Free Republic

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...

Good overview on how the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) turns a blind eye to massive corruption and fraud in programs designed to create "affordable" housing. The result? Inflated housing costs in poor neigborhoods and financial ruin for poor and working class people who are ripped off by politically connected "nonprofits" and corrupt local governments. Who cleans up the mess? You guessed it -- the taxpayer.

Schools want regional accreditation. Fopros also want regional accreditation. It gives them status, recognition, and confidence with their students, who might want to take their class units and transfer them to a four-year or other institution. Fopros will go to extremes to get this accreditation. In order to get accreditation, schools must meet a number of standards - course offerings, financial stability, library facilities, and a certain quota of full-time faculty to name a few. Nowhere does it say the schools must actually be carrying out their objective of student learning - interesting, eh? There is also a waiting period,...

The American Council on Education is a coordinating body for higher education. Recently it released some interesting statistics - interesting to people who care about higher education, non-profit and fopro alike. Just one in six of the undergraduates in college are the "typical" 18-year-old who lives on campus and gets a BA by cramming 4 years into five. Students who are 25 years old and up account for almost 40 percent of undergraduates. More than half of all the older students attend a community college - 29 percent are in private schools, and 12 percent attend fopros. Most of the...

With so many adult students, opinions are flying everywhere on how they might be served best and what is needed most. Gary Berg, author of Lessons From the Edge, offers up these four main pressures: 1. Diminishing financial support 2. The call to serve adult learners and first-generation college students 3. A need to balance liberal-arts and applied curricula 4. A subsequent necessity of maintaing an evolving institutional mission. Fopros are in a position to address these pressures. Like them or love them, many experts credit the University of Phoenix with being the most innovative of the higher-education bunch. UoP...

UPPER MARLBORO — Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s wooing of African-American voters seemed to be on the upswing — until his attempt six years ago to challenge the nonprofit status of the NAACP came to light last week. On May 17, Ehrlich was the toast of Prince George’s County as he was honored by an influential charity for his contributions to faith-based organizations. The following morning, The (Baltimore) Sun reported that Ehrlich’s chief fund-raiser questioned the NAACP’s tax-exempt status because of the organization’s political activity, drawing strong rebukes from the governor’s political enemies. ‘‘Just because he received that award...

To all those of you who proclaimed the California Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives Dead on Arrival in it’s first committee; I am happy to inform you that you were wrong! Read More...

Hi ya'll - I'm new here so correct me if I am out of line with posting this here. I invite you to please visit our website (very easy one - only one page plus one additional page for a February newsletter update) to see what it is we are doing. Basically we purchase basic laptops and add webcams with mics on them so they can stay in contact with their family and friends, play games, etc. Also accept PC games and original playstation games as a lady in Georgia packed up her family's playstation and sent it to me...

"On Church and State", by Lores Rizkalla, Freeper 'JustaWoman' Billy Graham said that "bad politicians are elected by good people who don't vote." I think the same is true of "bad propositions" passing because good people decide to stay home on election day. This Tuesday, California (among many other states) has a special election. Statistics say that an average of 5% of registered voters get out to vote in an off-year election. What's worse is the truth so beautifully, yet sadly, written by William Butler Yeats': "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." Where...

A lot of non-profit firms had contracts, campaigns, events, speeches, emails, mail drops and the like all set up to deal with the certain fight over a Supreme Court nomination. We didn't need it for Roberts but we thought for sure the fight would be on for the next one. read more

In the morning of March 11, 2004, Susan Lindauer woke to find five F.B.I. agents at her front door. After reading her her rights, the agents took Lindauer from her home in Takoma Park, Md., to the F.B.I. field office in Baltimore, where she was charged with having acted as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government and otherwise having elevated the interests of a foreign country above her allegiance to the United States. ''The only visible sign of stress is that I'm chain-smoking,'' she said when I met with her recently. Forty-one and free on bail, she wore...

Many tax-exempt animal rights organizations like PeTA deceive the public, endorse violence and fund terrorism. If you think groups like PeTA should lose their tax status, sign our petition! Since the mid 1990's, NAIA has been prodding government to do its job and protect the public from corrupt charities that receive tax breaks while violating their exempt purpose, committing crimes and supporting terrorism. Read some of our previous action alerts and press releases and then sign our petition calling for IRS review of 'charities' that operate like mobsters Sign Petition

There's, like, a major corporate financial scandal goin' down, dude. Some greed-head wheeler-dealer took almost a million in government funds intended for children and Alzheimer's patients and put the money into a private start-up company. The money was supposed to be a loan, but the loan was never repaid, Now, the nonprofit is broke and under investigation for "significant inappropriate transaction and falsified documents." And, you know, like, the mainstream corporate media? They're paying no attention to the story, man. Children and Alzheimer's patients get the short end of the stick while fat-cat private interests line their pockets -- only...

Days after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his support for an effort to break up the LAUSD, Superintendent Roy Romer quietly created a nonprofit organization that has raised nearly $150,000 to tout the school district's accomplishments, the Daily News has learned. Despite having the district's nearly $1 million public-relations operation at his disposal, Romer founded Friends of L.A. Schools -- with himself as CEO -- to counter criticism by Schwarzenegger and then-mayoral challenger Bob Hertzberg that the Los Angeles Unified School District was too large and inefficient. "This began in February when there was a lot of criticism of the district,...

University presidents often blame rising tuition costs on stagnant state funding or lagging private support following the 2000-01 recession and stock market decline. But actually, tuition increases have exceeded inflation for at least four decades, including in periods when state funding and private support were rapidly growing. The real reasons tuition has risen sharply are two-fold: a steady increase in demand for higher education and a lack of market discipline by colleges and universities, most of which are non-profits. Demand for higher education has grown because of rising incomes and population as well as the higher salaries college graduates earn....

Never let it be said that crime doesn’t pay. It surely paid for one crooked politician. You Might remember Tom D’Alessio. He was one of New Jersey’s most powerful Democrat politicians until he was caught in an extortion, bribery and embezzling scandal. Well it looks like he’s up to his old tricks. The New Jersey Star Ledger Reports: Two months after he was released from federal prison after serving time for political corruption charges in 1998, the former Essex County Executive set up a charitable foundation.D'Alessio called it the Evergreen Fund and has bankrolled it with more than $1.8 million...

CONCORD (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service is auditing St. Paul's School, an elite private boarding school which agreed last year to greater state scrutiny of its finances. The IRS requested tax information for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2002, the New York Times reported Saturday. "The IRS has requested information from St. Paul's School related to the 2001-2002 tax year," said Michele Clark, a school spokeswoman. "The business office has cooperated fully and provided the information requested." The Times reported that it learned of the IRS request from an alumnus who recently received a copy of a November...

Americans for Prosperity launched a website entitled "Social Security for All" at CPAC that will work to create a network of grassroots activists to push for real reform of the Social Security system. If you want to get involved check out www.SocialSecurityForAll.com!

Subject: Save public broadcasting On NPR's Morning Edition, Nina Totenberg said that if the Supreme Court supports Congress, it will, in effect, be the end of the National Public Radio (NPR), National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) & the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). PBS, NPR and the arts are facing major cutbacks in funding. In spite of the efforts of each station to reduce spending costs and streamline their services, some government officials believe that the funding currently going to these programs is too large a portion of funding for something which is seen as not worthwhile. This is message...

Tax-Exempt Hospitals' Practices Challenged46 Lawsuits Allege That Uninsured Pay the Most TUPELO, Miss. -- When Tim Gardner was born at the hospital here 53 years ago, it was just "one little building on the hill" in a town best known as Elvis Presley's birthplace. From those humble beginnings, North Mississippi Medical Center has grown into the largest non-metropolitan hospital in the country, a booming enterprise with a complex of glass and marble buildings and 40 satellite clinics stretching into Alabama and Tennessee. The company, incorporated in Delaware, has nearly $300 million in the bank and "exceptional profitability," according to one...