Investigating how money corrupts democracy
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House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) sent a letter on June 11 to Democracy Defenders, a non-profit group chaired by Washington DC lawyer Norm Eisen, questioning that group’s public opposition to Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Comer also mentioned other actions of the group that he claimed were to “advance the interests” Continue Reading >>>
There is a new development in the Trump administration’s ugly attack on nonprofit advocacy groups. Fidelity Charitable and Vanguard, two of the biggest sponsors of donor-advised funds (DAFs), on Wednesday blocked clients from using those DAFs to donate to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The action came after last week’s criminal indictment of the SPLC Continue Reading >>>
A U.S. Department of Education press release today says that on Monday, “U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon joined Chairwoman Virginia Foxx and North Carolina native Michael Whatley in central North Carolina to champion the Education Freedom Tax Credit, passed in President Trump’s Working Families Tax Cuts.” At a press event Monday in High Point, Continue Reading >>>
Last year, congressional Republicans finally accepted that it was really dumb for the government to keep providing billions of taxpayer dollars to send students to college programs that on average leave graduates worse off than when they start. After fifteen years of opposing the Obama-Biden gainful employment rule, which would have cut off federal aid Continue Reading >>>
Big for-profit college operation Adtalem, a company whose schools have had a history of deceptive and predatory abuses against students and taxpayers, adopted its name in 2017, changing it from DeVry Education Group. Last week, the company rebranded again — to another, even more pharma-sounding name: Covista. But warning: Covista may cause side effects including Continue Reading >>>
In a powerful legal complaint filed this month in federal court in Denver, Aidan Peters, a former admissions representative for Colorado Technical University (CTU), alleges that the for-profit, online school, owned by giant Perdoceo Education Corp., systematically deceived and abused students. One such student identified in the complaint is T.G., a woman who seemed to Continue Reading >>>
Last spring, the Trump Department of Education quietly cancelled a $37.7 million fine against Grand Canyon University that resulted from a thorough investigation, during the Biden presidency, showing the school deceived numerous doctoral degree students regarding the costs of their programs. The Department falsely claimed that the Biden team persecuted Grand Canyon because the school Continue…
Over the holidays, a shuttered chain of predatory career colleges operated by billionaire GOP donor Carl Barney continued its seemingly endless second life as a habitual courthouse litigant. On December 24, the Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed a $3 million penalty against one of Barney’s schools, CollegeAmerica, upholding a 2020 decision by a Colorado district Continue Reading >>>
In a recent interview, Nicholas Kent, the Trump administration’s chief higher education official, signaled a desire to short-circuit the American system of college accreditation. Since the 20th century, accreditors deputized by the federal government have determined whether colleges are financially and academically sound enough to access federal student aid. They effectively act as arbiters of…
Here are remarks I offered today during the public comment segment of a meeting of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI): At the February meeting, I urged you to speak up in the face of an unprecedented attack on the quality and integrity of higher education by Continue Reading >>>
