And this just gets better and better or worse and worse depending on your penchant for finding humor in things that are outlandish and egregious.
As you’re probably aware, Donald Trump’s “Trump University” was forced to cough up $25 million earlier this year in order to settle multiple lawsuits accusing the not-so-venerable institution of effectively tricking people into enrolling with a combination of spurious claims and aggressive sales tactics.
Like a lot of things related to Trump, the details of that long-running saga are so damning as to be laughable and were the subject of a truly hilarious John Oliver expose which you can (and definitely should) watch in full. You can view that segment below but I’m going to go ahead and warn all the Trump fans out there: if you are predisposed to thinking that the President can do no wrong, you are in for a “bigly” reality check if you choose to click the “play” button:
Ok, so Trump settled for $25 million (the settlement affected some 6,000 students), and that settlement was approved by a federal judge in March. Hilariously, the only holdout was a Florida woman who wanted to opt-out and sue Trump personally.
Given that, you might imagine that Trump isn’t a fan of debt forgiveness for students who have been defrauded by for-profit universities because after all, he ran one himself.
Therefore it comes as no surprise that education secretary, and woman who thinks Grizzly bears are the biggest threat facing America’s school system, Betsy DeVos, is set to actually roll back an Obama-era program that wiped away student debt for people who were the victims of for-profit college fraud. Here’s AP:
The Education Department is considering only partially forgiving federal loans for students defrauded by for-profit-colleges, The Associated Press has learned, abandoning the Obama administration’s policy of fully erasing that debt.
Under President Barack Obama, tens of thousands of students deceived by now-defunct for-profit schools had over $550 million in such loans canceled completely.
But President Donald Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, is working on a plan that could grant such students just partial relief, according to department officials who were not authorized to publicly comment on the issue and spoke on condition of anonymity. The department may look at the average earnings of students in similar programs and schools to determine how much debt to wipe away.
If DeVos goes ahead, the change could leave many students scrambling after expecting full loan forgiveness, based on the previous administration’s track record. It was not immediately clear how many students might be affected.
A department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
Critics say the Trump administration, which has ties to the for-profit sector, is looking out for industry interests.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is fucking unbelievable. Here’s a President who just this year paid out $25 million in connection with multiple lawsuits alleging that he defrauded students via a for-profit college scam with his name literally stamped on it, now moving to do away with a program that allowed for the forgiveness of debt incurred by students who were defrauded by for-profit colleges.
We’d say it would be impossible to imagine worse optics, but then again, this is a President who took the following picture with the two Sergeys just hours after firing an FBI Director who was investigating the administration’s ties to those very same two Sergeys…
…..because he is insane and his wiring is not properly connected.
Thanks for that diagnosis Dr. Murphy..perhaps you can make a White House appointment and you and Dugger can straighten out Trump’s motherboard..or roto root his ass..whichever you specialize in. In fact, maybe you could do a 2 for the price of 1 and thrown in Hillary..Kind of a his and hers session.
Of course these students should pay up…I mean it’s not like Trump would ever use the Bankruptcy Courts to get out of a debt…right? Here’s something to think about..maybe. No one has championed higher education than Barrack and Hillary..it’s a panacea! I never heard either talk about how 18 year olds are qualified to take on huge debt levels that follow them around for 10-15 years.
I never heard either connect those onerous debts to the outrageous costs of college tuition…
University educations are largely about staff and administration perks, selling third rate texts for $300…and using grad students to pull one’s teaching load.
“effectively tricking people into enrolling with a combination of spurious claims and aggressive sales tactics.” At least Trump is consistent with his fraud strategy. Of course, the worked so why quit while you’re “winning” at fraud – from a bogus a Trump University to a bogus Trump Presidential campaign. Unfortunately, unlike the dumb asses who bought into the Trump University fraud, there will be no reimbursement for those even dumber asses that elected this crook – and or the rest of the country that they took along for their fraud ride with Trump.
That said, we face much bigger problems in our future than taking out the Trump garbage. It is going to be extremely difficult to correct the monetized multi-billion dollar political election industry that enabled Trump and other unqualified and or inappropriate candidates in recent years – and that has effectively destroyed our democracy and any credibility it ever had. Can you see our military and State Dept. as nation builders trying to sell democracy to recovering war torn countries – after the democratic election fiasco that was Donald Trump’s Administration? It’s going to be a hard, hard, sell – to convince anyone that the US has something to teach the rest of the world about fair and functional democratic systems of governing. It is going over to damn well with me either.
Hey Dugger – first, I am adding a word that I know you left out accidentally in your last sentence — the word is NOT. And along the same line of thought you expressed, something else is really nagging me about the abuse our country has taken during his administration … so far and God forbid he finds other stuff he wants to erase before he is drug out the back door of the White House.
So, he hates Obama and has taken great joy from undoing much of the good stuff that Obama did and perhaps also prior presidents did. Clearly his goal is to make all the business people happy and many are his buddies, and he got rid of all those hoops they had to jump through in order to make a buck – certainly not good for the American people in general. Without detailing a list, and including the loan forgiveness for those defrauded students, just think about the oil pipeline he allowed to continue construction and the American Indian Reservation he disrespected, the clean air and clean water EPA Scott Pruitt, the pathetic secretary of education DeVos, inept secretary of energy, Perry, Housing Guru Ben Carson, and more. The point is he put people in charge of those departments that have deep personal feelings opposite of the whole purpose of having those departments managed to protect America. I know my statement is rough but I am leading up to my point.
So he makes these decisions and with his adoring audience to applaud as he sits at the little desk and signs his name over half the page, holds it up for the applause and just like that, voila, all the hard work intelligent normal people did to protect us is gone – over – he has the power to undo all the good work others have done…so his buddies can line their already golden pockets and get rid of all those pesky requirements that keep them from running amok. He also pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio who had been ruled guilty by a jury but trump signs a pardon and lets him walk out of the courtroom, a free criminal! A million thoughts are running thru my mind but I will leave it there.
Is it possible for the replacement president to restore the various departments and guidelines that protected America and of course replacing those jokes that trump anointed as dept heads?
Is it also possible a replacement president can retract that pardon and put Sheriff Joe’s happy ass in prison where he belongs?
DeVoss, the quintessential symbol of being educated….lol.
Per the usual for the POTUS and his goon squad. Collect that money now rather than free up disposable income for those folks, allow them the potential to grow income, buy homes, spend, save etc. Seems like a nearsighted partisan goal that ultimately doesn’t help the budget now, plus deprives long term compound gains that come from less-indebted citizens.
This isn’t just Trump and his “goon squad…” Obama did nothing to change the nature or severity of student debt. My take..fuck every student loan and the sacks of adult shit that tied these nooses around kids necks..don’t pay back any loans for education. They can be written off just like the trillion dollar fighter jets that don’t fly, the anti-missile systems the military is scared to death to use in a live fire situation….and financial institution bail outs.
I agree to an extent, it just has not been a priority politically to this point by any president and their cabinet… but Devos is about to exacerbate it. I come from metro-Detroit and can say firsthand her push to reform public schools, which is a mess. Its mainly for-profit private institutions with no regulation/oversight (sound familiar). Its a free market amongst those schools, but not in the context of underfunded public schools.
Regarding student loans, I think more people need to fear the impact those will have on the market/economy. You have $3 trillion worth of debt saddled to the future of America. That is going to impact housing markets as well as household savings. In my view, it will be a catalyst for a long term recession with the next 5-10 years as we see boomers leave the market, while millennials take over in under-compensated roles with double the debt of their elders. There is going to need to be an expansion of federal assistance or forgiveness in order to manage this or else we are looking at a complete mess.
Moreover, the service of said loans is a mess and the reforms I hear about do not sound as though they will remedy that. Non-stop debt collection calls, failure to conform with FDCPA, and no ability to claim bankruptcy. Your options are able pay up with all the money you make or stash your cash in equities/crypto (keep in mind you cant freeze or garnish crypto, which is important when the government has legal right to collect from you) and defer until your income appreciates (if it does). Inflation is unlikely to pick up due to the deflationary aspect of tech mixed with an exponentially increasing debt loan on young americans — debt that is not purely income driven and freely spendable.
If a loan repymt is cancelled due to fraud committed by the entity who actually rec’vd the money after the student (the “middle man”) got the money from the lender … then why isn’t the entity who rec’vd the money ultimately the liable party for the loan repymt?
Was the student informed their share of that $25 million pymt penalty must be used to pay the debt they had (and maybe the balance canceled) or was it a pymt as a victim of a crime?
And the lender should or could go after the entity that actually received the money from the student that was used unknowingly in a conspiracy to fraudulently get money.
In which case Trump U not only had to pay the student for the crime against them but could be liable for the loan that was made by the lender.
Blame the Clitons for the student loans mess. Two major acts that the corrupt Clintons perpetrated, precipitating the 2008 US financial crisis and the ongoing student debt crisis were:
1) Repealing Glass-Steagall allowing banks to do proprietary trading per the wish of Wall Street banksters;
2) Handing banks absolute dominion over students by removing their right to declare bankruptcy on what they owe the bankers.
No other class of debt has such an exception. And crooked Hillary pretends to care about the people?…lol. That nasty hypocritical witch and Bill did more than anyone for the banksters, who in turn have given the Clintons way more money than they’ve gotten from anything else.
It was the Clitons who aided the bankers on October 7, 1998, when blow-job Bill signed the Higher Education Amendments of 1998, and inbetween sexually molesting young interns, on the instruction of the bankers he sneaked into this Act two specific changes regarding the collection of student loans that is a brewing part of the Sovereign Debt Crisis today, as students cannot discharge student loans in bankruptcy. Exacerbated by the fact that most students cannot get a job in the field in which they studied and accrued large debt.
As Greg suggests, the net effect has been to create a welfare system for academics, mostly liberals, which fans the flames of socialist causes slowly destroying the USSA and propagates lies & false studies like global warming to screw us over with more taxes, while bankers make non-dishcargeable loans that turn students into debt slaves… who nevertheless under the influence of their lefty-academic brainwashing mostly voted for the corrupt hypocrite Hillary who helped put them into their debt shackles.
Fortunately, most older and wiser voters saw things differently than the brainwashed kids. And every morning I awake I thank heaven that wicked hypocritical crooked Hillary isn’t president. Better instead that she now writes fiction like her latest book AKA “Blame Everyone Except Me”. What a bitter psycho.