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remember a corporation does not work for us it works for the corporation first not rule of law: privatization is a direct assault on our constitution, democracy, and human rights: The main trade association of for-profit colleges, APSCU...
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Nickname unavailable
Jun 19, 2013, 6:21:01 PM6/19/13
to
remember a corporation does not work for us it works for the
corporation first not rule of law: privatization is a direct assault
on our constitution, democracy, and human rights: The main trade
association of for-profit colleges, APSCU, seems to exist for the
purpose of protecting the worst, most abusive, most predatory conduct
by its member companies. Why else would the association, once again
last week, attack the U.S. Department of Education for seeking to
implement a law that simply requires career colleges that receive
federal aid to actually train students to earn a living?
"The perfect liberty they seek is the liberty of making slaves of
other people." -- Abraham Lincoln
" For too many of us the political equality we once had won was
meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had
concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over
other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor —
other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free;
liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of
happiness.
Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could
appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929
showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the
people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.
President Franklin Roosevelt "
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the
growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than
their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism--
ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any
controlling private power."
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/benito_mussolini.html
Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is
a merger of state and corporate power.
Benito Mussolini
Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of
corporate and government power.
Benito Mussolini
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/davidhalperin/for-profit-college-trade_b_3461669.html
David Halperin
For-Profit College Trade Group: Protectors of Bad Behavior
Posted: 06/18/2013 4:36 pm
The main trade association of for-profit colleges, APSCU, seems to
exist for the purpose of protecting the worst, most abusive, most
predatory conduct by its member companies. Why else would the
association, once again last week, attack the U.S. Department of
Education for seeking to implement a law that simply requires career
colleges that receive federal aid to actually train students to earn a
living? Why else would it send its CEO to offer wholly incredible
comments before a Senate committee? And what was General Wesley Clark
doing speaking at APSCU's annual convention?
APSCU and members of the for-profit college industry, which receives
over $30 billion per year from taxpayer funds, have spent tens of
millions of dollars to fight -- with the Obama administration, in
Congress, in the courts, and in the media -- against the
administration's "gainful employment" rule. APSCU successfully
pressed the administration to water down the rule so that it only
penalizes the most egregious conduct; penalties are incurred only if,
year after year, two-thirds of a school's graduates and dropouts are
unable to pay back their student loans. But that dilution wasn't
enough for this remorseless industry, because plenty of its big
players still flunked even this minimal test. So APSCU went to court
and convinced a federal judge to nitpick the rule out of commission.
The Department of Education responded by holding a series of hearings
around the country and also seeking written comments about what
reforms to pursue next. Many former students and staff replied with
harrowing accounts of for-profit college abuses -- colleges lying to
students to dupe and pressure them into signing up, lying to
government auditors about recruiting practices and job placement,
offering low-quality programs that left many students deep in debt
with no improvement in career prospects.
At the conclusion of the hearings, the Department did what a coalition
of student, veterans, civil rights, consumer, and other groups urged
it to do -- it announced it would promptly start a collaborative
public process (called negotiated rulemaking) to create a revised
gainful employment rule. (Disclosure: I participated in the effort to
convince the Department to act.)
APSCU's response to the Department's decision was to engage in more
whining. APSCU CEO Steve Gunderson declared his group "extremely
disappointed" and expressed "fears of a repeated, faulty and
confrontational process." Gunderson threatened that the Education
Department "must not repeat the biased and tainted regulatory process"
of the last rulemaking.
In his own statement before the Department late last month, Gunderson
had urged that it drop the gainful employment rule and let Congress
take care of the matter. He said that knowing full well that his
industry's campaign contributions on Capitol Hill would ensure a
stalemate that would block any reforms. And at APSCU's annual
convention in Orlando earlier this month, there was a panel addressing
potential Department hearings whose title was just a mocking groan:
"Negotiated Rulemaking -- Here We Go Again."
As I described a few months ago, APSCU had boasted that former Joint
Chiefs of Staff chairman Mike Mullen would lend credibility to their
industry -- which has been attacked for fleecing U.S. veterans -- by
speaking at the convention. I urged Mullen to speak frankly about for-
profit college abuses, or else cancel. For reasons unknown, Mullen
ended up not appearing, but APSCU found a willing, presumably paid,
replacement: General Wesley Clark. I wonder if General Clark was aware
of the widespread abuses of our troops and vets by people he was
addressing.
The day after denouncing the Department of Education for trying again
to protect students, Gunderson was on Capitol Hill to testify before a
Senate committee about higher education programs for service members.
(WATCH here.) Before speaking, Gunderson was forced to listen while
Christopher Neiweem, an Iraq War veteran, discussed his experiences
recruiting military students to DeVry University. Neiweem described "a
business culture that emphasized hasty enrollment over student needs."
According to Neiween, DeVry recruiters called Defense Department
Tuition Assistance dollars "the military gravy train," recruiters were
told to present themselves as "military advisers," and managers pushed
recruiters to get military "asses in classes."
Gunderson's reaction to hearing cold hard facts from Neiween about
coercive and deceptive recruiting aimed at our troops was to return to
whining that critics, such as subcommittee chair Senator Dick Durbin,
were demonizing his industry.
As he did at the Department of Education hearing, Gunderson began by
asserting that he represented not only his member for-profit colleges
but also "the millions of students who attend our institutions." Many
current and for-profit college students who have been deceived and
abused by APSCU members would beg to differ with the assertion that
Gunderson represents them.
Durbin raised with Gunderson an important concern regarding the
federal 90/10 rule, which requires for-profit colleges to obtain at
least 10 percent of their revenue from sources other than Department
of Education-managed financial aid -- on the theory that schools that
cannot get anyone to pay out of their own pockets are not worth
propping up. As Durbin noted, Pentagon and VA education aid is not
counted as federal aid under the 90/10 rule, a situation that gives
schools a heavy incentive to pack their classes with troops and
veterans, whom the industry sees, in the words of federal oversight
official Holly Petraeus, as "dollar signs in uniform."
Gunderson responded with the remarkable assertion that "most people
believe" that federal education aid coming from the Defense Department
and VA "are not government funds."
Gunderson's argument was that troops and veterans had earned such
education aid through their service. While it was nice of Gunderson to
recognize the contributions of our men and women in uniform, his
analysis did not make up for his industry's abysmal record of
misleading, overcharging, and underserving them. And it defies the
dictionary and congressional spending rules to suggest that the money
is not federal money. Only in the twisted world of the laws governing
for-profit colleges, laws written under the heavy influence of cash-
bearing lobbyists, is such federal money not treated as federal money.
Gunderson also told Durbin he would not defend a for-profit college
that had engaged in bad acts. Instead, he said his role was to "lift
up the sector." Durbin responded that unless there are serious rules
to prevent abuses, "You're covering up for the bad guys." And, indeed,
by aggressively opposing minimal accountability standards for the
industry, Gunderson is doing just that. Not only has Gunderson opposed
the gainful employment rule, he also called President Obama's 2012
executive order to protect our vets against for-profit college
recruiting abuses a "deeply unfortunate development."
While Gunderson may not actively defend his member schools when they
are caught engaging in bad behavior, nor has he criticized them. Most
of the major for-profit college companies are under investigation for
fraud, deception, or other bad acts. Various state attorneys
general are investigating Career Education Corp. (CEC), Corinthian
Colleges, DeVry, Education Management Corp. (EDMC), ITT, Kaplan, and
University of Phoenix. California's attorney general found that
Corinthian falsified students' employment records to inflate the
company's job placement rate for graduates; in 2008, the company paid
$6.6 million to settle the investigation out of court. Corinthian has
been under investigation by at least five other state attorneys
general: Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Oregon, as
well as by the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the
Securities and Exchange Commission, which recently issued a subpoena
to the company for documents relating to recruitment, attendance,
degree completion, job placement, loan defaults, and compliance with
Department of Education regulations.
The SEC also is investigating CEC, EDMC, and ITT. ITT and Kaplan were
also exposed by Senator Tom Harkin for creating training documents
that outlined heavy-handed tactics aimed at exploiting prospective
students' "pain" and shame.
Every one of those for-profit college companies, with the exception of
the University of Phoenix, is a current member of APSCU. Yet APSCU
generally says nothing when its members are accused of, or receive
penalties for, bad acts.
Last September, I wrote about how APSCU stayed silent about three
other companies that had landed in hot water: (1) FastTrain College,
raided by the FBI amid allegations of fraudulent marketing practices;
(2) the marketing firm QuinStreet, forced by 20 state attorneys
general to shut down GIBill.com, a website that deceived countless
veterans into believing they were on a government site that offered
unbiased information, when in fact the site shilled for for-profit
colleges; and (3) ATI, charged by the Justice Department in a
civil complaint with having "engaged in a widespread scheme to
defraud" federal and Texas authorities in order to receive federal
funding to which it wasn't entitled. All three companies were members
of APSCU at the time. Quinstreet still is, but it looks like since
then FastTrain and ATI have disappeared from APSCU's membership
roster. I'd love to know why.
It doesn't have to be this way. Rather than advantage the schools that
are systematically ruining students' lives with deceptive recruiting,
high prices, and weak programs, a trade association of for-profits
colleges could instead work to advantage those honest member schools
who actually are helping students to learn and train for careers. Such
an organization could cooperate with the Department of Education to
establish rules that reward good schools and strip federal funding
from bad ones. Over the long term, that is the only way that for-
profit higher education can thrive. But APSCU, instead, appears to
subscribe to the quick buck ethos of its biggest, wealthiest, most
powerful members: make all the money you can before the truth catches
up with you, and students -- veterans, single parents, immigrants, and
other struggling Americans -- be damned.
corporation first not rule of law: privatization is a direct assault
on our constitution, democracy, and human rights: The main trade
association of for-profit colleges, APSCU, seems to exist for the
purpose of protecting the worst, most abusive, most predatory conduct
by its member companies. Why else would the association, once again
last week, attack the U.S. Department of Education for seeking to
implement a law that simply requires career colleges that receive
federal aid to actually train students to earn a living?
"The perfect liberty they seek is the liberty of making slaves of
other people." -- Abraham Lincoln
" For too many of us the political equality we once had won was
meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had
concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over
other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor —
other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free;
liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of
happiness.
Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could
appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929
showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the
people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.
President Franklin Roosevelt "
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the
growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than
their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism--
ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any
controlling private power."
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/benito_mussolini.html
Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is
a merger of state and corporate power.
Benito Mussolini
Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of
corporate and government power.
Benito Mussolini
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/davidhalperin/for-profit-college-trade_b_3461669.html
David Halperin
For-Profit College Trade Group: Protectors of Bad Behavior
Posted: 06/18/2013 4:36 pm
The main trade association of for-profit colleges, APSCU, seems to
exist for the purpose of protecting the worst, most abusive, most
predatory conduct by its member companies. Why else would the
association, once again last week, attack the U.S. Department of
Education for seeking to implement a law that simply requires career
colleges that receive federal aid to actually train students to earn a
living? Why else would it send its CEO to offer wholly incredible
comments before a Senate committee? And what was General Wesley Clark
doing speaking at APSCU's annual convention?
APSCU and members of the for-profit college industry, which receives
over $30 billion per year from taxpayer funds, have spent tens of
millions of dollars to fight -- with the Obama administration, in
Congress, in the courts, and in the media -- against the
administration's "gainful employment" rule. APSCU successfully
pressed the administration to water down the rule so that it only
penalizes the most egregious conduct; penalties are incurred only if,
year after year, two-thirds of a school's graduates and dropouts are
unable to pay back their student loans. But that dilution wasn't
enough for this remorseless industry, because plenty of its big
players still flunked even this minimal test. So APSCU went to court
and convinced a federal judge to nitpick the rule out of commission.
The Department of Education responded by holding a series of hearings
around the country and also seeking written comments about what
reforms to pursue next. Many former students and staff replied with
harrowing accounts of for-profit college abuses -- colleges lying to
students to dupe and pressure them into signing up, lying to
government auditors about recruiting practices and job placement,
offering low-quality programs that left many students deep in debt
with no improvement in career prospects.
At the conclusion of the hearings, the Department did what a coalition
of student, veterans, civil rights, consumer, and other groups urged
it to do -- it announced it would promptly start a collaborative
public process (called negotiated rulemaking) to create a revised
gainful employment rule. (Disclosure: I participated in the effort to
convince the Department to act.)
APSCU's response to the Department's decision was to engage in more
whining. APSCU CEO Steve Gunderson declared his group "extremely
disappointed" and expressed "fears of a repeated, faulty and
confrontational process." Gunderson threatened that the Education
Department "must not repeat the biased and tainted regulatory process"
of the last rulemaking.
In his own statement before the Department late last month, Gunderson
had urged that it drop the gainful employment rule and let Congress
take care of the matter. He said that knowing full well that his
industry's campaign contributions on Capitol Hill would ensure a
stalemate that would block any reforms. And at APSCU's annual
convention in Orlando earlier this month, there was a panel addressing
potential Department hearings whose title was just a mocking groan:
"Negotiated Rulemaking -- Here We Go Again."
As I described a few months ago, APSCU had boasted that former Joint
Chiefs of Staff chairman Mike Mullen would lend credibility to their
industry -- which has been attacked for fleecing U.S. veterans -- by
speaking at the convention. I urged Mullen to speak frankly about for-
profit college abuses, or else cancel. For reasons unknown, Mullen
ended up not appearing, but APSCU found a willing, presumably paid,
replacement: General Wesley Clark. I wonder if General Clark was aware
of the widespread abuses of our troops and vets by people he was
addressing.
The day after denouncing the Department of Education for trying again
to protect students, Gunderson was on Capitol Hill to testify before a
Senate committee about higher education programs for service members.
(WATCH here.) Before speaking, Gunderson was forced to listen while
Christopher Neiweem, an Iraq War veteran, discussed his experiences
recruiting military students to DeVry University. Neiweem described "a
business culture that emphasized hasty enrollment over student needs."
According to Neiween, DeVry recruiters called Defense Department
Tuition Assistance dollars "the military gravy train," recruiters were
told to present themselves as "military advisers," and managers pushed
recruiters to get military "asses in classes."
Gunderson's reaction to hearing cold hard facts from Neiween about
coercive and deceptive recruiting aimed at our troops was to return to
whining that critics, such as subcommittee chair Senator Dick Durbin,
were demonizing his industry.
As he did at the Department of Education hearing, Gunderson began by
asserting that he represented not only his member for-profit colleges
but also "the millions of students who attend our institutions." Many
current and for-profit college students who have been deceived and
abused by APSCU members would beg to differ with the assertion that
Gunderson represents them.
Durbin raised with Gunderson an important concern regarding the
federal 90/10 rule, which requires for-profit colleges to obtain at
least 10 percent of their revenue from sources other than Department
of Education-managed financial aid -- on the theory that schools that
cannot get anyone to pay out of their own pockets are not worth
propping up. As Durbin noted, Pentagon and VA education aid is not
counted as federal aid under the 90/10 rule, a situation that gives
schools a heavy incentive to pack their classes with troops and
veterans, whom the industry sees, in the words of federal oversight
official Holly Petraeus, as "dollar signs in uniform."
Gunderson responded with the remarkable assertion that "most people
believe" that federal education aid coming from the Defense Department
and VA "are not government funds."
Gunderson's argument was that troops and veterans had earned such
education aid through their service. While it was nice of Gunderson to
recognize the contributions of our men and women in uniform, his
analysis did not make up for his industry's abysmal record of
misleading, overcharging, and underserving them. And it defies the
dictionary and congressional spending rules to suggest that the money
is not federal money. Only in the twisted world of the laws governing
for-profit colleges, laws written under the heavy influence of cash-
bearing lobbyists, is such federal money not treated as federal money.
Gunderson also told Durbin he would not defend a for-profit college
that had engaged in bad acts. Instead, he said his role was to "lift
up the sector." Durbin responded that unless there are serious rules
to prevent abuses, "You're covering up for the bad guys." And, indeed,
by aggressively opposing minimal accountability standards for the
industry, Gunderson is doing just that. Not only has Gunderson opposed
the gainful employment rule, he also called President Obama's 2012
executive order to protect our vets against for-profit college
recruiting abuses a "deeply unfortunate development."
While Gunderson may not actively defend his member schools when they
are caught engaging in bad behavior, nor has he criticized them. Most
of the major for-profit college companies are under investigation for
fraud, deception, or other bad acts. Various state attorneys
general are investigating Career Education Corp. (CEC), Corinthian
Colleges, DeVry, Education Management Corp. (EDMC), ITT, Kaplan, and
University of Phoenix. California's attorney general found that
Corinthian falsified students' employment records to inflate the
company's job placement rate for graduates; in 2008, the company paid
$6.6 million to settle the investigation out of court. Corinthian has
been under investigation by at least five other state attorneys
general: Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Oregon, as
well as by the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the
Securities and Exchange Commission, which recently issued a subpoena
to the company for documents relating to recruitment, attendance,
degree completion, job placement, loan defaults, and compliance with
Department of Education regulations.
The SEC also is investigating CEC, EDMC, and ITT. ITT and Kaplan were
also exposed by Senator Tom Harkin for creating training documents
that outlined heavy-handed tactics aimed at exploiting prospective
students' "pain" and shame.
Every one of those for-profit college companies, with the exception of
the University of Phoenix, is a current member of APSCU. Yet APSCU
generally says nothing when its members are accused of, or receive
penalties for, bad acts.
Last September, I wrote about how APSCU stayed silent about three
other companies that had landed in hot water: (1) FastTrain College,
raided by the FBI amid allegations of fraudulent marketing practices;
(2) the marketing firm QuinStreet, forced by 20 state attorneys
general to shut down GIBill.com, a website that deceived countless
veterans into believing they were on a government site that offered
unbiased information, when in fact the site shilled for for-profit
colleges; and (3) ATI, charged by the Justice Department in a
civil complaint with having "engaged in a widespread scheme to
defraud" federal and Texas authorities in order to receive federal
funding to which it wasn't entitled. All three companies were members
of APSCU at the time. Quinstreet still is, but it looks like since
then FastTrain and ATI have disappeared from APSCU's membership
roster. I'd love to know why.
It doesn't have to be this way. Rather than advantage the schools that
are systematically ruining students' lives with deceptive recruiting,
high prices, and weak programs, a trade association of for-profits
colleges could instead work to advantage those honest member schools
who actually are helping students to learn and train for careers. Such
an organization could cooperate with the Department of Education to
establish rules that reward good schools and strip federal funding
from bad ones. Over the long term, that is the only way that for-
profit higher education can thrive. But APSCU, instead, appears to
subscribe to the quick buck ethos of its biggest, wealthiest, most
powerful members: make all the money you can before the truth catches
up with you, and students -- veterans, single parents, immigrants, and
other struggling Americans -- be damned.
wien9al...@gmail.com
Jun 21, 2013, 12:32:06 AM6/21/13
to
On Wednesday, June 19, 2013 6:21:01 PM UTC-4, Nickname unavailable wrote:
> remember a corporation does not work for us it works for the corporation
> first ...
> remember a corporation does not work for us it works for the corporation
..... just as you work for yourself first. That money the corporations get is brought in by the custoners buying something and it includes an amount sufficient for the employment of X numbers of employees. If customers buy fron Asian sources instead, then there must/will be more unemployment here.
Werner
Jun 21, 2013, 7:06:24 AM6/21/13
to
If the state works for "us" why does Congress have such a dismal approval rating?
If government is “of, by and for the people”, why do so many people complain about government?
If government is accountable to “We, the People”, why are so many dissatisfied with the results?
How can it be both - accountable and in need of reform?
Wasn’t America supposed to be about limited government? Government makes laws. Laws create privileges for some and steal inalienable rights from others in the process. Laws steal choices. They prohibit and limit choices for some people and make you obey someone else’s choices. It’s like being told where to sit on the bus. Laws make you do things you would not want to do if you were free. Was it meant to be this way? What can be more valuable than choice? What do you have when you have no choice?
http://www.endit.info/
If government is “of, by and for the people”, why do so many people complain about government?
If government is accountable to “We, the People”, why are so many dissatisfied with the results?
How can it be both - accountable and in need of reform?
Wasn’t America supposed to be about limited government? Government makes laws. Laws create privileges for some and steal inalienable rights from others in the process. Laws steal choices. They prohibit and limit choices for some people and make you obey someone else’s choices. It’s like being told where to sit on the bus. Laws make you do things you would not want to do if you were free. Was it meant to be this way? What can be more valuable than choice? What do you have when you have no choice?
http://www.endit.info/
wien9al...@gmail.com
Jun 21, 2013, 8:23:09 AM6/21/13
to
> Laws make you do things you would not want to do if you were free. Was it meant
> to be this way? What can be more valuable than choice? What do you have when
> you have no choice?
..... The only way to have a lot of FREEDOM and of CHOICE is to live out there in the wilderness by yourself. There are many views nd opinions by many people in any society regarding what to do and what not to do, and because many people do not agree there must be some limitation of FREEDOM and CHOICES,
> to be this way? What can be more valuable than choice? What do you have when
> you have no choice?
Werner
Jun 21, 2013, 2:02:32 PM6/21/13
to
As limits are imposed resistance to them grows. It is human nature. This is why the US Constitution placed limits on government and not on people.
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