{"id":198775,"date":"2021-03-08T05:14:58","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T10:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=198775"},"modified":"2021-03-08T05:14:59","modified_gmt":"2021-03-08T10:14:59","slug":"senate-dems-drop-for-profit-college-criticism-to-appease-biden-nominee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/senate-dems-drop-for-profit-college-criticism-to-appease-biden-nominee\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Dems Drop For-Profit College Criticism to Appease Biden Nominee"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsenate-dems-drop-for-profit-college-criticism-to-appease-biden-nominee%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=198775&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/rsz_gettyimages-175048057.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Top Democrats have long attacked &#8220;predatory&#8221; for-profit colleges for exploiting low-income students of color. But when it came to President Joe Biden&#8217;s pick to head the Securities and Exchange Commission\u2014who made millions representing one of the industry&#8217;s infamous actors\u2014they remained silent.<\/p>\n<p>During a Tuesday confirmation hearing, Gary Gensler avoided scrutiny from Senate Banking Committee Democrats over his eight-year tenure on the board of Strayer University. The for-profit college has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bet.com\/news\/national\/2019\/09\/18\/for-profit-schools-target-the-black-community--heres-how-you-can.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">faced criticism<\/a> for &#8220;aggressively&#8221; targeting &#8220;vulnerable&#8221; students in urban areas using celebrities such as Queen Latifah and Steve Harvey. Gensler accumulated between $1 million and $5 million in stock options for his work at Strayer, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.agriculture.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/S.%20Hrg.%20111-240%20-%20NOMINATION%20HEARING%20TO%20CONSIDER%20GARY%20GENSLER%20TO%20BE%20CHAIRMAN%20OF%20THE%20CFTC.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2009 financial disclosure<\/a>. An updated filing obtained by the <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em> shows that Gensler has since sold the stock, raking in a sizable profit in the process.<\/p>\n<div class=\"posts-content__category-widget md:hidden -ml-4 -mr-4 my-8 px-4 py-6 bg-gray-100\">\n<h4 class=\"mt-0 text-red-600 font-medium font-sans uppercase\">Recent Stories in Biden Administration<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<p>Leading committee Democrats ignored Gensler&#8217;s stint at Strayer despite having derided for-profit colleges for years. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio), for example, joined forces on a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brown.senate.gov\/newsroom\/press\/release\/brown-warren-introduce-bicameral-legislation-to-protect-students-from-predatory-for-profit-colleges-\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2019 bill<\/a> aimed at ending taxpayer subsidies to the industry. Warren accused schools such as Strayer of &#8220;sucking down billions in taxpayer dollars as they cheat students and load them up with debt for worthless degrees.&#8221; Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.) also turned a blind eye to Gensler&#8217;s for-profit college ties, even though he&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.warner.senate.gov\/public\/index.cfm\/2019\/8\/warner-kaine-urge-secretary-devos-to-fulfill-her-responsibility-and-help-students-impacted-by-sudden-closures-of-for-profit-colleges\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">denounced<\/a>&nbsp;Trump administration education secretary Betsy DeVos for hiring industry executives who he said &#8220;cheated or defrauded&#8221; students.<\/p>\n<p>Strayer&#8217;s use of insistent ad campaigns to recruit students in urban areas is also a tactic that Warren, Brown, and other Senate Democrats have criticized in the past. A 2019 Black Entertainment Television report noted that such ads were &#8220;expertly designed to attract those most unfamiliar with higher education&#8221; in an attempt to entice &#8220;those who are victims of institutionalized barriers.&#8221; Veterans Education Success senior director Aniela Szymanski said that the strategy is par for the course in the for-profit education industry. She highlighted a 2012 Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee <a href=\"https:\/\/www.help.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/for_profit_report\/PartI-PartIII-SelectedAppendixes.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">report<\/a>, which found that Strayer spent $2,448 per student on marketing, compared with just $1,329 per student on instruction.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Almost to a tee, every for-profit university spends vastly more money on marketing than they do on education,&#8221; Syzmanski said. &#8220;It&#8217;s easy to put profits before product in circumstances where you&#8217;re publicly traded on the Nasdaq.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Warren, Brown, and Warner did not return requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Strayer\u2014like many for-profit colleges\u2014offers an abysmal graduation rate, varying between 3 percent and 27 percent for an eight-year program. At the end of Gensler&#8217;s Strayer tenure in 2009, the school also held a loan default rate of 31 percent, according to a Brookings Institution <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/StudentLoanDefaults_Looney_FINAL.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">report<\/a>. Students owed Strayer nearly $6.7 million in 2014, placing the school among the top institutions for debt in the country.<\/p>\n<p>The school&#8217;s chairman and CEO made nearly $42 million in 2009, while its chief operating officer received $10.8 million.<\/p>\n<p>Senate Democrats&#8217; disdain for the for-profit college industry is echoed by Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden&#8217;s July 2020 &#8220;unity task force&#8221; stated that education &#8220;is a public good and should not be saddled with a private profit motive,&#8221; calling for banning &#8220;for-profit private charter businesses from receiving federal funding.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Harris, meanwhile, <a href=\"https:\/\/oag.ca.gov\/news\/press-releases\/attorney-general-kamala-d-harris-obtains-11-billion-judgment-against-predatory\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced<\/a> a $1.1 billion judgment she obtained against &#8220;predatory&#8221; for-profit chain Corinthian Colleges in 2016 by saying that the institution &#8220;profited off the backs of poor people.&#8221; She went on to tout the effort in her August 2020 speech accepting the Democratic nomination for vice president.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I took down one of the nation&#8217;s largest for-profit colleges,&#8221; Harris said. &#8220;I know a predator when I see one.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The White House did not return a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>This is not the first time Warren and other Senate Democrats have failed to apply their own past attacks to Biden nominees. The Massachusetts Democrat on Tuesday <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/biden-administration\/elizabeth-warren-abandons-mckinsey-disclosure-demands\/\">brushed aside<\/a> questions about Consumer Financial Protection Bureau nominee Rohit Chopra&#8217;s past work for consulting giant McKinsey &amp; Company. During the 2020 Democratic primaries, however, she demanded that rival Pete Buttigieg release his McKinsey client list so that voters could &#8220;know about possible conflicts of interest.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Senate Banking Committee is expected to vote on advancing Gensler&#8217;s nomination this week.<\/p>\n<div class=\"my-8 hide-print\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1526555381173-4\" class=\"mobile-250 desktop-90\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Top Democrats have long attacked &#8220;predatory&#8221; for-profit colleges for exploiting low-income students of color. But when it came to President Joe Biden&#8217;s pick to head the Securities and Exchange Commission\u2014who &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2310261,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/rsz_gettyimages-175048057.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Senate Dems Drop For-Profit College Criticism to Appease Biden Nominee","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/rsz_gettyimages-175048057.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Senate Dems Drop For-Profit College Criticism to Appease Biden Nominee","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2310261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}