Obama Signs Order to Limit Aggressive College Recruiting of Veterans

Obama Signs Order to Limit Aggressive College Recruiting of Veterans

cheap replica louis vuitton At Georgia’s Fort Stewart on Friday, President Obama signed an executive order to help protect military families and veterans from aggressive and deceptive recruiting by higher education institutions — especially for-profit colleges — seeking their military benefits.The executive order will require colleges to provide more information about their student outcomes and financial aid, create a centralized complaint system and direct the Veterans Administration to trademark the term “G.I. Bill” to make it harder for colleges to create Web sites resembling official government sites or falsely suggest that they offer special access to veterans’ benefits. “I’ve heard the stories,” the president said. “They harass you into making a quick decision with all those calls and e-mails.  And if they can’t get you online, they show up on post. One of the worst examples of this is a college recruiter who had the nerve to visit a barracks at Camp Lejeune and enroll Marines with brain injuries — just for the money.  These Marines had injuries so severe some of them couldn’t recall what courses the recruiter had signed them up for.” Mr. Obama promised to “bring an end to the aggressive — and sometimes dishonest — recruiting” by increasing oversight, strengthening the rules about who can come on post to talk to service members, and making it easier to file complaints.A loophole in federal law creates a strong incentive for aggressive recruiting of veterans by for-profit colleges. In an effort to ensure that the education provided is valuable enough that some students will pay part of the costs out of pocket, the “90/10 rule” requires that for-profit colleges get at least 10 percent of their revenues from a private source. But veterans’ and military benefits count toward that 10 percent, making service members especially valuable for the publicly traded for-profit college companies that get nearly 90 percent of their revenue from federal student aid.

cheap replica louis vuitton handbags While the executive order applies to all colleges and universities, the abuses have been concentrated among for-profit schools, which get a disproportionate share of military-related educational benefits. Of the $4.4-billion in post-9/11 G.I. Bill dollars paid to colleges and universities from 2009 to 2011, more than a third, about $1.65 billion, went to for-profit colleges, according to a Senate committee report released last fall.Bradley Safalow, an analyst who follows the for-profit sector, said that most of the large publicly traded for-profit college chains — University of Phoenix, Kaplan, Corinthian, ITT, Bridgepoint and the like — would most likely face compliance problems if G.I. Bill and military tuition assistance were considered federal student aid under the 90/10 rule.But only Congress can change the rule. In a press briefing, senior administration officials said the president was “open to legislation” revising the 90/10 rule. Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, has introduced legislation to change the 90/10 rule, lowering the threshold to 85 percent, and requiring colleges to count G.I. Bill benefits and military tuition assistance as federal student aid for the purposes of the rule. In addition, Senator Tom Carper, Democrat from Delaware, introduced a bill that would include military benefits as federal student aid, while keeping the balance at 90/10, and a companion bill is pending the House. No Republicans are co-sponsoring either bill.

replica louis vuitton travel bags According to a recent study by Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, eight for-profit colleges last year got $636 million in G.I. Bill benefits, a quarter of all such benefits — and dropout rates at most of them were above 50 percent. The study found that for-profit colleges also take in the majority of the tuition assistance available to military spouses. It costs taxpayers more than twice as much to send a veteran to a for-profit school as to a public university, the study found.The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities said that it had already been working with veterans service organizations on programs to enhance and develop a vehicle for complaints, and that it was “disappointed that in the midst of these discussions, the president decided to bypass the Congress to address these issues with an executive order.” Mr. Harkin’s investigation also found that in fiscal 2009, 15 of the largest for-profit education companies spent $3.7 billion — 23 percent of their budgets — on advertising, marketing and recruitment, compared to an average of less than 1 percent of revenues at nonprofit colleges and universities. Those same 15 companies received 86 percent of their revenues from federal student aid programs. This month, Mr. Harkin introduced legislation that would prohibit for-profit college and universities from using taxpayer dollars to pay for their giant advertising campaigns and other recruiting and marketing efforts. No Republicans are co-sponsoring that legislation either. After escaping from house arrest, blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng issued a dramatic video message calling on Premier Wen Jiabao to protect his family, punish the people who had attacked them and combat corruption, recounting alleged abuses he and his family suffered at the hands of police.

replica louis vuitton wallets sale "Premier Wen, so many people do not know whether such illegal acts are the acts of corrupt local officials or commanded by the central authority. I think you must thoroughly investigate the truth and give your people a clear answer," Chen said. "If you continue to ignore this and do nothing, what will the people think?"Chen, a 41-year-old lawyer, was jailed for four years after exposing forced sterilization and other abuses carried out by Chinese family-planning authorities, then placed under house arrest once his prison term was over. He escaped last weekend in a rescue operation mounted by his supporters."I finally escaped," Chen began his Friday video message to Wen.Chen asked Wen to investigate and punish police officers who he said had repeatedly attacked his home, robbing and assaulting his family. In one instance, more than 10 men had pinned him to the ground, and beat and kicked him for four hours, Chen said.His wife was beaten so badly that her eye socket bone was broken, but she was never allowed to call for medical treatment, he said. Chen said his child was followed to school every day by three officers. He said his mother was grabbed by the arm and thrown to the ground on her birthday, her head hitting a door."She accused them of the shame of hurting the old. And they actually said back to her: 'Yes, this is true! ... You old ones can’t beat the young.'" Chen said. "This is evil. Inhuman. Intolerable."You must see to the bottom of this," the activist said. "Even though I am free, my family ... are still in their grasp. While I was there, they were repeatedly harmed. Now that I'm gone, I can only imagine how it has blown up."Chen's rescue appears to have been timed to coincide with U.S.-China discussions on human rights this week. His case has attracted global attention.