Hillary Clinton
NEW YORK – Since launching her bid for president, Hillary Clinton has been a vocal critic of for-profit schools, pledging in speeches to “crack down on predatory schools” and help students drowning in student loan debt.
NBC News noted Clinton’s attack on for-profit colleges has been aimed at Donald Trump, with repeated claims that Trump “is trying to scam America the way he scammed all those people at Trump University.”
But students writing to WND about their experience with a for-profit school backed by the Clintons, Laureate Education’s Walden University Online, accuse Hillary Clinton of hypocrisy, noting her State Department funneled $55 million to the Clinton-endorsed international for-profit education company.
As further reported in the book “Partners in Crime: The Clintons’ Scheme to Monetize the White House,” Bill Clinton was paid $16.5 million by Laureate to serve as its “honorary chairman.”
The role sent the former president scurrying around the globe to make promotional appearances at Laureate campuses in countries such as Malaysia, Peru and Spain.
Forbes pointed out a July 2015 story that Walden University was built by inducing prospective students to attend a school with no academic reputation and virtually no standards for admission other than ability to pay, often incurring massive tuition debt in the process.
Citing data from the leftist Center for American Progress, Forbes pointed out that Walden University led the list among all U.S. for-profit colleges by amassing student debt of $756 million in 2013-2014.
The Miami Herald reported that since 2010, Bill Clinton has been paid more than $16 million to serve as “honorary chancellor” of Laureate Education.
Laureate “is being sued by several online graduate students for allegedly dishonest practices, and a 2012 U.S Senate report found that more than half of Laureate’s online Walden University revenue went to marketing and profit,” the Miami Herald noted.
Since publishing the June 3 exposé, WND has been inundated with letters from graduate students victimized by Walden University Online.
The letters, often in heartbreaking fashion, document the claim that Walden is a scam that piles tens of thousands of dollars of debt on unsuspecting students while unreasonably delaying degrees or often failing to deliver them.
‘Loan of $165,000 and not done yet’
John Palmer in Duluth, Minnesota, who has been in Walden’s doctoral program since 2009, described to WND his experience.
“The plan was to take 8000 series classes and up to five 9000 series classes to complete this program,” he said. “I applied for a student loan, and I strongly believe that the university is fraudulent and mismanaging these funds and putting me deeper and deeper in debt.”
Palmer detailed the Doctoral of Business Administration degree program (DBA) at Walden University consists of two parts: Part 1 is 8000 series online classes that cover subjects related to the program, followed by Part 2, 9000 series classes for which one must register during the review process of the DBA research required to write a thesis.
“I have completed my 8000 series classes, and now I believe I have registered for 24 of the 9000 series class,” Palmer wrote. “My problem now is that my study document has been reviewed and approved by the first chair and the second chair 12 times over a two-year period, and it still has not received University Research Review approval. I have brought this problem to the program director, to the Walden University ombudsman, and to the university president with no real plan or solution to move this forward offered by the university so far.”
Palmer has come to see the delays as a strategy implemented by the managers of Walden University to extract more money from graduate students.
“I believe that the objective for the university is to keep the students in 9000 courses as long as they can because the university collects about $8,000 for each two classes taken, while incurring no real overhead costs,” Palmer argued.
“Only recently has Walden University offered to provide $8,000 in financial relief, but only after I have escalated my frustration to the president. I believe that this is misrepresentation and outright fraud,” he wrote, in obvious frustration. “I believe that the university is not compliant to their publicized program plan, and they are abusing the students and the student federal aid system.”
He concluded: “My federal aid loan is over $165,000 so far and I am not done yet. I started the program in 2009 and am still not done and there is no end in sight that I can see. I believe that this requires an investigation into Walden University for abuse, fraud and mismanagement of the DBA program and financial aid funds.”
‘I hope you can make our case more public’
Tonia De Aune Wilson, Ph.D., M.A. Ed., a sports psychology coach and personal fitness trainer, told WND she is “one of the many students who have had myriad issues with Walden University and become deep in debt for my education.”
“I enrolled in 2007 with the promise that I could finish a PhD in psychology in four years if I went full time and six if I went part time,” she said. “I was enrolled both part- and full-time throughout the coursework process, but by the time I reached the dissertation phase, suddenly I was not able to find a dissertation chair even after being given a list of interested faculty.”
Despite this expression of interest, Wilson was not able to find a suitable faculty adviser.
“All of them replied to me that they were full and could not take me on,” Wilson explained. ”When I asked my adviser, he told me that I could either take a leave of absence until someone was available, or take some extra classes in order to stay enrolled. If I were to take the leave of absence, I would not be able to pursue a dissertation chair because I would not have been considered a student.”
Finally, Wilson found a faculty member to chair her dissertation program.
“She was incredible,” Wilson acknowledged. “All of her students were making great strides in their dissertations, in short periods of time, but at some point, she was let go from the Department of Psychology for unknown reasons.”
After this, Wilson’s co-chair took over supervising her dissertation.
“He was completely inept,” she complained. “He read five-six pages at a time even though I was giving him entire chapters. He took up to three weeks to respond to emails and was never available by phone. Many students in his section dropped out because they ran out of money.”
Wilson spent three school terms with the new chairman but failed to make any progress on her dissertation.
“I filed a complaint with the department chair, the university ombudsman, and the Better Business Bureau,” she explained.
”Finally, after threatening litigation, the department chair took over my dissertation and I had to find a new co-chair. It took two years to finish a dissertation that should have only taken a year. I went in debt $35,000 over my original tuition that I had paid out of savings and trusts.”
Wilson finally graduated in 2015, only to find Walden University had no job placement program, despite advertising the existence of one.
“I am so dismayed that I have such debt and no job related to my PhD. I am a schoolteacher,” Wilson concluded. “I am single, and I have all of this debt now. At this time in my life, I should be saving for retirement with much more assertion than this, but it will take me at least 10 years to pay this down. Meanwhile, I haven’t contributed to my retirement for the entire duration of my Ph.D. in order to pay for it.”
She emphasized: “I hope that you can make our case more public so that the big Laureate Education doesn’t keep throwing money at lawyers and judges to throw out our cases.”
‘My credit is ruined, I’m depressed’
Maria Wallace, a Walden University student who entered the Public Health Ph.D. program in 2007, described herself as a Walden University student “who is struggling and hopes to see some justice.”
“I started the Ph.D. in Public Health at Walden in 2007 and everything went well until I entered the dissertation process,” she explained. “My chair was very simple and performed as a novice. Not much guidance or feedback. My prospectus was approved in 2012 for a qualitative study on high school dropout and health.”
Wallace had every reason to believe her dissertation completion at Walden would be as easy and direct as completing her course work.
“I worked very hard to write each chapter,” she continued. “My chapter 3 was completed about 2 years ago. At the end of December 2015, I was told that they were not convinced that my topic can even be studied and that I should consider a quantitative study instead. Every semester, time is wasted with online discussion and no real help with the proposal at all.”
Now, Wallace believes the delays she encountered were part of a Walden University plan to extract more money from her.
“It was clear that my thesis adviser was not even reading my paper,” she stressed. “Sometimes it took six weeks for feedback. After almost 10 years, my proposal is not approved. I have spent $100,000 with nothing to show.”
In addition to financial loss, Wallace has experienced what she considers a professional setback to her career.
“I am embarrassed because at my workplace, people who started with other universities five years after me are already done,” she concluded. “I am $100,000 in debt. My credit is ruined. I am depressed and I cannot continue paying.”
Wallace’s sense of loss was apparent.
“As students, we are suffering and very afraid to speak out about that university,” she said. “Walden University is a scam and a rip-off.”
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/09/02/clinton-u-students-accuse-hillary-of-hypocrisy/
from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2016/09/01/clinton-u-students-accuse-hillary-of-hypocrisy/
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