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Ashford University Deceiving Consumers, Violating Department of Defense Regulations

dahneshaulis@gmail.com Since its inception in 2005, Ashford University has been an overly priced, low value educational institution with questionable ethics and poor student outcomes.   As a result, servicemembers and veterans have filed a disproportionate number of complaints about the school through the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, and the non-profit Veterans Education Success. [i] [ii] [iii] Ashford and its parent company Bridgepoint Education (BPI) have also been the subjects of investigations, [iv] lawsuits, and legal and out-of-court settlements for a continuing series of unethical and illegal business practices: taking advantage of wounded service members [v] , falsifying student retention data , [vi] robocalling prospective students , [vii] and deceiving students about private loans . [viii]   All of these practices violated elements of the Department of Defense’s Memoranda of Understanding (“DOD MOU”) signed by one or more Bridgepoint executi...

DOD, VA Get Low Grades for Helping Vets Make College Choices

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dahneshaulis@gmail.com The Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are tasked with helping servicemembers and their families make successful transitions to civilian life. The Department of Defense offers college classes on base through their education centers. They also provide free education opportunities through DOD Tuition Assistance (TA). DOD offers a tool called TA Decide to help servicemembers choose schools and a short series of classes for outgoing servicemembers, called the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) . The US Army also has Army University which puts all military education in one place. VA claims to offer individual counseling for transitioning servicemembers and veterans seeking information about post-military careers and education. This includes a career tool called Career Scope and an online tool for selecting schools, called the GI Bill Comparison Tool . How well are these education and career programs working? It would certainly...

Private College Revenues and the US College Meltdown

dahneshaulis@gmail.com According to National Center for Education Statistics charts , public higher education institutions overall experienced increased revenues in recent years, but private colleges saw a $46 Billion loss in revenues from 2013 to 2015 . To make matters worse, in 2016, the revenue line for non-profit private colleges and universities actually dipped below expense lines. Revenues were $183B and expenses were $189B, for a net loss of $6B. Bear in mind that the numbers are not up-to-date, so this pattern may have improved, stabilized, or worsened since 2016. But with student enrollment continuing to decrease, declining private college revenue numbers may be a harbinger of a larger meltdown. In 2016, EY suggested that as many as 805 colleges faced significant challenges due to low enrollment numbers and unsustainable finances. Some of private college revenue losses may due to a tuition discounting. In any case, drops in institutional revenues for a significant period requ...

College Enrollments Continue Decline in Several States

dahneshaulis@gmail.com [Updated 10-20-2018] Although the National Student Clearinghouse numbers won't be out until December, a cursory look at news articles over the last month suggests that US higher education enrollment will be down again in 2018-19. This is not surprising news, given that only a minority of colleges surveyed by Inside Higher Education/Gallup had met their enrollment goals by June. Thousands of learning sites and campuses have closed over the last seven years , and the trend looks like it will continue. You can track the school closings here . For-profit colleges continue to downsize, although they aren't reporting numbers. However, many University of Phoenix and Virginia College campuses will be closing. Harrison College campuses closed abruptly leaving thousands of students shunted to other questionable subprime schools, like National American University . University of Phoenix campuses will be closing in Albuquerque, Atlanta, Chicago, Colorado Spri...

Visa Mill Promoters Drop $760K on Key Republicans and NY Governor Andrew Cuomo

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According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, individual members of Thompson Education Center have spent at least $710,000 for the 2017-2018 election cycle, all on Republican efforts.  [Image below from Open Secrets.] Backers of Thompson Education Center, Lianbo Wang and Sherry Li , have already donated at least $600,00 to the Trump Victory fund . They also donated $55,000 to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2014.  Thompson Education Center (TEC) is a project, backed by Chinese-American investors, to create a private college in Sullivan County, New York. The school would house up to 2500 students, presumably Chinese nationals seeking US visas. Information about the school is sketchy. Press releases from 2016 and 2017 stated that TEC would build a nursing school, a culinary center, and a conservatory for film and tv. [Image from NTD, suggesting that the Thompson Education Center could become a high-end visa mill for Chinese nationals.] In 2013, the or...

Higher Learning Commission: Accreditation Is No Sign Of Quality

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dahneshaulis@gmail.com "Yet in practice, accreditors—who are paid by the institutions themselves—appear to be ineffectual at best, much like the role of credit rating agencies during the recent financial crisis." David Deming and David Figlio in Accountability in US Education: Applying Lessons from K–12 Experience to Higher Education (2016) As a watchdog of America's subprime colleges and a monitor of the College Meltdown , I can tell you that institutional accreditation is no sign of quality. Worse yet, accreditation by organizations such as the Middle States Association , Western Association of Schools and Colleges , and the Higher Learning Commission is used by subprime colleges to lend legitimacy to their predatory, low standard operations.  [Image below: DeVry University uses its accreditation to lend credibility to its brand.] According to the US Department of Education, the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) accredits 946 Title IV schools, including some o...

National American University and the Subprime College Crash

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Summary As a subprime higher education company, National American University Holdings (NAUH) has avoided media and agency scrutiny for years. NAUH has been losing money since 2015, with only severe cost cutting in sight. A former NAUH executive has filed a False Claims lawsuit alleging that the school defrauded the US government. Share price has been at or near $1 delisting price since March 2018. NAUH has mortgaged their real estate assets to stay afloat, to the tune of $8M, a big number for a small cap company. NAUH is underwater, with debt surpassing equity in May 2018. NAUH has delayed submitting its annual report to the SEC. NAUH has only one major investor, T. Rowe Price. NAUH and the Subprime College Crash While subprime college college companies like Corinthian Colleges ( COCO ), Apollo Group (NASDAQ: APOL ), DeVry University (DV), ITT Educational Services ( ESI ), and Education Management Corporation ( EDMC ) made the greatest profits and the greatest losses over the last ...