It wasn't enough just to embezzle a million bucks. This RA St. John's University dean and vice president had her scholarship recipients working 20 hours a week--chauffering her son to the airport at 3 am, delivering cash to her at a casino, cooking, taking out her garbage and shoveling snow.

She must have gotten the Gold Standard confused with the Golden Arches standard, and was preparing her students for their future careers at McDonalds.

Quote:Ex-Dean Accused of Using Students as Servants

By C. J. HUGHES
Published: September 30, 2010

A former administrator at St. John's University accused of embezzling about $1 million from the college in Queens has now been charged with far more lurid crimes: forcing students to clean, cook and act as her personal servants to keep their scholarships.


Cecilia Chang had previously been charged with stealing from St. John's.

The ex-administrator, Cecilia Chang, who served as a dean and vice president at the university, was charged with forced labor and bribery, according to a complaint made public by federal prosecutors on Thursday.

As the dean of the Institute of Asian Studies at St. John's, Ms. Chang had the authority to grant 15 scholarships a year. The recipients, most of whom were from overseas, were told they had to work 20 hours a week under her supervision.

The students thought they would be doing work related to the university. Instead, according to the prosecutors, she forced them to perform menial tasks at her home in Jamaica Estates, Queens.

One of the students had to drive Ms. Chang's son to the airport at 3 a.m., the complaint says, and another had to deliver cash to her at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut.

And she made it clear that if the students did not perform their extracurricular duties, they would lose their scholarships, which were worth at least $5,000, the complaint says. The loss of the scholarships might have forced some of the students to drop out, it adds.

"In addition to the outrageous way she treated her students, in exchange for scholarships, she had them falsify documents," Charles Kleinberg, an assistant United States attorney, said at Ms. Chang's bail hearing in Federal District Court in Brooklyn.

Ms. Chang, 57, did not enter a plea or speak during the one-hour hearing, but she stood shaking her head as prosecutors argued that she was a flight risk because she holds a passport from Taiwan, which does not have an extradition treaty with the United States.

Her lawyers argued that by surrendering on Thursday morning, Ms. Chang demonstrated that she would not flee. They added that she was already wearing an electronic monitoring device as part of the bail conditions in the embezzlement case, a 205-count indictment filed by the Queens district attorney's office in September.

In that case, Ms. Chang is accused of stealing about $1 million from St. John's. Prosecutors say she used the money to pay for lingerie, casino trips and her son's tuition.

After three decades at St. John's, Ms. Chang was suspended when the embezzlement allegations came to light in January, and she was fired in June.

Magistrate Judge Joan M. Azrack set Ms. Chang's bail at $1.5 million, to be secured by two homes belonging to friends, one in Hempstead, N.Y., and another in Yonkers. If convicted, Ms. Chang faces at least 10 years in prison, prosecutors said.

After the arraignment, Ron Rubenstein, one of Ms. Chang's lawyers, said that the students' duties, which never totaled more than 20 hours a week, were a normal part of the St. John's work-study program.

Many of those tasks were to help with Taiwanese dignitaries visiting Ms. Chang's house, where she frequently entertained out-of-town guests for fund-raising purposes, Mr. Rubenstein said.

"The fact that this is even a crime is shocking," he said outside court. "Cooking a meal doesn"t sound at first blush like work-study, but wait till the trial. I'm not going to give you the defense now."

According to the complaint, one student, identified only as CI1, "drove Chang to the hair salon, to restaurants and to the airport."

"As a driver" it adds, "CI1 was also responsible for taking out the garbage and shoveling snow at Chang"s residence."

St. John's officials said that the students who worked under Ms. Chang did not have to worry about losing their scholarships.

"If these allegations by federal authorities are true," Dominic Scianna, a spokesman for St. John's, said in a statement, "Ms. Chang's treatment of some students and the environment she created are shocking and in complete violation of all this university stands for.""

A for-sale sign was posted outside Ms. Chang's house on Thursday; an Internet listing puts the price at $2.89 million, or for rent at $5,800 a month.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F25CLL0x_o

Now Wikipedia says that its accredited and if there were anything phony about it I am sure that Tall Magic and his gang would be all over it.

It does have an MBA Program which I found interesting.

As transfer credit becomes easier students are saving money by "swirling"--taking courses at cheaper community colleges or picking up online courses unavailable at their own campus.

Quote:...At Honolulu Community College yesterday, several students said they are simultaneously enrolled at Manoa but find it cheaper to take courses at HCC. Some HCC students who cannot get necessary classes at either HCC or Manoa also said they simultaneously take online courses at other UH campuses.

"We call it 'swirling' and it's a national phenomenon," said Linda Johnsrud, UH vice president for academic planning and policy. "It's not a straight line anymore where students go straight through at one campus. With the increased ability to transfer courses throughout the system and the difference in tuition, students are savvy. We have more students starting their academic careers at the CCs with the intent of transferring to any of the three four-year campuses."

Quote:Horowitz: Right Treated Badly on Campuses

Friday, 01 Oct 2010 09:50 AM
By: Jim Meyers

Conservative activist and best-selling author David Horowitz tells Newsmax it is an “absolute disgrace” that left-wing radicals at American universities are so intolerant of right-wing views that he has to hire a bodyguard when he speaks on campuses.

Students are being punished for expressing opposition to the liberal views of any professor who is a "political ideologue,"? says Horowitz, author of the new book "Reforming Our Universities: The Campaign for an Academic Bill of Rights."? He is founder and president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, founder of Students for Academic Freedom, and a Newsmax contributor.

Horowitz has long campaigned for academic freedom, maintaining that U.S. universities are hotbeds of radical leftist thought and urging professors to include conservative and pro-American resources in their curriculum.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, he said universities have a code of political correctness that inhibits the free exchange of ideas.

"You have to believe that America is a racist, sexist, homophobic, imperialist, Islamophobic country to get through many courses in universities these days,"? he says.

"This is the mentality of communist parties and communist states. The people who are shaping our university classrooms today, or lots of them, and have totally infiltrated the Democratic Party think exactly the way the communists did 20 and 30 years ago."?

Asked whether students who disagree with professors are fearful of being punished with poor grades when they speak out, Horowitz responds: "Absolutely. They're fearful of filing grievances because there's no conservatives on the faculty to look after them.

"And I can't blame them. I know way too many stories of students who were punished.

"A student would write a paper challenging a professor, get a C-minus, and then decide there was no future in that because this professor was obviously a political ideologue. And so they would parrot back what the professor was trying to impose on them and get an A. It's terrible."

Horowitz bemoaned the fact that he needs a bodyguard when he is invited to speak at a university. "I share a bodyguard with Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin,"? he tells Newsmax. "It's an absolute disgrace.

"You have on campuses, I have to call them communists because that's what they are, and Islamofascists. The Students for Justice in Palestine is a fascist organization, a Jew-hating fascist organization on most campuses. And if someone like myself or Ann or Michelle comes to the campus, they threaten violence and they intimidate students.

"I've had college Republicans who invited me say they are fearful for their safety. The universities will do nothing about this."

He also expressed dismay that conservatives don't use their "leverage"? to exercise more control over college curriculum. "The boards of trustees of private universities, the major donors, tend to be conservative,"? Horowitz says.

"If they paid any attention to the curriculum, if they would read this book 'Reforming Our Universities' and get a picture of the lay of the land there, they could do enormous good."?

Horowitz was asked how William Ayers -- an unrepentant 1960s terrorist who was involved in several bombings, including at the Capitol Building -- could be an education professor at the taxpayer-supported University of Illinois.

"Because the universities are hospitable to violent leftists,"? he says.

"Ayers traveled recently to Gaza to meet with Hamas. Ayers is an American Nazi, that's what he is.

"There are people in universities that despise Billy Ayers, but they're intimidated into silence.

"The dominant forces, the people that control universities, and most faculty Senates are radical leftists who approve of Billy Ayers."?

From http://www.dumblaws.com/law/686 -

Quote:Oregon and New Jersey are the only two states in the United States that require attendants to pump gas at gas stations. There are many arguments for it, but many are not very well substantiated. It is claimed that it should not matter because gas prices are lower in these two states. Insurance costs for gas stations go down slightly if a "qualified attendant" is pumping the gas, but they must also pay for the cost of hiring an extra worker. Combined with varying taxes on gasoline between states, its true affect on gas price is anyone's guess. It is also claimed that having your own gas pumped for you is superior because drivers don't have to brave the elements and fiddle with the gas pump and their gas cap. With the exception of a few elderly and disabled persons, most people are perfectly capable of getting out of their car in a covered area for five minutes and place a nozzle in their gas tank. Another argument is that by forcing consumers to go to gas stations with attendants, it helps out the job market. Opponents argue that employing these people is merely a waste of money, and if jobs are needed, other opportunities could easily be created (i.e. city beautification). Regardless of the truth behind the matter, Oregon and New Jersey are keeping this law on the books and fully enforcing it.

There's a 20% chance that deviants like Alan Contreras, Thomas "Chip" White and Steve Levicoff already have an incurable, fatal disease because of their perverted lifestyle (or death style).  Hopefully the Lord will deal with each of them sooner rather than later.

Quote:The 'Gay' Deathstyle
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
By J. Matt Barber

One has to wonder if Reuters reporter Julie Steenhuysen will soon be joining the millions of other Americans relegated to Obama's swelling unemployment lines. She evidently didn't get the media memo last week and violated the goose-stepping left's Orwellian requirement that we all adhere to obtuse notions of political correctness.

Having contracted a rare case of journalistic objectivity, Ms. Steenhuysen penned a story that dared to detail a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study on homosexuality.

The study exposed the jaw-dropping fact that one-in-five "gay" and "bisexual" men in American cities have been infected with HIV/AIDS. Needless to say, this scandalous revelation completely blows out of the water the left's morally relative, propagandist line that homosexuality is "normal, natural and good."

To believers, it's never surprising when modern science serves to validate the transcendent truths found in Scripture (not that God's truth needs validating).

James 1:15 warns: "Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death."

Indeed, it seems the common moniker "homosexual lifestyle" has it exactly backwards. As opponents of the extremist "gay" lobby have long illustrated, homosexuality falls dead center within our nation's burgeoning culture of death.

First, take that feminist rite of passage: abortion. Due to a national lack of sexual self-governance, in 2010 we find that – post Roe v. Wade – 50 million of God's precious children have been slaughtered at Satan's altar of euphemistic "choice."

Moreover, millions of self-styled "gay" men have – as a direct result of homosexual conduct – died from AIDS, syphilis, hepatitis and all other forms of homosexually transmitted disease.

Romans 1:26-27, which Obama once comically called an "obscure passage in Romans," addresses the homosexual deathstyle: "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."

It's tragic when people yield to disordered sexual temptations that can literally kill them spiritually, emotionally and physically. Nobody with any compassion enjoys watching others "[receive] in themselves the due penalty for their perversion." But a corollary to free will is living – or dying – with the choices we've made.

Another problem lies in the fact that far too many Christians have contributed to the dilemma by failing to speak truth, in love, on the issue of homosexuality (pastors with "gay" congregants and family members, I'm talking to you). Nobody likes to be unfairly labeled a hater, "homophobe" or bigot, but fear of such attacks offers no justification for failing to speak truth in love.

There are even self-professed Christians today who inexcusably join in with the secular left in affirming homosexual sin as a good thing. There's a word for these types: apostate.

There's no wiggle room here. If you defend or seek to justify homosexual conduct, you defy God. Not good. As I recall, He's got a little something to say about "causing one of these little ones" to sin.

But even if you choose not to acknowledge biblical truth, you're still left without excuse. As the CDC has once again verified, if you affirm or defend homosexual behavior as "normal, natural and good," you also defy science. You're on the wrong side of history, let alone reality.

What is it about this particular PC-protected practice that causes so many otherwise intelligent people to become blinded blathering buffoons?

Let's say we had a group of people who defined their identity based upon a penchant for running headlong into brick walls. Oh, we'll call them, "Wallies." (Wally pride, baby!)

As significant percentages of Wallies began to drop dead, or suffer irreversible brain damage, do you suppose the left would demand tolerance for such behavior? Do you think they'd begin handing out bicycle helmets in elementary schools, telling kids to practice safe walling?

With liberals, anything's possible, but I'm more inclined to think that even the moonbat left might agree that people tending toward such behavior would be best served to simply avoid running headlong into walls altogether.

I don't mean to be flip (okay, maybe a little flip) but can someone please tell me why on earth the left insists that we "tolerate" homosexual behavior while – as the CDC has once again confirmed – it continues to have results similar to brick walling?

We throw paper-thin latex condoms at kids who struggle with same-sex attraction and tell them: "You're gay! Embrace who you are. Gay pride, baby!"

We push them out onto a paper-thin latex tightrope with a one-in-five chance they'll plummet to their death.

What in the name of all things sacred are we doing? One-in-five with AIDS? Seriously? If five people got into a car and were told that one of them wasn't going to survive the drive, how quickly do you suppose they'd scatter?

Unnatural behaviors beget natural consequences. Scripture admonishes: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23.)

Do you consider yourself "gay" or lesbian? As untold thousands of ex-gays will tell you, you don't have to be. It's my most sincere prayer that going forward you'll choose Christ over sin: Life over death.

You think sexual "freedom" makes you happy? You should experience the true freedom that comes through abiding in He who is "the way, the truth and the life."

That's liberation.

Quote:Abolish Public Schools

Every community in America should give all parents a voucher equal to what it now pays per-pupil for its public schools, allowing those parents to use those vouchers at any school they choose.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010
By Terence P. Jeffrey

President Barack Obama said on NBC on Monday he would like American children to spend more time in public schools. Here is a better idea: American children should spend no time in public schools.

County by county, state by state, Americans should begin functionally abolishing government-run schools and replacing them with a free market in schools. On the federal level, Congress should kill the Department of Education by choking off its funding. The department was not constitutional in the first place.

Everybody’s children should get the same chance Obama’s children have had to attend the private school of their parents’ choice.

American children should have the opportunity not only to attend schools where they are well instructed in reading, writing and arithmetic, but also where they are unambiguously taught that our Declaration of Independence is right—that God is the Author of our rights and that even the government must obey His laws.

We should aim for a society where children spend more time with their most important teachers, their parents, and less time with the less important teachers at their school.

Obama wants the opposite. And he does not want our children spending more time with just any teachers, but with government teachers—who often double as liberal propagandists seeking to indoctrinate children with values contrary to those they learn at home, while failing to teach them reading, writing and arithmetic.

“I think we should have a longer school year,” Obama said on NBC. “We now have our kids go to school about a month less than most other advanced countries. And that makes a difference. It means that kids are losing a lot of what they learn during the summer.”

Obama then made a class-war argument to defend his point—in the process taking a snotty swipe at what he presumes to be the inferior reading habits of lower-income families: “It’s especially severe for poorer kids who may not be seeing as many books in their house during the summers, aren’t getting supplemental educational activities,” Obama said. “So, the idea of a longer school year, I think, makes sense.”

In keeping with his Marxist analysis, Obama pointed to the education system in the People’s Republic of China—a nation governed by the Communist Party—as a model for the United States to emulate when it comes to dealing with teachers.

“When I travel to China, for example,” said Obama, “and I sit down with the mayor of Shanghai, and he talks about the fact that teaching is considered one of the most prestigious jobs and a teacher’s getting paid the same as an engineer, that, I think, accounts for how well they’re doing in terms of boosting their education system.”

Obama’s unstated assumption: Central planners, not the free market, ought to determine the value of a particular job and who gets paid what.  I say: Let the market decide—especially in education.

The greatest problem with primary and secondary education in America today is precisely that it is dominated by government-run schools that people are compelled by force of law to pay for whether they like them or not and whether they send their children there or not. The second greatest problem is that the political power controlling these government-run schools has become increasingly centralized, gradually removing decision-making from local communities, passing it up to the state and federal level.

On NBC, Obama made clear he wants to use increased federal education spending to increase federal leverage over local schools, forcing policy changes preferred by him. That would move power in exactly the wrong direction.

The historical record compiled by the Department of Education itself shows that increased government spending on education does not improve the academic performance of government schools.

“From 1989-90 to 2006-07, total expenditures per student in public elementary and secondary schools rose from $8,748 to $11,839 (a 35 percent increase in 2008-09 constant dollars), with most of the increase occurring after 1997-98,” says the Education Department’s The Condition of Education 2010.

In 1980, 17-year-old students in public schools earned an average score of 284 out of 500 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress reading test. In 2008, they still scored 284. Despite increased per pupil spending, the needle did not move.

In 1999, 17-year-old students in American public schools earned an average score of 307 out of 500 on the National Assessment of Educational Progress math test. In 2008, they scored 305. The needle moved in the wrong direction.

Every community in America should give all parents a voucher equal to what it now pays per-pupil for its public schools, allowing those parents to use those vouchers at any school they choose. Let the market decide if government-run schools survive.

Want to compete with the wealthy higher ed cartel?  Can't afford to buy an existing floundering RA operation?  Thinking about starting your own DL school in a cheaper overseas venue instead?  That's a crime, you know.  Ask Dixie.  She took three to avoid eight on trumped up charges.  Feeling safer?  The higher ed cartel is.

Quote:Wasted lives, wasted money: The offense of overcriminalization

By Jim E. Lavine - 09/24/10 03:56 PM ET
  
Small businessman Abner “Abbie” Schoenwetter, a Florida seafood broker who is now 64, could have spent the last decade growing his business, contributing to the economy and the tax base, preparing for retirement, and enjoying liberty and happiness with his wife and three children. Instead, beginning with a grand jury indictment ten years ago, Mr. Schoenwetter’s real life became a surreal tale lifted from the pages of a Kafka novel.

Schoenwetter, who had no prior criminal history, was indicted and convicted on charges relating to lobsters he had agreed to purchase that, according to U.S. authorities, violated three Honduran administrative regulations. The U.S. claimed that, under Honduran law, there were undersized lobsters and lobsters with eggs in the shipment, and that the lobsters had been packaged in plastic, not regulation cardboard. The Honduran authorities, including the Honduran Attorney General, advised U.S. law enforcement authorities and the court that this effort to punish Schoenwetter and others under the Lacey Act for violating Honduran regulations was misplaced – the regulations in question had been declared null and void in Honduras. No matter, Mr. Schoenwetter was sentenced to over eight years in federal prison. He served most of his sentence and is now on supervised release.

How does one measure what was lost in this and other cases of wasteful criminalization and prosecution: Mr. Schoenwetter’s liberty and livelihood? The irretrievably missed economic activity and tax revenue from his work? The costs of law enforcement, lawyers, and court administration? Several years housing Mr. Schoenwetter in our prison system?

The world recently read about Mr. Schoenwetter’s case in a late July cover story from The Economist magazine, “Rough Justice: America Locks Up Too Many People, Some For Acts That Should Not Even Be Criminal.” On Tuesday, Congress will hear directly from Mr. Schoenwetter at a House hearing on “Reining in Overcriminalization,” sponsored by the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.

As President of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), I too will testify at this hearing, and share with Congress much accumulated data and research revealing how very far astray our “overcriminalization nation” has veered. Experts from numerous disciplines, vantage points and political backgrounds, including NACDL, have studied and reported on the abject failure of America’s across-the-board “tough on crime” approach over the last several decades.

Well, we know that in the year 1900, there were about 165 federal criminal laws on the books. By 1970, that number was 2,000. Today, there are over 4,450 federal crimes scattered throughout the United States Code, with estimates of as many as 300,000 federal regulations that can be punitively enforced. The problem is out-of-control and growing. Just this year, when Congress enacted financial reform legislation, it added more than two dozen new crimes.

For many, when it comes to regulation of social conduct, every problem is a nail, so all that’s needed is the hammer of criminalization. With every passing Congress, though, we are getting a better idea of exactly what this criminal justice structure looks like, and it is not pretty, it is not cheap, and it is surely not rooted in the American values of fairness, justice, and checked government power.

A few months ago, the Heritage Foundation and NACDL released a groundbreaking, non-partisan, joint report and set of recommendations on an important part of this problem, Without Intent: How Congress Is Eroding the Criminal Intent Requirement in Federal Law. At the report’s release, former Attorney General Edwin Meese III highlighted the absurdity of the expression “ignorance of the law is no excuse,” given the current volume of the federal criminal law. He’s right.

Overcriminalization and wasteful prosecution have led the United States to have both the highest absolute number of people in prison – approximately 2.3 million – as well as the highest rate of incarceration– roughly one in 100, when just counting adults – of any nation on earth. And even as the world’s incarceration leader, the U.S. can make no claim to be anywhere near the safest society in the world.

Exactly what is served by taking away so much of Mr. Schoenwetter’s life? Our constitution cannot afford the police and regulatory state we have become. And the American people simply cannot afford its tragic human cost or economic price tag. Bipartisan efforts to fix what’s broken here will be good for fairness and justice, good for the economy, and good for people’s confidence in government as a problem-solver.

Jim E. Lavine is the President of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

"For-profit" education includes some of the top distance learning providers, such as Washington Post Co. (the parent of Kaplan), Corinthian Colleges, DeVry, Apollo Group (U of Phoenix) and American Public Education Inc (APUS/AMU).

Once again, it's the entrenched higher learning cartel working hand in glove with the government to restrict markets and limit access to online learning opportunities.

Quote:For-Profit Education Under Assault
Posted by Brian Darling (Profile)
Saturday, September 25th at 9:00AM EDT

For-profit education is under assault from elitists who hate the idea of free market educational institutions.  It is also under attack from bureaucrats at the U.S. Department of Education who are trying to make it hard for students to arm themselves with the education needed to find a job.  Elitism is alive and well at the Department of Education.

The Department of Education announced yesterday that they are “on schedule to implement new regulations of the for-profit education sector dealing with gainful employment and 13 other issues to protect students and taxpayers.”  The non-profit sector feels threatened; therefore allies in the Administration are trying to use the power of the federal government to provide non profit schools a competitive edge to slow the growth of for-profit institutions.  For-profit institutions are the trend and they are becoming more popular.

Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) has introduced legislation to prevent the Department of Education from denying federal financial aid to students attending for-profit colleges and vocational certificate programs.  Senator Risch said of his effort:

Quote:The ‘gainful employment’ rules could deny hundreds of thousands of students access to the training and skills development they need to secure a job in today’s troubled economy.  Highly-skilled workers are in high demand in certain sectors and propriety schools are uniquely qualified to meet that need.  It is simply irresponsible for the government to throw roadblocks in front of students and institutions at a time when job creation in America should be the administration’s number one priority.

Senator Risch’s legislation, S.3837, the Education for All Act, would forbid the Department of Education from singling out students from proprietary and vocational institutions and treat them differently than other students.  These institutions have proven to be uniquely qualified to help students find jobs in today’s complex economy.

Risch joins Senators Mike Enzi (R-WY) and Congressman Joe Sestak (D-PA) in writing letters expressing concern about this proposed rule.  Enzi wrote that the proposed rule “unfairly holds for-profit institutions to a higher standard for student debt and default than all other institutions of higher education.”  These elected federal officials are all concerned about the Department’s action on this issue is the number of members sending letters of interest to the Department of Education is up to 80 members of Congress according to the Coalition for Educational Success.

The Department of Education has proposed a rule to “require proprietary institutions of higher education and postsecondary vocational institutions to provide prospective students with each eligible program’s graduation and job placement rates, and that colleges provide the Department with information that will allow determination of student debt levels and incomes after program completion.”  Although this may sound reasonable, the next step is for the department to evaluate the eligibility of students in order to deny students access to student loans if they deem them unfit for the loan.  The proposed regulations provide a massive new regulatory structure over what High School diplomas qualify as satisfactory and provides new regulations defining “satisfactory academic progress.”  The bottom line is that these are complex new regulations intended to make it harder for the for-profit educational institutions to operate.

There are two troubling aspects to this rule.  First, these regulations are not a requirement of not for profit institutions.  If these types of regulations are not applied to for profit institutions, then it is not fair to treat the for-profit schools differently.  Furthermore, the fact that the Department is trying to do without legislation is troublesome.  This is an important enough decision to put Members of Congress on record.  If this is a good idea, then the Congress can have hearings and pass this dramatic change and burden with regard to for-profit institutions.  

The Department of Education had to publish the new “Gainful Employment” rule and allow for public comment as part of this rule making process.  The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that the Department received more than 85 thousand comments on it.  Under a provision of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the Department is supposed to review these comments, because they are supposed to read them and respond when necessary.  The Department states that a final decision on these regulations is on schedule, yet they modified the schedule to insure that they reviewed the commentary and did not violate the APA.

The Department of Education received more than 85,000 comments on the “Gainful Employment” rule, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.  I have had experience in this process and sometimes the bureaucracy is not responsive to the comments.  In the bill creating the Transportation Security Administration was a provision allowing the arming of pilots in the wake of 9/11.  A public comment period was conducted in January of 2002 by the Federal Aviation Administration.  After overwhelming support for the idea of arming pilots against terrorism and setting up a program to train commercial pilots to protect the cockpit from hostile takeover, the FAA concluded that they were going to ignore the comments and not move forward with the program.

In May of 2002, Transportation Undersecretary John Magaw announced at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing that he would not approve of the program.  Congress ultimately stepped in and established the program that is still in effect today and is a success.  This armed pilots fact pattern may be repeated if the Department of Education also ignores the will of the American people and Congress.  It is possible that if the Department of Education moves forward, Congress will step in and overturn the decision through legislation.

A combination of threatened not for profits and their elitist alumni who look down their noses at a sector that traditionally serves the somewhat under served may be one reason for this effort.  Also, it’s probably accurate to say that there are plenty in the Obama orbit who simply think the words ‘for profit’ and ‘education’ don’t belong together under any circumstances. They want to snuff out the sector and they are continuing down the road to do so with this regulation.  Hopefully Senator Risch and other allies of students who desire to attend for-profit educational institutions win the war of ideas on this issue.

John Bear announced, in his usual not-so-subtle way, that he has moved from the SF 'burbs into a rural area ("among the redwoods") of beautiful Northern California. I find it interesting that Bear chose DI over DD as the venue for this news cloaked as a question. Is there more to this than meets the eye?  

DI thread initiated by J.B.