Free Republic

... Student-loan debt and higher education During her short-lived presidential campaign, Harris joined her competitors Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in releasing a plan aiming to address the $1.5 trillion student-debt problem. The proposal was part of her broader plan to close the black-white gap with regard to jobs in high-paying fields like technology and engineering and entrepreneurship. Under the Harris proposal, borrowers who received a Pell Grant, the money the government provides to low-income students to attend college, will have up to $20,000 of their student debt forgiven if they start a business and operate it for at least...

California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris won a more than $1.1-billion judgment Wednesday against the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges, after a San Francisco judge ruled that the company’s advertising practices misled students and violated the law.

Donald Trump said today he may ask the federal judge overseeing an upcoming civil fraud trial involving the now defunct Trump University to recuse himself because he is Hispanic and is therefore biased against him due to his plan to build a wall to keep out immigrants from Mexico. Trump first raised the idea of filing a motion to recuse U.S. Judge Gonzalo Curiel during a campaign rally on Saturday in which, without mentioning him by name, the Republican candidate said the judge overseeing his case has shown “tremendous hostility” to him. “He’s Hispanic, which is fine,” Trump said. “Why...

Donald Trump moved closer to a jury trial over allegations he misled Trump University students with promises that seminars as good as the Wharton business school would be taught by his "handpicked" instructors. Trump, 69, and the school on Wednesday lost a bid to throw out the claims by senior citizens and other disappointed students ahead of trial. The billionaire and his business, which stopped enrolling students in 2010 and changed its name to Trump Entrepreneur Initiative, convinced U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego there was no need for a court order barring further misrepresentations about the seminars....

Donald Trump has to put his mouth where his money is. The Republican presidential candidate will have to answer questions under oath about his net worth - and about how much money he raked in from his now-defunct Trump University, a California federal court judge ruled this week. Lawyers for The Donald had contended he didn't have to answer questions in a civil racketeering lawsuit about how much money he made from the "school" because he'd already acknowledged under oath that he had "significant involvement with both the operations and overall business strategy of Trump University." In a ruling Tuesday,...

New York Attorney General Eric Schniederman is suing Donald Trump and his real estate "university" for defrauding more than 5,000 people of $40 million. "Mr. Trump used his celebrity status and personally appeared in commercials making false promises to convince people to spend tens of thousands of dollars they couldn't afford for lessons they never got," Schniederman says in a release. "No one, no matter how rich or popular they are, has a right to scam hard working New Yorkers. Anyone who does should expect to be held accountable."

Donald Trump must disclose how much money he made from his so-called Trump University, San Diego U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel ruled this week. The judge ruled that one of several plaintiffs that had signed up for Trump U is allowed to question the current GOP presidential candidate about the profit he made, whether directly or indirectly, from Trump University. ((snip)) In his ruling, Curiel added that Trump failed to show "that a broad federal right to financial privacy exists that bars discovery regarding any financial transactions of a defendant accused of defrauding large numbers of people." "Thus, Trump's payments...

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-04-29/marco-rubio-goes-to-bat-for-corinthian-colleges

Last night, in the final debate before the 2016 SEC presidential primary on Tuesday, March 1st – commonly known as “Super Tuesday” – Republican US Senator Marco Rubio threw everything he had at Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. Most of Senator Rubio’s attacks covered familiar ground, such as the Atlantic City bankruptcies and that Trump’s self-made narrative leaves out his rather bountiful inheritance. However, some of the attacks were new, and included dredging up a decades-old lawsuit regarding a subcontractor who used undocumented immigrant labor, and a current class-action lawsuit against now-defunct Trump University. But soon after Rubio’s attack on Trump...

Nearly 10,000 students across the country are facing an uncertain future following the sudden collapse of another for-profit college system this week. After a summer which saw the dramatic collapse of Corinthian Colleges, fellow for-profit education company Anthem Education is rapidly closing its doors after the company filed for bankruptcy this week. Prior to filing for bankruptcy, Anthem Education had no fewer than 34 different campuses around the country. That number is in rapid free fall, with nine campuses shutting down Friday after the Department of Education failed to approve a deal that would temporarily keep them open. Anthem’s collapse...

Federal investigators raided three for-profit college campuses this week, carting away documents in a U.S. Education Department probe. It was not clear what authorities were looking for, and the department declined to elaborate, citing the ongoing investigation. The raids occurred Tuesday and Wednesday at the National School of Technology's Fort Lauderdale campus, and at Florida Career College's campuses in Lauderdale Lakes and Pembroke Pines. "All I can do is confirm that we were there," said Catherine Grant, a spokeswoman for the Education Department's inspector general's office. Grant declined to be more specific about the investigation Thursday. But the office generally...