I don’t think college is for everyone but I do believe in free trade schools for everyone. The only thing that makes sense is to tack on two years onto high school or a two-year to
trade/technology school to encourage the trades as excellent career opportunities. Community college as they are currently designed to provide some career opportunities, but there are not community college that specialize in trades, a which would function as a natural transition from high school that leads directly to the career opportunities.
11
@Sandy, Just Curious, my old high school used to turnout trade-ready students in a variety of construction and mechanical fields. It was part of high school, not a separate course. Students, even non-college prep students, are ready for a lot more learning than many of today's dumbed-down curricula offer. For proof, look at some of the 8th grade texts from 150 years ago that are available online. One wonders if today's high school graduates, never mind many college students, could comprehend them. (The same could be said about the Mueller report, which, while dense, legalistic and formal, is highly comprehensible to literate people who take the time to read it.)
10
@Sandy, Just Curious
Actually, the NYT called these "troubled" or "failing" for profit trade schools. While we certainly need proper training for career opportunities in the trades, these schools don't seem to be succeeding at that.
@Sandy, Just Curious many of the former EDMC schools acquired by Dream Center were vocational schools, but for pretty specific kinds of trades.
The Art Institutes focused on creative careers. Other schools in the chains included law schools and master's programs in areas like social work and psychology; there were also some fairly traditional undergrad programs in the mix.
2
“I will hire only the best people.”
The best at destroying public education and pimping for failed for-profit “”schools.”
The best at destroying the environment.
The best at destroying decent healthcare for millions.
The best at coddling America’s enemies and alienating its allies.
The best at eliminating a woman's right to choose.
The best at putting children in cages.
The best at lying and hypocrisy.
The best at welcoming white nationalists.
The very, very best at turning America into a third-world autocracy by destroying all norms of decency, civility and democratic process.
De Vos is just an ice cube in a glacier of greed, incompetence, illegality, hypocrisy and impropriety. Please, voters, remember this and show up in 2020.
291
@Avatar We showed up in 2016 and look what happened. The Republican party has gamed the system. Trump will likely lose the popular vote again in 2020 but win the presidency. We're the only country in the world with an "electoral college." Maybe after 250 years it's time to get rid of it and make other pro-democracy changes.
3
@BPS Yup. But too many stayed home. Disaffected Bernie voters among them. I figure it will take 60% of the popular vote to overcome the GOP rigging. And whoever the Democratic candidate is, we need to support her/him.
5
If find it "interesting" that Randall Barton sent a July 3, 2018 email using the word "accriditors"...twice!
This so-called "College" administrator can't even properly spell "ACCREDITORS". It's no wonder they failed. Everything Trump touches, fails. Even a gambling casino! js
114
@Phil That caught my eye as well. Seems the only thing worth doing properly with this bunch (from trump down) is gaming the system.
4
Word. That was the first thing I noticed, too.
@Observer
The system is our system, the entities being gamed are us.
Another fun episode of Christian morality.
135
@Joe Nihom De Vos and her brother Eric Prince are part of the swamp!
8
The solar panel maker, Solyndra, was championed by Obama and received a Federal loan guarantee, but eventually went bankrupt. Even though the bankruptcy rate for companies involved in such above board programs (another one is loans by the Import Export Bank) has been analysed and is no greater than for businesses in general (2-4%); Republicans have always said they were against the government "picking winners and losers".
And yet each and every cabinet position of the Trump Administration has been thoroughly behind "picking winners and losers" - mostly for Trump's cronies, and his cronies' cronies. For the Dept. of Education, it's DeVos' cronies. For the Dept. of Energy, it's Rick Perry's coal company subsidies. And of course there's the Dept. of the Interior (ranchers and fossil fuel companies), the FDA, the EPA and anything that touches Wilbur Ross.
The ultimate victims are the taxpayers and our environment.
43
Yes, terrible the way the government wastes money on unprofitable technologies, trying to pick winners. It should leave it to Wall Street. You know like how the railways were developed, and air traffic, and miniaturization of computer electronics.
Read your history and try to grasp the purpose for patents and copyrights. Innovative technologies are never profitable, initially. Our country developed it’s high tech economy with government support, since the country began. Investors do not accept the risks of investing in big endeavors with no history from which to calculate risks.
2
Trump’s administration mocks the public as a bunch of losers who lets them fleece them. It’s pretty clear that that is what is going on.
3
I agree with you.
But that anti-government, privatization instead, group of advocates never seem to bother to learn how we have gotten to where we are, now.
1
Mr. Trump and his group of best people allowed Ms. Devos
to prop up a string of fake universities.
We were warned at her senate hearing when she couldn’t
give a plausible answer to a question about growth and proficiency of a student.
I’m sure there were administrators, educators and parents,
who rolled their eyes when they herd Betsy’s answer.
Ask the people of Michigan? She had a hand in education
and it’s collapse there!
Retroactive Accreditation ? Did Betsy make that one up too?
33
@The Chief from Cali Betsy, the deer in the headlights.
Only the best.
The headline for this article on the front page of the site is "Education Department Had Hand in College Chain's Collapse, Documents Show". That makes it sound like the Education Department made the chain collapse on purpose. It's misleading since the malfeasance described in the article is not that the Department pushed the chain to collapse, but that it illegitimately tried to prevent the chain from collapsing under the weight of its own misdeeds.
13
@Daniel Boyd
Not really that big a difference; but thanks for reading the whole article. Actually, as we read in the FIRST PARAGRAPH, the DOE allowed the organization, which had no educational experience, to take over the chain of "colleges". So the departement had a hand in creating a situation that ended in failure, despite its crooked attempts to forestall it.
9
I agree that the title was misleading.
@Don Jones yup, that was why we felt the headline was fair.
we didn't include this part in this story (we've mentioned it in past ones), but Dream Center had previously (during the Obama administration) made an attempt to acquire a different, equally troubled for-profit chain, ITT. The Education Department made it clear to Dream Center that it was very unlikely to approve that, and Dream Center abandoned the effort.
But under Secretary DeVos, Dream Center got a fresh shot and got the agency's OK to take over EDMC, despite its complete lack of industry experience. As regulator, the Education Department is responsible for paying attention and erecting safeguards when it sees red flags, which there were here.
13
Best intentions, I guess. Greed for sure. Incompetence-based learning. GOP values laid bare.
21
So it's socialist to use tax dollars to help students attend state universities. But it's the American way to funnel those tax dollars into dubious for-profit schools.
Perhaps Ms. DeVos, who's so sure that for-profit education is the future, would be willing to ante up some of her billions to pay back the American people? Didn't think so.
104
De Vos has zero background in education or real business ...geez the only thing they have done is Amway. Now the fake colleges are finally closing ,but how many folks have had their money ...and the gov’t loans ...go down the drain. She is one of the “ brightest “ we got from trump.
28
@Bob Bode
...and, Amway is a pyramid scheme, and an extremely creepy one at that.
3
@Bob Bode
Lets be clear - Betsy DeVos didn't even do Amway or Prince Auto Parts - she merely was born to wealthy parents and married another wealthy person who also didn't do anything but be born to become wealthy. So these people are parasites that haven't had to earn anything in their lives to arrive at their station.
3
@Bob Bode how did that jerk get so far up the chain in Amway?
1
Things could be worse. Say I had just finished serving my full 18 month sentence and on the day of release was told that the for profit prison where I had been incarcerated had actually lost its accreditation 18 months ago. Sorry, fella, your time served doesn't count. We're transferring you to an accredited prison in an adjacent state so you can start all over again.
13
Betsy de Vos must be 'proud' as secretary of education, overseeing corruption in action...under her tutelage. How low can it go, while students are being cheated 'a la Trump'?
16
This is precisely how a Friedman U Chicago boys economic system is designed to work.....Government is transformed into a laissez faire empty shell and extreme power is handed to corporations to fully control and exploit and enslave the common population! This is Republican and blue dog Democrats following the Friedman playbook.
Once the Friedman plan collapses the entire Democratic system, the most authoritarian and feared dictator takes over....or in the case of other countries, the dictator is selected by the CIA and world bank and backed by the US military.
Betsy DeVoss is precisely what Friedman would want to head a government agency: rich, White, completely incompetent, and totally opposes majority Democracy.
59
The Chicago School received a lot of money from wealthy capitalists. You have to consider their need to persist affecting what they produce.
5
Friedman preached for free markets, how he did it ignored the fact that his vision of free markets never worked since the first textile factories became profitable. The way corporations dominated markets distorted them from being free, he did not like that.
5
Judging by the emails, some of these "educators" can't even spell "accreditation." Pity the young people.
43
This is shameful. Profits over people, again and again.
30
That is Naked Unregulated Capitalism.
2
Betsy Devos, owns Amway. nuf said.
46
@mungomunro Amway was adjudicated in Canada to be a direct-selling Ponzi scheme.
10
@Big Ten Grad Very similar to the Trump administration.
3
The government has no right to became entangled with private profit oriented schools.... DeVos really should resign and allow a true educator steer this department
39
First, DeVoss should be impeached.
Then she should be imprisoned.
71
@Richard the teach the inmates how to sell Amway .
Uber-Christian DeVos helping a megachurch fleece as many students as possible for as long as they can get away with it? Christians lying to others for profit? Christians in government helping Christians retroactively cover their crimes? Nah.
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@JL22 Michigan farmers have a saying, “Never trade horses with a man who tells you right off he’s a Christian.”
23
Just another sordid tale from this corrupt and incompetent administration.
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For profit means FOR PROFIT. It means that the objective is to make money. Is this hard to understand? Or hard to extrapolate from?
A for profit college has the same ultimate goal as a candy maker or a paint company - to make money.
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@Terry McKenna It was a bust out scam nothing more then that.
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@Terry McKenna
Making a profit is fine. Not delivering a product one has paid for is immoral and illegal.
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@Terry McKenna -- Do you have a point other than point out the obvious? Profit paid by taxpayers, profit unregulated by the government, profit with conflicts of interest, profit without providing results. It's called corruption.
4
Admit nothing, deny everything. Just like their ultimate boss, DeVos and Jones "stand firm" in their denials despite documented evidence to the contrary.
Protecting their own reputations superceded any concern for the thousands of students who were out not only their tuition but their time and effort in the credits that could no longer be transferred.
I challenge Congress to find those few political appointees of this administration who HAVEN'T acted contrary to the objective of their roles. That would truly be a snipe hunt.
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Our national education figures are skewed by "graduation" figures from these exploitive credentialing mills as well as from older "colleges" which accept and graduate anyone who fills out loan papers.
The "graduates" of such sad places pay their large fees and get a "degree" that required no intellectual application, much like Trump University.
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This level of corrupt incompetence starts at the top. The people he picks, the policies he adopts, the lies he tells. It's a pattern.
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No doubt Trump University would of be given a "go" under DeVos.
That said, many students like those represented in the article and like those of University of Phoenix prey upon former members of the Arms Forces knowing a major portion of their costs are government subsidized. The dreams of so may are based on promises not kept. That is why under the previous admnistration those private "universities & colleges" with graduation rates of less than 10% were eliminated from "GI Bill" funding.
That changed under Trump, in part because many donated money to his campaign.
What has become of America where the government allows private schools to scam our Soldiers, Marines, Navy and Air Force personnel who deserved every opportunity for self advancement after serving in Iraq or Afghanistan..or both. Disgusting and Abhorrent!
34
This just demonstrates the deep hypocrisy of the republicans. If there is a buck to be made (ie scammed) it doesn’t matter whether it’s off a veteran, a grandmother, or a disadvantaged youngster. They talk of “values”, yet they circle like buzzards over anything or anyone they can exploit.
2
If Betsy DeVos was appointed by a democratic president would this news item matter to republicans?
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@PK A democratic president would appoint a qualified person not somebody like Ms. DeVos, who, like your president values the acquisition of money over education.
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Probably not, since her clear policy is to undo public institutions in favor of profit making enterprises as are Republicans.
4
Why didn't Betsy DeVos and the Dream Center leadership turn to Donald J Trump. He, and he alone, knows how to run a university like a business. After all, he was a pioneer in non-elitist higher education at Trump University.
I wonder, what ever happened to Trump University?
32
So is this “Los Angeles-based mega-church” bankrupt? Surely they’ve set up a bankruptcy remote relationship with their investment to distance themselves from the downside... yet they retain their not-for-profit status.
Why should the church not absorb their own loss from poor business choices?
The federal funds should have gone to the misled students reimburse them for tuition wasted (sadly it wouldn’t make up for their lost time in a mis-run education system).
28
Steal millions in loans and disappear into the night. No one follows. Steal a cigarette from a convenience store and get shot in the back. There is no justice in this banana republic anymore
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@Andrew
Or sell "loosies" and get choked to death! But DeVos and Diane Jones are WASPs.
5
“Only the best and the brightest” continue to dim our nation’s prospects. Trumpian myopia (of both the cultish leader and his devotees) doesn’t allow for this great nation to provide basic necessities to our young people including a solid educational foundation. Harmful deregulation, cheap credit, a fevered stock market, idiotic tweets, and a fundamental lack of care for the greater good do little but pad the overflowing pockets of the malefactor in the White House and his ultra-wealthy cronies including the purported Secretary of “Education.”
15
Fraud, lying to Congress. Where are the indictments?
27
Seems like a proper activity for the new Know Nothing party to support know nothing schooling. Must help them understand climate change.
11
Put someone who has no idea what delivering education is all about and this is what you get. DeVos is as misplaced as a fish out of water, but she thinks she's got it. The one thing she thinks she knows about education is that private corporations and religious organizations can't miss. They are the wave of the future. So just because most of these private education efforts go under, DeVos hangs in their shelling out our tax dollars with no one to stop her. It takes years of education, training and natural talent to be a good educator; something DeVos and crew know nothing about. Like Trump, hire anyone off the street to fill those classrooms and you can't lose.
17
Is anyone surprised? Another day, another Trumpian scandal that will rapidly disappear. Put a venal, incompetent, immoral man in the White House who surrounds himself with venal, incompetent, immoral people and there is no possible outcome other than a thoroughly corrupt, self-dealing, incompetent and immoral government. Don't expect to hear any condemnation of Trump and his cronies from those on the Right still blithering about Solyndra.
15
Everyday I cry. Everyday there seems to be another insidious tentacle of a corrupt billionaire infiltrating another government agency to work against the commoners.
24
The song? "We've got a friend in Trump". Really? This article should have started out with that. Unbelievable!
16
More Trump corruption. The swamp is overflowing.
18
Retroactive accreditation? It’s Orwellian to the core. For profit colleges, for profit penitentiaries, Social Security pushed into the stock market? How do these things happen when a stable genius picks the best people? Didn’t he have his own highly successful university?
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@Bobbogram He did (I hope you realize I am joking) until the state of New York shut it down and reached an out-of-court settlement with him.
29
@Bobbogram
According to Randall Barton (who probably learnt his English from one of the Dream schools), it's "retro accridation" and "accriditors", something perhaps entirely different.
1
Diane Jones? Lock her up!
26
Betsy...oh, Betsy...where are you, Betsy...heavens to Betsy...
17
Disgusting.
19
DeVos gave support to failing non-accredited, for-profit colleges? Shocking! Who would have thought?
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As an academic at a non-profit university, it has always mystified me why anyone would attend a for-profit college. I guess I could understand if the institution offered a specialized program that no others could match in its region, but it's hard to imagine many of these cases.
Any students who attend for-profits have set themselves up as old-fashioned marks. The fact is that these "for-profit" students should know the severe risks by now, and if they insist on going that route, perhaps they should ask themselves why they are going to "college" at all.
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@Tom, people do all kinds of odd things. E.g., why going to a for-profit college is any better or worse than going to church and to believe in God?
8
I think many that chose these for profit colleges don’t have enough experiences or guidance in how to pick a college. These colleges prey on people’s ignorance and strong desire to improve their life through getting a degree.
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@Tom Even my students, future teachers at a private (non-profit) in New York, are only just learning that there is such a thing as a for-profit private college. They tell me they thought the schools "that advertise on TV" were vocational or trade colleges. I wouldn't blame the victims, period, but in this case, Tom, you might be expecting those with the least amount of knowledge about higher education to have an grasp they don't have. Many (around 50%) are first generation college students: https://pnpi.org/first-generation-students/#
25
The boldness of business in its ongoing cannibalization of education is incredible. If people think state universities are exempt, they're mistaken. The impoverishment of teachers part-timed and without benefits or raises for decades was just the start. Now students are here "to be tooled for the marketplace," finance directors are made university presidents, the "student experience" is a consumer-pleasing exercise for profit. And more to come, as corporate "providers" use universities as shells under which to plug in to the federal ATM. But that's the game they play with every public institution they can undermine and possess. So when "there's no money" for a safety net (already pitiful) or emergency aid or other needs of a decent nation, don't be surprised. Leeches, really, leeches and locusts, bottom to top.
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@jb
Add hospitals, the military (think blackwater, another company associated with DeVos), prisons, and migrant detention centers to the list of institutions being privatized. These companies are in it for one thing and one thing only; a revenue stream that is all but guaranteed with cronies handling the "oversight". When something goes awry, there is no accountability only more tax money diverted to
276
@jb Also, state taxpayers' funds are used to employ private recruitment firms for pubic colleges, at high expense with pie-in-the-sky promises. If taxpayers stopped thinking public:bad private:good they might at the very least realize that they don't get value for their tax dollars with privatization of public goods.
27
@jb
The problem is worse than you think. High Schools are now graduating students who are unprepared for college. Many high school graduate will spend his first two years in college doing what they should have done in high school and the for profit colleges are waiting for them.
30
I am always amazed how many people never seem to consider that their emails will come to light.
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@redweather
It comes with the sense of unmitigated privilege, and besides, even when made public, until people start being prosecuted for deliberate malfeasance, who cares? Although such failed educational institutions have devastating consequences for the students, there are none whatsoever for the likes of DeVos. That has to change.
8
Are we going to hear any comment from the accrediting organizations for legitimate higher education in the nation? Or are they going to continue to ignore and enable the total collapse of any standards in higher education? Thank you, New York Times for excellent reporting on this issue.
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@Clyde Ingle
I’m curious what it took for these schools to lose their accreditation. And then what steps they supposedly took to almost earn it back. Does anyone know? This seems a crucial part of the story in terms of what was happening at the educational level.
2
"....While we did not achieve a perfect outcome, our actions helped thousands of students land on their feet.”
Good Lord. Is there no end to this administration's lying? Is everyone in on this kind of factual denial?
Who picks up the tab for all those (even fake) degree-less students who owe banks thousands of dollars now? Who goes to jail? Who gets fined? Who is even subjected to a hearing?
Imagine a Trump cabinet meeting with every secretary holding a mirror up to each other.
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@Just Old Bob the answer to the question "who picks up the tab" is often "the students, and taxpayers."
If a student's school closes while they're enrolled (before they complete their degree), they can have their federal loans for their studies written off & discharged. Taxpayers eat the loss. But any private loans they have remain, and any cash they paid for tuition doesn't get refunded.
So both the students and taxpayers are often out thousands of dollars for studies that the student didn't get to complete.
27
@Just Old Bob
A quick no-frills answer to your question is NO.
1
With an Education Department led by people who ran for profit “schools”, a President who had a bogus “University”, a government that believes making money supersedes all - including honesty, and religious institutions trying to influence the government despite the separation of church and state, is anyone surprised?
This is as much news as Trump lying or cheating on his wife.
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@PKF
Yes, but we should pay attention nonetheless.
27
@PKF
But still very much needs to be reported and included in accounts documenting the utter corruption and incompetence of this administration filled with grifters.
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@The Poet McTeagle
Yeah but how about someone actually DO something about it.
10
For profit schools are about money in the pockets of management not about education. I laugh at anyone to blind to see that.
22
@sahara bing
Consider, though, that these "schools" prey on people who don't have (what I assume to be) your educational background.
That is, they prey on the poor and the disadvantaged. As do bail-bond companies, as do junk-food manufacturers, as does the Republican party.
4
Foul. This situation, aided and abetted by the Federal government, promoted theft from the Education department to a for profit higher education business to stay afloat. The payola must be fantastic. Why would anyone support these businesses which are known for their corruption? Well, because of the payola. The GOP is part of this scam. Unconscionable behavior. Our business ethics take another strike from a knowingly corrupt government entity managed by Betsy DeVos,
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And the right and too many Democrats say we cannot afford to make public colleges tuition free. But they'll gladly look the other way when for-profit schools are "[helping] people live better lives." Right.
Young Americans want to improve their lives through higher education, not make the friends of Betsy Devos more money.
We all have a vested interest in a well educated citizenry, individuals who can contribute to the economy and make informed decisions about the nation's future. But this should be done through opportunities to attend actual colleges and universities, not more off shoots of Trump University.
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@avrds
Au contraire!
The right has a vested interest - certainly a political interest - in an uneducated citizenry. A lack of education tends to make people more gullible and more likely to vote against their own best interests.
It's not that educated people are inherently smarter, it's that they've been given the tools to think an issue through critically. Well, some of them anyway. I'm sure there are educated people who believe DJT.
34
@celia
Point taken, but that is the point, isn't it?
The country benefits from having an educated citizenry. The GOP, not so much.
11
@avrds True--even though these students end up with overwhelming debt, the taxpayers are paying for these educations. Paying twice.
We need to cut out the middleman: Wall Street.
6
Reagan was right. A Federal Dept of Education is a disaster.
3
@Shamrock No. A Federal Dept. of Education in the hands of a Republican administration is a disaster.
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@Shamrock, that's like looking at Trump and saying his wreckage of the country proves we don't need a President. No. It proves we need a good one. Soon, too.
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Actually the Federal department of education is not the a disaster.
The bought and paid for DeVos is the disaster.
A women well documented out to undermine public education and our democracy in an attempt to turn education of our children into a "for profit" machine.
Yet another trump "money first" corrupt department head with everything up for sale.
Unfortunately par for the course in trump's incompetent administration.
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You wrote👇👇
Company emails, documents and recordings show that part of why Dream Center kept going is that it thought the Education Department, which under Ms. DeVos has rolled back regulations on for-profit education, would try to keep it from failing.
meaning that they bought what they thought ...a too big to fail institution (like a bank).. thinking that tax payers will bail them out.
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@Salah Mansour
Once again privatizing benefits while shifting the liability onto the public. Smells like there was willful attempt to defraud the government.
16
@Stephen Galloway
the short version: Privatize the profit and socialized the losses.
6
@Stephen Galloway
Well said...PERIOD
2