QUICK. HE ASKED ME FOR A FAVOR. DID HIS CHECK CLEAR?
Sen Marco Rubio wrote a letter to the US Education Department asking for leniency towards one of his contributors who admitted to faking the number of people who get jobs after graduating from Corinthian Colleges. That is important for two reasons. First is the fact that they defraud their students by giving very inflated numbers on how many graduates find work in their chosen field and secondly because with the lower number, they weren’t eligible for federal Pell Grant money, which makes up the vast majority of their money. It’s also used for student loans.
Here is the letter Rubio wrote:
It has been brought to my attention that the U.S. Department of Education has recently placed extreme financial constraints on Corinthian Colleges, Inc. by restricting the company’s timely access to federal financial aid. It is my understanding the Department of Education has requested extensive documents be provided by Corinthian Colleges for review, and Corinthian has acted in good faith to try to provide these documents as expeditiously as possible.
While I commend the Department’s desire to protect our nation’s students from fraudulent and malicious activity by any institution of higher education, regardless of tax status, I believe the Department can and should demonstrate leniency as long as Corinthian Colleges, Inc. continues to expeditiously and earnestly cooperate by providing the documents requested.
Rubio’s Reclaim America PAC received $5,000 from Corinthian Colleges in 2014. Rubio’s request was turned down because they had found many violations including, “admitted to falsifying placement rates and/or grade and attendance records at various institutions.” Corinthians was fined $30 million for their fraud and the closed all of their schools in the US. It should be noted that in their last year of operation, Corinthians took in 1.2 billion from student loans.
Rubio spokeswoman Brooke Sammon (Daughter of Bill Sammon who writes the questions for the republican debates for Fox News) gave this explanation for Rubio’s request for leniency:
“Senator Rubio felt it was important to protect the thousands of students in Florida from being punished and having their educations disrupted while the investigation was underway. His priority has always been to improve access to higher education options and increase transparency in higher education.”
Is she having a Debbie Wasserman Schultz moment here? Rubio was worried that the students wouldn’t be able to go deeper in debt to go to a school which would not make them qualified for a job in their profession? Seriously? Thank God, there is one republican candidate who is addressing the issue correctly.
Here is what that candidate says:
Before you take on a loan, the school has to tell you – here’s how much people make from our school when they graduate with the degree that you’re seeking – why is that important? Let me tell you why that’s important…because maybe you’re trying to choose between two schools. One of them costs $20,000 and people that graduate from there with your degree make $50 grand. The other school costs $100,000 and people who graduate from there made $50 grand. So, two schools – you graduate and you make the same amount of money – but one costs $100,000 and a lot of loans, and the other costs $20,000. We don’t have that information now. Students have to make up their mind based on reputation, based on what they read in U.S. News & World Report.
And just who is this candidate? Marco Rubio. (I guess the other schools refused to cough up any cash)