How financially troubled colleges rip off veterans
How Betsy DeVos's Education Department makes it possible by propping up for-profit educational companies.
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 CONTINUE READING: How financially troubled colleges rip off veterans | Salon.com
