Thank you, Senator Durbin for exposing University of Phoenix

[Fritz Walter]

As someone who works directly with service members, veterans and their families, I sincerely appreciate your request to the Defense Department to thoroughly investigate the practices of the University of Phoenix -- and their parent company -- to undermine the safeguards that President Obama put into place three years ago on profiteering off of veterans' and service members' utilization of Post 9/11 GI Bill scholarships.

I just finished reading the Center for Investigative Reporting's article on UOP and was appalled at what they uncovered. Appalled, but not totally surprised.

“I’ve seen too many veterans with degrees from the University of Phoenix on their wall and unemployment checks on their bed stand,” said Chris Neiweem, a former Army sergeant who served a tour in Iraq and now works in Washington for the advocacy group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

"In June 2013, the University of Phoenix was placed on notice by its accrediting body, the Higher Learning Commission, for failing to support “student learning and effective teaching.” The commission was scheduled to revisit the issue Thursday, with an announcement expected soon. The University of Phoenix’s online program, by far its largest campus, had 24,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans enrolled last year. The graduation rate there was 7.3 percent, according to the Department of Education, and nearly 1 in 5 students default on their loans within three years of leaving school."

Full article available here.

7.3%?!?

Indeed, education is just one example of how so many for-profit corporations have expanded into ventures that had traditionally been efficiently and effectively delivered by government or non-profit entities. And failed miserably. Locally, charter schools' have been draining funds from local public school boards and delivering little or nothing in return.

This failed experiment of corporate greed siphoning tax dollars from the public sector must cease.

Thank you, sir!

Respectfully,

[Wellstone ruled]

1. What we need is who are the Monied behind this fraud.

Back in the day,this outfit zero credibility and anyone and everyone would not touch these so called Grads with a ten foot pole. Let's expose the people in the back ground.

[Fritz Walter]

2. Follow the money

I just hope that Sen. Durbin and the DOD connect those dots.

[Wellstone ruled]

3. My question

Is this Dan Quale or Marvin Bush behind the sceens? Heard years back it was Carlyle Group. Going to do some digging and post what we find.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

4. there have been ripoff proprietary schools for decades.

Back in the 1970s there was a school called McMahon College of Court Reporting. The owner absconded to South America with half a million dollars in student loan money. The students filed a class action suit against the government to get their money. A lot of the students took a so-called aptitude test and a lot of the students had no business doing court reporting. They weren't good typists, first of all, and didn't have excellent English skills and concentration skills.

These people had no place to go. Houston Community College started a court reporting program. They gave the ladies who taught typing and shorthand the machine shorthand textbooks and told them to start teaching. They started teaching in 1975. I did not go to McMahon but I was the first person to graduate from the HCC Court Reporting program in 1977.