For profit college lobbyists work to undermine efforts to protect college students

For-Profit Colleges Step Up Lobbying Against New Rules

The New York Times' Tamar Lewin reports:

For-profit colleges have increased their lobbying against proposed Education Department rules to cut off federal financial aid to programs whose students take on too much debt for training that provides little likelihood of leading to a well-paying job.

In addition to making personal visits to Capitol Hill, executives at the colleges have provided employees with “personalized” letters to send to Washington and urged students to speak out against the proposals.

So far, the department has received about 45,000 letters on the proposed “gainful employment” regulations, in the comment period that ends Thursday.

Last week, John Sperling, the founder of the nation’s largest for-profit college, the University of Phoenix, e-mailed every member of Congress, seeking help opposing the regulations, and attached a sample letter to be sent to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, asking him to withdraw them.

Donald Graham, the chairman and chief executive of The Washington Post Company, which gets most of its revenue from its Kaplan education business, visited Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, whose Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is holding hearings on the for-profit education industry.

Under the proposed regulations, announced July 23, for-profit education programs would qualify for federal student aid only if enough former students were repaying their student loans, or if graduates generally earned enough to repay their debts.

Many for-profit colleges have urged students, professors and administrators to send in criticisms of the proposals.

The Education Management Corporation (owned by Goldman Sachs), the second-largest for-profit company, hired DCI Group, a public relations firm, to contact its employees for information that would be used to create a personalized letter, which would then be delivered back to the employee for signature, along with a stamped, addressed envelope.

“EDMC believes it is important, that during this public-comment period on the proposed Federal Gainful Employment Rule, that our students, faculty and staff have the opportunity to voice their opinion, if they choose to do so,” said Jacquelyn Muller, a spokeswoman for the company.

EDMC also has a Web site, the Higher Education Action Center, guiding students or employees to oppose the regulations, offering “pre-crafted” letters. Argosy, a unit of EDMC, said last month in an e-mail soliciting more comments that more than 2,000 people had used the site in the previous week. It is unclear how many comments were generated by for-profit colleges’ campaigns.

Some of the letters show little familiarity with the proposed regulations. For example, a Education Department official said, students at a particular school sent in dozens of hand-written letters asking for continued aid to for-profit colleges, but never mentioning the regulations. He said he called a letter-writer to ask whether the letter was intended as a comment on the regulations, and was told, “This is what the school asked us to write.” He would not identify the school.

The department said the new regulations would protect students from programs that saddled them with heavy debts and gave them credentials that proved to be of little value in finding a good job.

Last month, the Government Accountability Office said an investigation found fraud or deceptive practices at all 15 of the for-profit locations it visited.

Students at for-profit colleges, about 10 percent of those enrolled in higher education, are far more likely to default on their loans.

the answer to corporate power is organized people.

Bill Moyers writes: the only answer to organized money is organized people. That would be one hell of a reformation.

Read his essay on how well-heeled lobbyists for the insurance companies and banks are undermining needed reforms.

The essay is linked here.

McCain lobbyist was on Freddie Mac payroll. Taxpayers pay the bill.

John McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis and his firm, was paid $15,000 a month by Freddie Mac, one of the mortgage firms bailed out by the federal government. The payments didn't end until the Freddie Mac was bailed out earlier this month.

McCain who originally campaigned as the more experienced Presidential candidate, has recently reframed his campaign as a movement for change. He has attacked lobbyists and the Washington establishment. Now we learn his camapign manger was a highly compensated lobbyist!

In an interview with CNBC and The New York Times on Sunday, McCain responded to a question about Mr. Davis’s role as a lobbyist for Freddie Mac by saying that his campaign manager “has had nothing to do with it since (2005), and I’ll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it.”

Well, the record was examined and it reveals that Rick Davis was on the Freddie Mac payroll until last month.

Not only that. Mr Davis didn't do anything for his $180,000 a year.

Freddie Mac officials said they can''t recall Mr. Davis’s doing any work for the company. They said Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis & Manafort, had been kept on the payroll because of Mr. Davis’s close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House.

So McCain lied about his campaign manager getting paid by Freddie Mac who was getting paid to provide Freddie Mac executives access to McCain. Taxpayers are now picking up the bill.

And we're suppose to believe that a McCain administration wouldn't be for sale?

Read the breaking news.