With Lobbying Blitz, For-Profit Colleges Diluted New Rules

[brentspeak]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/us/politics/for-profit-college-rules-scaled-back-after-lobbying.html?pagewanted=all

With Lobbying Blitz, For-Profit Colleges Diluted New Rules

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: December 9, 2011

WASHINGTON — Last year, the Obama administration vowed to stop for-profit colleges from luring students with false promises. In an opening volley that shook the $30 billion industry, officials proposed new restrictions to cut off the huge flow of federal aid to unfit programs.

But after a ferocious response that administration officials called one of the most intense they had seen, the Education Department produced a much-weakened final plan that almost certainly will have far less impact as it goes into effect next year.

The story of how the for-profit colleges survived the threat of a major federal crackdown offers a case study in Washington power brokering. Rattled by the administration’s tough talk, the colleges spent more than $16 million on an all-star list of prominent figures, particularly Democrats with close ties to the White House, to plot strategy, mend their battered image and plead their case.

Anita Dunn, a close friend of President Obama and his former White House communications director, worked with Kaplan University, one of the embattled school networks. Jamie Rubin, a major fund-raising bundler for the president’s re-election campaign, met with administration officials about ATI, a college network based in Dallas, in which Mr. Rubin’s private-equity firm has a stake.

[Blue_Tires]

1. As long as money buys influence, there will always be a need for OWS

[frazzled]

2. What's strange is that it occurred to me ...

This story would not even be a story had the administration and the Education Dept. not tried to come down hard on these shysters in the first place. That is to say, during the growth of these private schools during the Bush administration, there could not have been such a story, because it was never a question, and more and more federal loans kept getting funneled to them.

So this administration tried to crack down, and they got plenty of blowback--including from high up Democratic operatives and some senators and congresspersons. They retrenched. It's sad. But I give them credit for at least trying and making it an issue. Perhaps at least fewer students will take the bait and indenture themselves to these places that promise great things, deliver little, and leave them in debt.

[MedicalAdmin]

3. If you want to keep the kickbacks flowing...

... they need to believe that you will burn them to the ground if the protection money doesn't keep flowing.

[frazzled]

4. Yeah, right. Thanks for the Cosa Nostra analogy

It's almost as good as pulling out the Nazi or Holocaust card. In other words, epic #fail.