Forum Post: The corrupting influence of corporate lobbyists - this cannot go on
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 10, 2011, 2:54 a.m. EST by looselyhuman
(3117)
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With Lobbying Blitz, For-Profit Colleges Diluted New Rules
Excerpt:
The battle got so testy that Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who has led Congressional hearings into the colleges, got into a heated exchange with Mr. Stein, the Education Corporation investor.
The senator said that during a hallway conversation after lunch in the Senate dining room, Mr. Stein promised to “make life rough for me” if Mr. Harkin kept up his attacks.
“I took it as a threat — it was one of the most blatant comments ever made to me in my years in the Senate,” Mr. Harkin said.
Mr. Stein, a frequent Democratic donor who had bought the lunch with the senator at a charity auction, would not discuss the details of the conversation. But he said Mr. Harkin’s account was “totally incorrect,” adding: “Under no circumstances would I would ever threaten a U.S. senator.”
Officials at the White House and the Education Department described the industry’s aggressive efforts as unusual even by Washington standards. Mr. Sunstein, the White House official, characterized the intensity as “extreme.”
That response reflected the enormous financial stakes for an industry that has become big business in the last decade, with online schools and traditional campuses offering degrees to about three million students. Schools receive as much as 90 percent of their revenues from federal aid.
Once small, local operations, many of the colleges are now multistate networks owned by Wall Street firms looking for big profits. Consumer groups sought tougher restrictions, but found themselves outmatched. Pauline Abernathy, vice president with the nonprofit Institute for College Access and Success and an industry critic, said: “We always knew that we couldn’t compete with the colleges in terms of money or lobbyists, but we thought we had the facts on our side.”
I think most of these little for profit schools are a joke. A good half dozen of these classes used to be offered in high schools. In some instances they are $20,000 to make a minimum wage job. What IS that?
In other instances they just destroy professions. Of course, the con-artists get a lobbying group to continue to con and nobody has the enough of a back bone to say, "Hey! You are a part of the problem."
"Schools receive as much as 90 percent of their revenues from federal aid."
You nailed it. The financialization of post-secondary education. A bubble created by our good intentions manifested through our government.
Do you think they just really messed up our good intentions?
I do. And it has been turned against those who thought they were pursuing the American Dream, only to find out that the real world really sucks, especially when you try to launch your career with an incredible payload of heavy debt on board.
As usual, deregulation and the privatization fetish is to blame:
1992: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_education#Growth
2006: http://educationviews.org/2011/07/30/john-boehner-backed-deregulation-of-online-learning-leading-to-explosive-growth-at-for-profit-colleges/
Subprime education.
Why wasn't this a problem 20 years ago, or even 10? Government has been funding higher education for decades. The problem is the for-profit, corporate takeover of public institutions that serve an important societal purpose, resulting in decline. All made possible by the broader for-profit, corporate takeover of government itself.
Time to re-regulate, or, to simply cut out the middle-man altogether, and provide public higher education - profit-free, debt-free. The public option.
debt-free would be my choice. Federal back-stopping of student loans by our government created the student debt bubble. How can that be called deregulation and privitization? The banksters wouldn't have gotten nearly so involved if that guarantee hadn't been there. Schools wouldn't have had nearly as many students, nor been able to grow their prices like the healthcare industry has done.
So what regulates the price on a public option sort of affair? Do we just end up with more public schools? Or is this a sort of voucher program.