Trump's love of for-profit colleges will break the hearts of vets

[riversedge]

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Trump's love of for-profit colleges will break the hearts of vets
By Matthew Boulay, opinion contributor - 07/19/17 04:40 PM EDT


President Trump continually promises to “put veterans first,” but his administration’s early moves indicate he is willing to keep that pledge as long as it doesn’t cut into the profits of for-profit colleges.

The president’s Education Department is working to roll back policies — implemented with bipartisan support — that protect student veterans from bad actors in the for-profit college industry.

Opposition to the administration’s goals is beginning to coalesce. This month, a broad coalition of veterans and advocates will swarm public hearings in Washington, D.C., and Dallas to testify against the rollbacks, while a group of 19 state attorneys general announced a lawsuit against the Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for activity that Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey called “unsustainable, unfair and illegal.”

The steady push back only highlights the fact that the administration’s actions would hurt, not help, student veterans.



Veterans are particularly attractive to for-profit colleges because they are eligible for up to $19,200 a year in federal education benefits, and they return from the battlefield without a clear plan for the future. The for-profits employ hard-sell tactics, promising high quality programming and “guaranteed” job placement, but delivering very little........................

[dalton99a]

1. Disgusting

[Igel]

4. They're at higher risk for greater levels of fraud.

A lot of lower-tier 4-year colleges and many more urban community colleges have the same kinds of drop-out and fail rates. Some community colleges make for-profit graduation rates look downright good. We don't notice these problem schools and programs because they're not-for-profit, and part of the crusade against for-profit schools is that they're "for profit." But in the right context, we speak glowingly of them.

For instance, Michael Brown, the black teen shot dead in Ferguson a couple of summers back had a promising future because he was going to college. His family was proud, and here was a promising student who was going to make a future for himself. He was admitted to a for-profit trade school. In one post, somebody would be speaking effusively of the kid's future because of "college", in another post that same somebody would be arguing for shutting down all such "colleges".

The lower-tier colleges and community colleges that serve the same population as the for-profit colleges all have the same problem: A lot of kids that aren't well-prepared for the courses, didn't learn how to learn in high school, have sometimes extreme distractions, etc., etc.

The thing is, the for-profit schools charge a lot more and leave the students in a lot of debt.

The non-profit schools are usually funded by the state, so they're just using taxpayer dollars with little to show for it. In fact, the usual response, since they're public, is to put more money into them, as though doing the same thing we've done for 40 years one more time will suddenly have a different effect.

[TeamPooka]

2. K&R

[SergeStorms]

3. He's probably........

still pissed that Trump "University" was sued and found to be a complete fraud. He still has several lawsuits pending about it, and might be called to testify in at least one of them.

His penchant for revenge on anyone who "does him wrong" - real, or imagined - is probably a contributing factor in his decision. That and the kickbacks and campaign contributions from the sleazy "for profit" institutions.

Sure, he'll hurt a lot of people with this, and many of the will be veterans, but Trump cares only about Trump. That's been demonstrated countless times already.