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Community Health Systems, HCA Healthcare and Universal Health Services received a total of more than $1 billion from the $100 billion emergency relief fund for healthcare providers created under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. The three for-profit hospital operators disclosed the grants during their first quarter earnings calls. Each company also received advance Medicare payments to help offset the financial impact of COVID-19. The advance payments are loans that must be repaid, while the grants do not require repayment. Here is a breakdown of the grants and advance payments each company had received at the time of...

Can it be that the federal government has been waging war on for-profit colleges because, with all their problems, they still make traditional institutions of higher learning look bad? For example, the Obama Administration famously created a “gainful employment” rule for for-profits to follow in which they would be barred from receiving Pell grants if their graduates were not “gainfully employed” after graduation. How many private non-profits let alone public colleges could live up to such a standard? At a Cato Institute conference examining for-profit higher education, economist Richard Vedder showed that a comparison of just two schools—the public University...

MIAMI (Reuters) - As courts across the United States struggle to determine the legality of red-light cameras, drivers are slipping through a patchwork of often conflicting laws to avoid millions in fines. Two south Florida judges dismissed 24,000 red-light tickets worth an estimated $6.3 million earlier this week over concerns Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions Inc (ATS), which provides the cameras, was too involved in the outcome of cases. By Florida law "the police have certain powers they cannot delegate to private vendors," said Ted Hollander, who represented the Florida drivers. "What we found in testimony is that (the company) had...

The U.S. Department of Education’s latest rule, the “gainful employment” or GE rule, mandates that for-profit colleges cannot saddle students with debt at an arbitrary rate. However, it affects only for-profit colleges such as Kaplan, DeVry and University of Phoenix, representatives of Kaplan claimed during a Washington, D.C. briefing recently. At the meeting organized by the Independent Women’s Forum, former Dallas mayor Thomas Leppert, now the CEO of Kaplan, explained how the rule itself is not fair to for-profit colleges. “A regulation should apply to any institution,” said Leppert, who noted “it only applies and targets the for-profit sector.” He...

The U.S. Department of Education’s latest rule, which mandates that for-profit colleges cannot saddle students with debt at an arbitrary rate, affects only for-profit colleges such as Kaplan, DeVry and University of Phoenix, representatives of Kaplan claimed during a Washington, D.C. briefing recently. kaplan university Former Dallas mayor Thomas Leppert, now the CEO of Kaplan, explained how the rule itself is not fair to for-profit colleges. Non-profit and state colleges and universities have similar debt problems for their students and yet are exempt from this rule. “A regulation should apply to any institution,” said Leppert, and noted “it only applies...

Convention has mandated that once a student completes his/her high school studies, one must enroll at a four-year college or university; to begin study at an ivory-tower institution of higher learning marks for many Americans the culmination of a long educational career. To some, such as Michael Roth (current President of Wesleyan University) a liberal arts college experience provides the best assurance that the person who enters Wesleyan (or a similar liberal arts atmosphere) will leave with a completely different modality of perception and belief construction. To Roth, who has espoused the merits of a liberal education for years, the...

...As of 2010, SXSW Inc. had just 75 paid employees, including those working part-time. ..,These thousands of volunteers “are the faces of SXSW,” according to the company, and without them this year’s conference simply couldn’t happen. ...SXSW may have an argument that its internship program is legal; that its program is only available to those getting college credit certainly helps. When it comes to volunteers, however, the Department of Labor says there is no argument at all: Individuals “may not volunteer services to for-profit private sector employers.” ...The artists who come to SXSW aren’t compensated much better. Plane tickets and...

TAMPA - Westwood College representatives questioned Becky Loring about her hopes for the future. And when she wavered — worried about whether she could afford the $45,000 program — the recruiter used Loring's own words to seal the deal. "If you don't do this," she recalled the representative saying, "you're never going to get what you've always wanted." Loring, 32, now owes the government and private lenders more than $100,000. Working in sales, she is far from the graphic design job she studied for, barely able to make her college loan interest payments. "When I think about it, I just...

Over the last several months, as attention has been focused elsewhere, the Obama Administration and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have been waging a quiet war against for-profit schools and universities – educational institutions that offer job training and degrees in in-demand fields to students looking for an alternative to four-year non-profit schools, or a more accessible price tag. The Administration has fired a number of rounds at the industry, but recently unveiled it’s secret weapon: a “gainful employment” restriction on federal loan money available to students at for-profit schools. While for-profit schools have had their difficulties, their deficiencies aren’t that...

Last week, U. S. Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing on for-profit institutions. The perceived problem? A government-sponsored report on post-secondary education found that “only 16 percent of community college students borrow money; 95 percent of [students at] the for-profits borrow money and they borrow money at a higher amount than they do at the community colleges.” To Sen. Harkin, this is a problem. He stated at the end of the hearing: “Students are taking on too much debt, defaults are too high and students are having too much...

In yet another attempt to avoid being judged by tangible standards like everyone else, some colleges are fighting legislation designed to hold them accountable for their efforts. “For-profit colleges, under attack in Congress and faced with regulation that could ravage their revenues, are staging an aggressive, but increasingly hopeless, campaign to ward off legislation and defeat a proposed rule,” Kelly Field reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education on September 10, 2010. “In recent weeks, their representatives have filed thousands of comments criticizing the Education Department’s ‘gainful employment’ rule, which would cut off federal student aid to programs whose graduates...

Democratic senators sharply questioned Thursday whether for-profit colleges reaping huge amounts of federal aid dollars are delivering on promises to students and taxpayers. The fast-growing for-profit college industry has faced increased scrutiny in recent months and is fighting greater government regulation, which it says will cut off access to education at the worst possible time. The first in a series of congressional hearings on for-profit colleges raised more questions than it provided answers about possible steps Congress or the Education Department might take.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Students aren't the only ones benefiting from the billions of new dollars Washington is spending on college aid for the poor. An Associated Press analysis shows surging proportions of both low-income students and the recently boosted government money that follows them are ending up at for-profit schools, from local career colleges to giant publicly traded chains such as the University of Phoenix, Kaplan and Devry.

According to the Grassley report, charities "are being used to raise monies which are then funneled to other charities or to other organizations for purposes other than what the donor may have intended. . . . Dollars raised for charitable [purposes] appear to be used for impermissible lobbing and political activity."

China, number one again; it has turned out more Ph.Ds last year than any other country in the world. But a Ph. D. does not a good teacher make. Quality of teaching is being seriously questioned in China. Professors are caught up in 1. The publish or perish mentality 2. Raising funds and 3. Attending conferences, making them absent from class. Gee, it sounds like the same problem there is with traditional colleges in America, no? As a result, China has had some problems with plagiarism in the recent past. In the near future, the Chinese universities are likely to...

Apollo Group is the biggest of the ForPro education groups. It owns the University of Phoenix. Yesterday its stock fell 2 percent after reporting lower third-quarter profits because of higher costs. Corinthian Colleges is another of the big players. It, too, reported a loss of 3 cents/share. DeVry lost 15 cents, and Educational Services lost 3 cents/share as well. Everybody's trading down, albeit down very little. Does this mean that the quality of education provided by these groups has also dipped? Are students losing out 2% on their classes? or 3 cents/dollar they spend on their tuition? Hardly. One of...

Online learning will continue to grow for several reasons. The first reason is because of the advent of high-speed Internet. Anybody with a home PC can now take a course online. If you have a laptop, you can take your course online and take it with you to the coffice (coffee house/office). That is where I am writing this. PCs and Macs are also becoming more affordable. For the price of one credit hour at some schools, a student can now buy a good desktop Dell or Gateway PC. There is no more driving to school, finding a parking place,...

Enrollments in online courses are increasing 10 times faster than traditional enrollments. Let's see, every time someone visits a campus, takes a tour, visits a book store, eats in a cafeteria, looks at an empty gym or stadium, and then sits with a counselor for an hour or so, and then finally signs the enrollment form...10 people sign up online! Uh...gee...I wonder ...If I were a school, where should I apply my time and effort? Hard question. Schools like Arizona State University expect enrollment in at least one online course to soar from 15,000 to 100,000 within the next five...

Grand Canyon University might be a school for ultramarathoners (super marathoners) -- guys and gals who run multiple marathons in one day. I know of one race that goes from rim to rim of the Grand Canyon and back all in one day. But that is not relevant here. Sorry. Grand Canyon School was a traditional University with an annual shortfall of $12 million to $15 million as late as 2004. It broke even last year and is now turning a profit. The difference is, it was bought by a significant other -- Significant Education -- and turned into a...

Former Toyota President Shoichiro Toyoda has founded Kaiyo Academy, a $175-million school that he modeled after Britain's Eton Academy -- a school that boasts 19 British Prime Ministers among her alumni and the second-in-line to the throne, Prince William. In Japan there is dissatisfaction with the 'dumbing-down' of its curriculum. Four years ago, the government cut 30% of the workload off the elementary and junior high school curriculum. Toyota's Kaiyo academy is attractive for many reasons. 1. It is backed by Toyota. 2. It is focusing on developing kids who can do more than just pass exams. 3. It is...