BIG EDUCATION APE RANT: Arne Duncan is so full of **IT that his eyes are brown. He blames members of Congress who have blocked reforms to hold the for-profit education industry accountable. At the same time he continues to push for privatization of Public Schools and the same policies that led to fraud and corruption in the For-Profit College Industry. He promised to "beef up efforts to protect students and taxpayers from waste and fraud," to "hold colleges, not taxpayers, accountable for fraudulent acts," and to "work across the administration to make sure the full weight of the law is brought to bear" against abuses. BULLSH** He has said nothing and done nothing to end the fraud, corruption and abuse running rampant in the Charter School industry. $4 billion dollar price tag to bail out his for-profit buddies and hedge fund managers will be dwarfed by the cost of the fraud, waste and corruption in charter schools.
Read the "Duncan Spin" below:
Unveiling Student Debt Relief, Duncan Hits For-Profit College Industry and Its Friends in Congress
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan just announced a debt relief package for students who attended schools run by now-bankrupt Corinthian Colleges. In doing so, Duncan sharply attacked for-profit colleges that have engaged in fraudulent acts, and he criticized members of Congress who have blocked reforms to hold the industry accountable.
Duncan said on a 2 p.m. ET Monday conference call, "You'd have to be made of stone not to feel for these students." He said that many of the students "ended up with huge debt, worthless degrees ... if they got a degree at all."
Using some of his toughest language to date regarding predatory for-profit colleges and their defenders on Capitol Hill, Duncan offered a sharp critique of "a for-profit industry that uses its financial support to try and block change in Congress." He promised to "beef up efforts to protect students and taxpayers from waste and fraud," to "hold colleges, not taxpayers, accountable for fraudulent acts," and to "work across the administration to make sure the full weight of the law is brought to bear" against abuses.
Duncan added, "This has to be a wake-up call to Congress.... Congress has to be part of the solution, not part of the problem, and, candidly, members on both sides of the aisle have been part of the problem." He added, "This is the time for Congress to act, and act in a bipartisan way." In particular, he raised the possibility that Congress could move to hold for-profit college companies accountable for paying back some of the student debt.
The new debt relief package directly targets some 15,000 student borrowers at closed Corinthian campuses, with collective debt of about $208 million, and an overlapping group of some 40,000 students at Corinthian's Heald College schools, where the Department already had identified specific abuses and student debt is about $650 million. But in fact, Department officials said, the new debt relief approach, including the appointment of a special master, to be named "in the coming weeks," according to the Department, to address student claims, extends to the universe of students at Corinthian and, indeed, at other for-profit colleges that have engaged in fraudulent practices.
Department officials said that relief for defrauded students was potentially available to students who had attended Corinthian schools going back well before the school's 2014-'15 collapse and included students whose campuses were acquired this year by debt-collection company ECMC. Duncan said the plans would apply beyond Corinthian. He foresaw the collapse of other companies in the for-profit college industry: "Sadly this will likely not be the last domino to fall."
The Department pinned its authority to offer debt relief on a provision in law allowing students to make fraud by the school a "defense to repayment" of outstanding debt. Students at any college already have the right to mount such a defense, but they have rarely done so successfully. The importance of today's announcement is that the Department now plans to take these claims seriously in the cases of fraudulent schools rather than fight them tooth and nail in court.
Advocates for students, concerned about students having an individual burden of proof in cases where a school has engaged in systematic fraud, have urged the Department to also use its "compromise and settlement" authority to forgive debts on a broader basis. A Department official just told me that the Department is concerned about the open-ended nature of this approach but has not completely rejected it, pending more legal review.
On today's call, Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell announced the details of the plan, which include these elements:
- Expanding eligibility for Corinthian students to apply for a closed school loan discharge, extending the window of time back to June 20, 2014, to capture students who attended the now-closed campuses after Corinthian entered into an agreement with the Department to terminate Corinthian's ownership of its schools.
- Relying on evidence established by "appropriate authorities in considering whether whole groups of students (for example, an entire academic program at a specific campus during a certain time frame) are eligible for borrower defense relief. This will simplify and expedite the relief process, reducing the burden on Unveiling Student Debt Relief, Duncan Hits For-Profit College Industry and Its Friends in Congress | David Halperin:
