Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Tell Congress: Support the Students Not Profits Act 2019

The petition to Congress reads:
"Support the Students Not Profits Act of 2019 to make sure for-profit colleges don't get federal aid to exploit and undereducate students."
Add your name:
Sign the petition ►
For-profit colleges lie to students and leave them deeply in debt. They have been repeatedly caught promising a great education and career success in order to suck tuition dollars out of students and taxpayers. Some for-profit college campuses have gone as far as bribing local temp agencies to hire graduates for a day or two in order to artificially inflate “job placement” rates.1
But despite their grifter status, these colleges receive 15% of the total U.S. financial aid each year – and a third of them get almost all their revenue from federal sources.2For-profit colleges lie to students and leave them deeply in debt. They have been repeatedly caught promising a great education and career success in order to suck tuition dollars out of students and taxpayers. Some for-profit college campuses have gone as far as bribing local temp agencies to hire graduates for a day or two in order to artificially inflate “job placement” rates.1
Progressive champions Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Sen. Sherrod Brown want to put a stop to that. They recently introduced a bill, the Students Not Profits Act of 2019, that would cut off federal aid from for-profit colleges. Can you help build momentum for the bill today?
This crisis is even worse with Betsy DeVos at the Department of Education. News recently broke that her department gave almost $11 million to unaccredited art schools in Illinois and Colorado.3 She spent the last three years sabotaging the Obama-era Student Aid Enforcement Unit, a move seemingly designed to help give scam artists and predatory for-profit schools a free pass.4
It should be no surprise that a billionaire champion of school privatization would be siding with greedy corporations over students. DeVos clearly doesn't care that for-profit schools are responsible for 34% of student loan defaults, despite only enrolling 9% of post-secondary students.5 She doesn't care that students are going into massive debt for little to no employment reward. She just wants to help her billionaire buddies line their pockets.
Luckily, Rep. Jayapal and Sen. Brown are pushing back. Their bill would end subsidies to for-profit schools and ensure that taxpayers stop paying for the exploitation of so many of our neighbors, family members and friends. We need to build momentum for the bill now. Can you click the link below to add your name today?
- Heidi Hess, CREDO Action 
Add your name:
Sign the petition ►
References:
  1. Alan Pyke, "The Inside Story Of How A For-Profit College Hoodwinked Students And Got Away With It," ThinkProgress, Feb. 28, 2015.
  2. Annie Nova, "Bill would make for-profit colleges ineligible for federal student loans," CNBC, Oct. 23, 2019.
  3. Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, "Trump administration let nearly $11 million in student aid go to unaccredited for-profit colleges," The Washington Post, Oct. 22, 2019.
  4. Danielle Ivory, Erica L. Green and Steve Eder, "Education Department Unwinds Unit Investigating Fraud at For-Profits," The New York Times, May 13, 2018.
  5. Americans for Financial Reform, "News Release: The Students Not Profits Act will protect public dollars from abuses at for-profit colleges," Oct. 17, 2019.

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