July 23, 2019

House Committee Will Question DeVos Aides Over Dream Center Deceptions

House Education and Labor Committee chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA) has just raised the stakes in the battle over Betsy DeVos’s coddling of predatory for-profit colleges, sending a letter to the Trump Secretary of Education demanding that some of her top aides submit to transcribed interviews with the committee regarding the Department’s handling of the collapsed
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July 12, 2019

DeVos On Verge of Trashing Still More Protections Against Predatory Colleges

Today is the deadline to tell U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos your views about a proposed rule that would strip away some of the remaining protections for students and taxpayers against abuses by predatory for-profit colleges.  You can submit a comment here. Feel free to borrow from what I just submitted. I have pasted
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June 28, 2019

Friday Night Massacre: DeVos Trashes Rule That Protected Students from Predatory Colleges

In an all-too-familiar turn, Trump education secretary Betsy DeVos chose a Friday afternoon to formally rescind a regulation that protected consumers and taxpayers — in this case the gainful employment rule, issued in 2014 by the Obama administration. The rule was aimed at denying federal dollars — in the form of student grants and loans
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June 10, 2019

Trump Administration Cancels Meetings That Pro-Student Groups Sought on DeVos Rules

The Trump White House today notified student advocacy organizations that it was cancelling or refusing to schedule meetings to discuss the Department of Education’s new rules that relax accountability for colleges and college accreditors. The Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs sent emails to the Center for American Progress, the
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June 9, 2019

In NY Times, DeVos Aide Claims She Blew Whistle on Her For-Profit College

A New York Times article published this evening includes a tantalizing claim from Diane Auer Jones, Betsy DeVos’s top higher education aide: that she blew the whistle on for-profit Career Education Corp. (CECO), where she worked from 2010 to 2015 as senior vice president. The Times piece reports, referencing Jones, “She was the one who reported
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June 5, 2019

DeVos Effort To Save College Accreditor ACICS Is On Shaky Ground

When Diane Auer Jones, Betsy DeVos’s top higher education aide, testified last month before a House Oversight subcommittee, among the deceptive statements she made was her suggestion that a federal court decision compelled the Department of Education to reinstate the controversial for-profit college accreditor ACICS as a validator of schools’ eligibility for federal student grants
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May 22, 2019

What I’m Telling Congress Today About Betsy DeVos

I’m testifying today before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy about the for-profit college industry and how it has been addressed by the U.S. Department of Education under Secretary Betsy DeVos. Other witnesses at the hearing will include Acting Under Secretary Diane Auer Jones, who is DeVos’s top higher education aide. You
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April 22, 2019

Swampy Ex-Trump Officials Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke: They’re Back!

Former top Trump environmental officials Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke, both forced out of their jobs last year under the weight of, for each, an absurdly large number of ethics scandals, have now resurfaced, with each accepting influence-peddling jobs in industries they previously regulated. The two also appeared jointly at a recent Texas Republican event
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