Senator Harkin Takes on For-Profit College Issue
We thought you’d like to hear about someone who is trying to help students facing problems at for-profit colleges.
Senator Tom Harkin
Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa is becoming a champion for students who’ve voiced concerns about their experiences at for-profit colleges. The Senator wrote an editorial for the LA Times cautioning that the scenario students are facing is painfully similar to the recent mortgage meltdown. Harkin is Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and launched the first in a series of hearings last month to investigate the for-profit college industry. In his editorial, Senator Harkin quotes one of the witnesses who testified, Wall Street money manager Steve Eisman, who predicted the sub-prime mortgage collapse:
Wall Street money manager Steven Eisman told the committee that many for-profit colleges are “marketing machines masquerading as universities.” Their rapid growth is driven by easy access to federal student loans, guaranteed by the government. “The government, the students and the taxpayer bear all the risk,” Eisman testified, “and the for-profit industry reaps all the rewards.”
Senator Harkin goes on to point out just how great those rewards are proving to be for executives at for-profit schools:
The president of the largest for-profit college is paid nearly 14 times the compensation of the president of Harvard University.
Meanwhile, he writes students are often left in an even worse financial position with little recourse:
Subprime borrowers were able to walk away from their homes and, therefore, their debt. But it is a different story for millions of students who take out loans to attend for-profit colleges. Under the law, people cannot discharge student debt in bankruptcy; so if they can’t pay it off, it will continue to accrue compounded interest indefinitely.
Click here to read more from Senator Harkin’s editorial.
Be sure to continue speaking out and sharing your story. People are beginning to listen.
Well it is about time that we had a senator on our side. I hope that others get very involved to, so that they can make a difference as well. No matter what happens to me, because of this for-profit college scam, I just do not want this to happen to anyone else ever again……………..
I hope that our board of education, senators, president, and federal government can find a way to prevent these reccession causing colleges, from continuing its plague on our country……….
This is the last thing that we need right now, are for-profit colleges putting our future americans into debt……………
I seriously hope something good happens soon. I’m getting tired of Westwood’s billing company not knowing what Pacific Time means. Calling at 7 AM is ridiculous! Especially considering I had a psychology instructor so stupid it took him TWO WEEKS just to understand a simple DUMB BLOND JOKE that the whole class understood easily! WHY should I PAY for that?!
Here’s hoping the senator starts shooting down some of these sickening colleges and stupid instructors!
you know out of all of this 1 government official if not dumb enough to blind himself from what is going on, if the housing market almost crashed america, think about what this could do. westwood is bs hell i can’t even get my student ledger from them cause they are dumb as a brick. they don’t do their job, they charge to damn much, and why in the hell would you have to sign a arbitration agreement to even go to the school, let alone charge someone a gastly amount and the damn collection agency known as williams and fudge not be able to tell you where it came about besides its part of a tuition cost. ?
Yeah I know what you mean troy, I am ready to take them to court already. I am tired of this and I just want to get this over with. I have no idea what I am going to do now, since I can’t even use my degree that Westwood College gave me. I obtained it October 2008 and still today I have applied for several jobs in my field of study, and I can not get hired.
It is great to hear that we have a senator who is standing up for us. In regards to the part where it says that the president of the largest for-profit college is paid nearly 14 times the compensation of the president of Harvard University, here is an article that states approx. what the president of Harvard makes. Which means that the president of the for-profit college (I’m assuming the largest one is University of Phoenix) makes upwards of 8 million a year?? UNBELIEVABLE!! This makes me SO angry!
Here’s the article: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2006/11/21/at-harvards-top-post-pay-is/
That just really digusts me. How can it be legal for the Dean’s of these for-profit colleges to get paid millions yearly, just to rip off the students, the government, and the American tax payers.
This just proves that the dean’s can and should pay out of their pockets for the recession that they helped put us in…….