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    It might just be career government lawyers doing their jobs, and doing them well, until the Trump Administration can catch up and work its malevolence, but in court papers filed today, the Trump Justice Department defended the Obama Administration’s gainful employment rule, a measure aimed at curbing predatory abuses by for-profit colleges. The rule penalizes expensive career college programs that, year after year, leave graduates with debts that, based on their earnings, they cannot afford to repay. “The public interest is served by allowing the Department to go forward with implementing the GE regulations,” Justice Department lawyers wrote on behalf of their client, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who is being sued by an association of cosmetology schools. The association’s somewhat risque argument is that many hairdressers and other beauty professionals do not report all their tip income to the IRS, and thus their graduates actually are doing better than the gainful employment calculations give them credit for. Revised under pressure from industry lobbyists, the Obama Administration’s rule is not very strong, but it does endanger some of the worst-of-the-worst college programs. The operators of those programs, who have been raking in billions in taxpayer money, want to make sure they can still act with impunity, even though their abuses have ruined the lives of countless veterans, single moms, and other students. There are good cosmetology schools, as well as other types of career schools. The gainful employment rule aims to channel resources and students to those quality, affordable schools, and away from the kind of for-profit colleges that law enforcement agencies are investigating or prosecuting for fraud. But given: that Donald Trump was previously the proprietor of his own predatory for-profit real estate “university”; that Trump crony Newt Gingrich and congressional Republicans have aggressively advocated for the for-profit college industry; that DeVos has been invested in for-profit education
    7 years ago by @prophe
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    All three of England’s for-profit universities owned in Netherlands Calls have been made for greater scrutiny of the ownership of for-profit higher education providers after it emerged that BPP University is owned in the Netherlands by its US parent. The disclosure means that all three of England’s for-profit universities are owned in the Netherlands, which is known for its attractive corporate tax regime. However, Apollo Education Group, which has owned BPP since 2010 and was recently bought by two US private equity firms, said it did not gain any tax advantage from Dutch ownership of the institution. BPP has benefited from £26.6 million in tuition fee payments via the public Student Loans Company over five years since 2011, according to SLC figures. Companies House documents show that BPP University is owned by BPP Holdings, which is in turn owned by Apollo UK Acquisition Company Limited, which is itself owned by Coöperatieve Apollo Global Netherlands UA (UA is the abbreviation for the Dutch-language term for “excluded liability”). England’s two other for-profit universities, the University of Law and Arden University, are both owned by Global University Systems, a company whose leadership is Russian and which is registered in the Netherlands as a “BV”, the Dutch equivalent of a private limited liability company. The government’s Higher Education and Research Bill, currently making its way through Parliament, aims to bring in more private and for-profit providers to compete with universities. Times Higher Education asked Apollo why BPP is ultimately owned in the Netherlands, whether or not Netherlands ownership conferred any tax advantages for Apollo, and whether the location of ownership is likely to change under the new owners of Apollo. A spokesman for Apollo Global, the group’s subsidiary for its non-US operations, said: “Apollo Global’s Dutch structure was put into place in 2011 in conjunction with the development of a new global learning platform. We do not gain any tax advantages related to the s
    7 years ago by @prophe
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    A new report from the American Enterprise Institute argues that state and local funding of public colleges stacks the deck against for-profit institutions under the gainful-employment rule, an Obama administration regulation that measures the ability of graduates of vocational programs to repay their student loans. The rule covers nondegree programs at nonprofit colleges -- mostly community colleges -- and all for-profit programs. Roughly three-quarters of for-profit programs pass the rule, the report said, compared to a relatively small number of nonprofits that are covered under gainful employment. Direct public funding drives much of that disparity, according to the report's authors. "Higher tuition at for-profits means students take on more debt, while public institutions have the luxury of charging lower tuition due to their direct appropriations," the report said. "Therefore, even if a for-profit institution and a public institution have similar overall expenditures (costs) and graduate earnings (returns on investment), the for-profit institution will be more likely to fail the gainful-employment rule, since more of its costs are reflected in student debt." Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration have said they will seek to roll back gainful employment and other Obama-era regulations aimed at for-profits. But such nixing of the rules likely will take time. And this week the U.S. Education Department defended gainful employment in federal court.
    7 years ago by @prophe
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