Moody's Downgrades Washington Post On Proposed Education Rules (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

The Wall Street Journal ^ | October 28, 2010 | Nathan Becker

[abb]

Moody's Investors Service downgraded Washington Post Co. (WPO) by a notch, saying new government rules to reduce student-loan default rates will hurt earnings at Kaplan, its biggest operating segment.

The firm cut its ratings on Post Co.--publisher of the namesake newspaper--to A2, leaving it midway between Aaa and junk territory. The outlook is negative, meaning another downgrade isn't out of the question. The company was put on watch for downgrade in August.

The for-profit education sector faces new rules from the U.S. Department of Education that would penalize individual programs for graduating students with high debt loads. The regulator, though, has delayed the release of the final rules as it evaluates the potential ramifications they could have on student aid and access to education. A series of other rules affecting the sector was released Thursday.

Moody's said Thursday it expects earnings at Kaplan to begin to fall this quarter as enrollment and revenue decline. The ratings firm noted that the "magnitude of enrollment shifts and the effect on Kaplan's cash flow over the longer term are uncertain."

snip

[abb]

Thursday evening good news.

[abb]

ping

[Psalm 144]

They probably should be downgraded from Dinosaur Media DeathWatch.

In honor of Obama’s brilliance and the media’s vitality, the new term of art should be the Press Corpse.

[GeronL]

hahaha

[Cicero]

Well, this time it’s actually not their fault. It’s Obama’s plan to crush for-profit educational outfits.

I have mixed feelings about Kaplan’s. But I have seen a little of their work first-hand, and it didn’t look that bad. At least they’re not loaded down with political correctness, like most of today’s universities. You don’t go to Kaplan’s to learn about gender-bending and the sins of neo-colonialism.

[abb]

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/201010/1901/
Letting go of the rope: Why I’m no longer a newspaper subscriber

http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffbercovici/2010/10/28/whats-the-boston-globe-worth-anyway-try-120-million/
What’s the Boston Globe Worth, Anyway? Try $120 Million

[bert]

......Press Corpse.....

Another great FReeper turn of phrase.

[abb]

Had it not been for Kaplan side propping them up, the newspaper side would have been taken out behind the barn and had its brains blown out two years ago.

[SandRat]

[who_would_fardels_bear]

If the government had never gotten into the business of backing education loans then we wouldn't have seen the obscene level of inflation in the education sector over the past few decades.

If students had to pay their own way, or to borrow money at market rates, then schools would have had to keep their costs in check.

Either that or more students would have been forced to suceed without a college education, a lot of them would have, thus exposing the lie that a college education is a panacea.

[gipper81]

ALL partially owned by.....

[SanFranDan]

Ex LA Times employee lamenting about his sad paper without ever mentioning or understanding bias

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/201010/1901/
Letting go of the rope: Why I’m no longer a newspaper subscriber

My wife and I let our Los Angeles Times subscription lapse this week, after years of watching that once-vital newspaper decline into, at worst, self-parody. We held on much longer than we should have. As a former Times employee and a life-long advocate for journalism, I didn’t want to be part of undercutting something I once considered a vital civic asset.

[OldPossum]

I read your letter, but pardon me if I missed it, but I saw no reference to this newspaper doing what most of the rest of them do—serve as the mouthpiece of the Democrat Party, i.e., the liberal views of such.