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    Financially troubled colleges are ripping off veterans -- with Betsy DeVos's help

    Jillian S. Ambroz, DCReport @ RawStory
    August 01, 2019

    Thanks for your support!

    This article was paid for by reader donations to Raw Story Investigates.

    Betsy DeVos (Image credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr)

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

    Jillian S. Ambroz, DCReport @ RawStory

    Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s move to reverse Obama-era restrictions on for-profit colleges and reinvigorate the shady industry has backfired spectacularly.


    Since DeVos and team greenlighted the accreditation of one of the nation’s largest chains of for-profit colleges, Dream Center Education Holdings, and its purchase of schools, thousands of students have been affected by school closures and conversion to nonprofit status. One group of students that have been greatly affected are military veterans, who have racked up useless credits and massive debts that can become the burden of taxpayers and the federal government to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

    The deregulation efforts of the for-profit college sector began back in 2017, soon after Dream Center—a charity affiliated with a Los Angeles-based megachurch with no higher-education experience—acquired some colleges from a major for-profit player in bankruptcy. DeVos had made it a priority to bolster for-profit schools, according to an article by The New York Times. In addition to relaxing oversight on the sector, DeVos also allowed for-profit schools to convert to non-profit status by loosening the rules of that process.

    School closures also cost taxpayers and our federal government hundreds of millions of dollars in financial losses in discharged federal student loans.

    It’s also come to light that a DeVos aide, Diane Auer Jones, a former lobbyist and executive for for-profit colleges, was granting personal favors to help Dream Center, which controls more than 100 campuses with 50,000 students, to help the company gain accreditation. DeVos, before becoming Education Secretary, had invested in companies with ties to for-profit schools.

    Back in 2016, Dream Center had its eyes on the failing ITT Technical Institutes but the Obama administration astutely blocked that acquisition as part of its crackdown on the for-profit college sector. And ITT ultimately shuttered its doors. But Dream Center found a new deal that would be blessed and moved forward by DeVos and team to purchase three large for-profit chains, the Art Institutes, Argosy University and South University from the bankrupt Education Management Corp.

    Fast forward to the present. Dozens of Dream Center’s campuses are out of money and set to close, more than a dozen more campuses have already been sold—some to a New York private equity firm in a deal arranged by DeVos and team—and more than 40 other schools are under the control of a court-appointed receiver. In total, some 26,000 students have been affected by the demise of Dream Center Education Holdings.

    Thousands of those students left scrambling to salvage their education plans are Post-9/11 GI Bill recipients, who are hard targets of the predatory for-profit schools because they can use the GI Bill funds to collect up to 100% in federal aid. For-profit schools must pull in at least 10% of their funding from sources outside of federal aid, the so-called 90/10 rule. But Congress wrote a big loophole, excluding GI Bill funding from the 90% limit, and for-profit schools actively seek-out veterans as students.

    “For-profit schools really aggressively target veteran students and spend a ton on marketing, but spend little on instruction,” Walter Ochinko, Research Director at Veterans Educations Services, told DCReport. “They have large marketing teams that do robocalls all the time and use lead generators to reach out to veterans.”

    With the closures of ITT Technical Institutes schools and the failing of Corinthian Colleges Inc., another 12,000 GI Bill students were affected by the failings of the for-profits in the past few years.

    “Deregulation efforts have created a situation where vets are being harmed, they don’t have much recourse,” Ochinko said. “When a school closes, there’s only a partial restoration of benefits for veterans. Essentially they are left out in the cold.”

    When these schools close, students transferring from for-profit to public schools could lose an estimated 94% of their credits. And if they retain their credits, they often don’t apply toward fulfilling their degree requirements toward their major, according to a report filed in June by the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO). For many veteran students, school closures and transfers can exhaust their GI Bill benefits.

    School closures also can cost the federal government and taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in financial losses due to discharged federal student loans.

    Lax Oversight

    For GI Bill beneficiaries, the Department of Education works with the Veterans Business Affairs agency and State Approving Agencies (SAA), known as “the triad.” State Approving Agencies, state employees under contract with the VA, have the authority to shut down schools and remove GI Bill benefits, the VA does not. But DeVos’ deregulation efforts would undermine protections for GI Bill beneficiaries by making it more difficult for State Approving Agencies to hold schools accountable, according to a report by Veterans Education Success, which works with military service organizations to educate federal and state policymakers to ensure the success of the GI Bill and its beneficiaries.

    The Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) conducted an audit of the Veterans Business Affairs and State Approving Agencies oversight of all programs for military veterans from February 2015 through January 2016, and estimated 44 of the 51 state agencies “did not adequately oversee the education and training programs to ensure only eligible programs participated in the Post-9/11 GI Bill program.”

    The report, published in December 2018, found that out of an estimated $585 million paid for these “improper payments”, a staggering 81% or $473.8 million went to for-profit schools. If the Veterans Business Affairs agency does not implement oversight and better recommendations to the SAAs, about $2.5 billion in related improper payments will go to potentially ineligible programs over the next five years, “putting billions of dollars at risk for fraud and waste and hindering efforts to provide quality education to eligible students,” according to the audit.

    Poor Performance

    Then there’s the problem of performance at these schools. The for-profit colleges examined in the GAO report showed the lowest graduation percentage of any type of college, at 22% for a four-year program, compared to 73% for public schools and 66% at nonprofit schools. Retention rates for full-time students also lagged, at 56%, compared to 88% for public schools and 85% for nonprofit schools.

    The Department of Education recently filed a regulation in June stating plans to loosen requirements and oversight of accreditation agencies, which will only create more incentives for the Dream Centers of the nation.

    “Essentially, they are up a creek,” Ochinko said. He and his organization, Veterans Education Success, recommend that Congress restore full benefits to GI Bill students in these circumstances.

    Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Fla.) recently introduced a bill to close the 90/10 loophole at for-profit colleges, a small step in the right direction.

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

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    … then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and legal efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. And unlike other news outlets, we’ve decided to make our original content free. But we need your support to do what we do.

    Raw Story is independent. Unhinged from corporate overlords, we fight to ensure no one is forgotten.

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    Raw Story is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us in the future. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you.


    Report typos and corrections to: corrections@rawstory.com.
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    Survey: Will Melania leave Trump now that he's out of office ?

    'You're out of order': Interview with Trump campaign official breaks down over insurrection excuses

    Sarah K. Burris
    January 24, 2021

    MSNBC's Ari Melber did a Sunday evening special on the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. His final interview was with the former president's campaign staffer Boris Epshteyn who revealed the only excuse that Republicans will have to justify Trump's innocence.

    Melber spent the hour outlining the case against Trump, citing the funds the $2.7 million in campaign spent to hold the rally in Washington and the statements from those arrested that they followed what the president told them.

    The excuse Epshteyn used is that Trump told his supporters to be "stay peaceful." It's a comment that comes after months of telling his supporters to act and to fight for their votes.

    The argument many have made is that using incendiary rhetoric for months, urging a crowd to "fight," a "trial by combat," and "walk to the Capitol."

    "Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy," he said. "And after this, we're going to walk down — and I'll be there with you — we're going to walk down ... to the Capitol and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women. We're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you'll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength.

    "We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. Today we will see whether Republicans stand strong for [the] integrity of our elections, but whether or not they stand strong for our country, our country. Our country has been under siege for a long time, far longer than this four-year period."

    Epshteyn's argument is that nothing else that Trump said matters, only the word "peacefully."

    Melber's guests including a slate of former prosecutors described Trump's excuses as like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. In an earlier interview, Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-NY) described Trump as doing more than just yelling "fire" in the theater. She described the ex-president as bringing the matches and the gasoline, paying for the arsonists to meet at the Capitol, and telling them to burn it down with a brief comment that fire is bad.

    Epshteyn argued against Melber that he should "fire" the person who put together his clips reel because it didn't include Trump's comment about "peacefully and patriotically" attacking the capitol.

    "We're not here for your advice to do what we do," Melber said. "You're out of order."


    You're out of order www.youtube.com

    Impeachment officer details the case against Trump as the second trial begins

    Sarah K. Burris
    January 24, 2021

    Monday night, House impeachment officers will officially walk the Articles of Impeachment to the U.S. Senate and the process will officially begin as President Donald Trump is tried for a second time before the body.

    Speaking to MSNBCs Ari Melber on an impeachment special Sunday evening, a solemn Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-NY) explained that this is not something the House members do lightly.

    "And then we'll begin the trial of our president, of former President Donald Trump in the Senate, for what we believe to be one of the most heinous crimes against our country in its existence," she said. "Something that the founders anticipated and put in guardrails against. That being a despot, drunk with power, trying to keep his grip on power and using the people of this country to try and stage an insurrection."

    She didn't intend to reveal the strategy for impeachment but explained that the attack on the Capitol Jan. 6 wasn't the beginning of Trump's efforts to incite violence against the legislature.

    "President Trump has engaged in a prolonged effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and spent months spreading disinformation and the results falsely claiming that he had won by a landslide," she explained. "He stated it would be illegitimate to accept those results, and then he brought individuals to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6. Make no mistake that that was an extremely important date in his mind and in our Constitution's time, because there was a time where the entire body of Congress along with the vice president would be present at the Capitol to fulfill our duties, that being to certificate five the election. And with that, he knew who the individuals were, who would be coming, what they would do and what hold he had over them."

    She described what happened as "foreseeable," in fact, Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling warned that what Trump was doing would "get people killed." Indeed, five people were killed as a result of what happened on Jan. 6.

    "It's bad enough that we have a president who wanted to obstruct justice, who wanted to obstruct a free and fair election, who did not want the fulfillment of Constitution, but the worst part that he did it through the attack, assault, mayhem, vandalism, the attempted assassination of the vice president and the speaker of the House, potential attempt to kidnap members of congress and the fulfillment of felony murder as well. All for his own self-aggrandizement. Absolutely shameful," Plaskett said.

    See the full interview below:


    Presenting the articles of impeachment...... again www.youtube.com

    Will cops caught in Capitol attack finally motivate police chiefs to purge their ranks: Watchdog asks

    Sarah K. Burris
    January 24, 2021

    A former FBI special agent detailed in an Aug. 2020 report that white supremacists and militia members have infiltrated law enforcement ranks across the country. The abstract information didn't lead to a call from law enforcement leadership to look through their teams to purge possible problems. Now that off-duty law enforcement members were part of the Capitol insurrection, the Washington Post reported police chiefs are finally starting to act.

    "National Sheriffs' Association President David Mahoney said many police leaders have treated officers with extremist beliefs as outliers and have underestimated the damage they can inflict on the profession and the nation," the Post reported.

    "We saw the anti-government, anti-equality and racist comments coming out during the Obama administration. Shame on us for representing it as freedom of speech and for not recognizing it was chiseling away at our democracy," Mahoney said in an interview. "As we move forward, we need to make sure we are teaching our current staff members that they must have the courage to speak out when they know about another deputy's or officer's involvement. There should be no reference to the thin blue line."

    At least 12 Capitol Police are under investigation for their behavior during the attack on the building, including one officer seen taking selfies with insurrectionists. At least 14 off-duty officers didn't go inside the building, but they were there on Jan. 6.

    "They know who these bad apples are,'' said former FBI agent Michael German. "They learn about them when they are investigating white supremacists and militia groups."

    But legal experts and police watchdog groups have little hope of change. They've heard law enforcement commitments after police killed unarmed Black Americans like Michael Brown and Tamir Rice, young boys shot and killed by police in 2014.

    Georgetown Law professor Vida Johnson explained that "these officers are hiding in plain sight." Still, nothing has changed.

    "Until they're willing to . . . discipline officers, this is going to continue to be a problem, and it's one that's completely destabilizing the country and putting us at risk," she said.

    Read the full piece at the Washington Post. Washington Post.

     
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