|
|
9486 in the collection
California Community Colleges decide not to outsource to Kaplan University
The sub-prime disaster colleges, much like the Pay Day Loan chop shops will never leave safe harbor until they are driven out by a social and educational system devoted to students, teachers, authentic learning, teaching and affordability.
by Danny Weil
Kaplan, the for-profit predatory college whose name keeps popping up when one looks at fraud, misrepresentation, larceny of Title IV funds, theft of student funds, recruitment practices that only parallel the military and many other issues such as poor professors, pre-packaged curriculum and failing colleges has been rebuffed in its plans to privatize part of the Community College System in California.
The LA Times, a prevaricating corporate lap-dog for such privatization plans announced in its headlines that:
The state's community college system cancels agreement allowing students to take courses at the private online school because they would not be transferable to UC or Cal State campuses (Larry Gordon, Community colleges cancel deal with online Kaplan University, Los Angeles Times, August 26, 2010)
The headlines are certainly true, but they leave out the majority of the story which is not unusual for the LA Times and their 'educational writers' who are little more than stenographers for their corporate bosses. The California's Community College had been in negotiations with the for-profit hustler, Kaplan University, to have allowed their students to take some courses at the online Kaplan University and make it easier to transfer to that school for a bachelor's degree. This would have meant more Title IV monies flowing into the coffers of The Washington Post, WPO, the parent corporation for Kaplan Higher Education, as they are known on the New York Stock Exchange. Kaplan is the blood bank for the Washington Post, as I wrote at Daily Censored (July 27, 2010). They are now responsible for 62% of the entire WPO revenue stream, merging media with education. This, up from 58% just months ago.
State community college officials Wednesday said they had canceled a 2009 agreement with Kaplan, a for-profit institution, because the University of California and Cal State University systems had not agreed to accept Kaplan courses for transfer credits. Without the transfer agreements, the plan could have harmed students and the community colleges, the officials said (Larry Gordon, Community colleges cancel deal with online Kaplan University, Los Angeles Times, August 26, 2010).
Don't let this fool you. Recent news at Daily and Project Censored regarding Kaplan University’s multi-state crime sprees reveals it is little more than a crime syndicate, (www.dailycensored.com). The company is a criminal enterprise and this is why California Community Colleges no doubt do not want formal relationships with the predatory institution. The practices of Kaplan are such that the college is a walking legal liability. They are being hunted down like prey by regulators and private lawyers representing cheated students and it is becoming clear that they package and sell fraudulent dreams, something no one wants shared liability with.
The plan was intended in part to offer students at the state's 112 community colleges a way to take courses that might have been canceled or overcrowded because of state budget cuts. But some faculty was concerned about getting entangled with a proprietary school, especially one like the notoriously dangerous and disaster college Kaplan. Kaplan, in its efforts to commodify education, planned to charge students $646 for a three-credit class, compared with $78 at a community college. Why? This is part of their business plan; how they take Title IV money (90% of their money comes from Title IV government monies). They seek to predate with high tuition costs during a time of the Great Second Depression where everything public is under funded and under attack.
Why would the California Community College even consider Kaplan? Partnering is not the word, for Kaplan as a for-profit corporation has a fiduciary obligation to its shareholders of which Warren Buffet is a 21% member. No, the issue is that the Community College is snaked by budget cuts and instead of solving the problem by identifying it as the privatization of the public sector, low taxation on corporations and the rich, NAFTA and other myriad social issues, the colleges instead adopt the paradigm of corporate culture and actually get ready to contract out public services to for profit institutions. This alone shows the incredible stupidity if not sell-out leadership of those running the colleges and making decisions, but it also points to the fact that Kaplan is now seeking such what they fraudulently call 'public' partnerships to fill their blood banks for the Washington Post.
Where are the 'teacher unions', both part-time and full time faculty fighting to stop this privatization measure? Seems they were quiet about the plan, willing to go along to get along. The short term thinkers and the long term tinkerers. What a pity, until public employee unions begin to wake up and smell the outhouse instead of the coffee house there is no doubt no funding will be demanded to help students in community colleges. Look for Kaplan or some other predatory institution to come along and look for privatized contracts whose funding will be drawn from our public largess in the future as long as unions fail to fight for public education. For-profit colleges are a cruel hoax and should be decimated not regulated.
Jane Patton, an instructor at Mission College in Santa Clara who is president of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges, released a statement praising the cancellation. "We have been concerned about potential negative effects on students -- particularly the fact that Kaplan courses could not later be carried with them to other universities," she said (ibid). More than that Jane, Kaplan does not teach anything but larceny. They are pre-packaged privatized university with adjunct professors online and a campus life consisting of a room full of computers. They teach nothing, all they do is dispense curriculum online in accordance with their mission which is to maximize profits for their shareholders. Seems they will now have to continue their drive-by-recruiting and advertising at Welfare offices, sandwiched between Cheaters, Dr. Phil and America's Most Wanted; they will now need to visit more homeless shelters to register students, put on phony job fairs and predate those in poverty as if they were selling sub-prime loans, which they are. Loans not dischargeable in debt and loans picked up by taxpayers as they go into default.
Of course, Kaplan University officials said they were disappointed by the decision but "will continue to foster relationships with California community colleges and to look for innovative ways to help students meet their academic and career goals" (ibid). This is idiot wind and to be expected from Kaplan 'spokespeople'. 'Looking for innovative ways to partner' sounds like something one would read in a personal ad at Craig's List. Sure they are sorry, can you imagine the public lake of community colleges these private pike would have been able to occupy to gobble up unsuspecting students and then spit them out in a sea of financial ruin? Now with the public commons no longer in their privatized radar sight they have obviously lost potential revenues for their vaunted Washington Post, one of the last mendacious newspapers in the country beside the LA Times.
We can only be thankful that our efforts as journalists, those of whistleblowers, the feeble yet attempt of most accrediting agencies, students who complain, professors who refuse to 'partner' with educational serial killers and the GAO reports that itemize the predation have shown the decision-makers at the California Community Colleges that privatizing education by outsourcing to Kaplan its courses, treated by Kaplan as simple commodities themselves, is and was a bad idea. But be on the alert, the serpentines never get up and we will see their cold blooded reptilian bodies snake around the public commons in the future as the economy gets worse, schools close or are over packed with students, departments at colleges dry up and students turned away.
The sub-prime disaster colleges, much like the Pay Day Loan chop shops will never leave safe harbor until they are driven out by a social and educational system devoted to students, teachers, authentic learning, teaching and affordability. That will take societal change and Kaplan, you are on notice this is going on right now. Let the stocks fall and the CEO's wither. This is a big win for public education.
— Danny Weil
Daily Censored
2010-08-26
http://dailycensored.com/2010/08/26/california-community-colleges-decide-not-to-fornicate-with-for-profit-predatory-kaplan-university/
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
[1] 2 3 4 5 6 Next >> Last >>
|
