Melinda Gates Leaves Post Board After Report Criticizes Kaplan
Melinda French Gates, philanthropist and wife of Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, has resigned from The Washington Post Co.’s board of directors.Her resignation comes shortly after the release of a highly critical report, funded partly by her foundation, which likened for-profit colleges to subprime-mortgage lenders, targeting low-income and traditionally underrepresented students. The Washington Post Co. gets more than half of its revenues from its for-profit higher-education unit, Kaplan.
Neither Gates nor The Washington Post gave a reason for her departure.
Gates, who runs the multibillion-dollar Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with her husband, joined The Washington Post Co.’s board in 2004.
The report, “Subprime Opportunity,” authored by the Washington, D.C.–based Education Trust, said low-income students make up half of the enrollment at for-profit colleges and Blacks, Latinos and American Indians comprise 37 percent. The Education Trust is a nonprofit research and advocacy