The best new scam – government sanctioned

Private colleges scam students – Wall Street loves it – they never saw a scam they didn’t like.

Ted Folkert

May 5, 2015

I think we can quote PT Barnum again here, “there is a sucker born every minute”. Well, our benevolent Wall Street financiers must have paid attention to him, AGAIN.

Jim Hightower of Hightower Lowdown always has the courage of his convictions when it comes to exposing the scam artists in our society. And more often than not the scam artists turn out to be those who own us already, the rich and powerful individuals and corporations, along with the aid of their well-paid lobbyists who know which buttons to push in Washington DC to grease the skids and deliver the rewards.

In his recent expose regarding the for-profit college system which has flourished for the past few decades, he refers to it as “Screw U”.  http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/debtstrike#.VUknTZNs_Kg

These degree programs are considered mediocre or worse, predatory loan scams the hustle students into deep debt. This is a practice sanctioned by our federal government and most state governments and loved by college CEOs, Wall Street financiers, and debt collectors. Instead of considering education a common good, they consider it a commodity just like corn and soybeans. (Caveat emptor – let the buyer beware)

Check out these facts about private colleges, paraphrased from writings by Jim Hightower:

$1.3 trillion is owed by students, more than for credit cards or auto loans.

Tuition is 20% to 400% higher than public or community schools.

96% of private college students take loans, for public or community schools, 13% to 48%

The loans provide them $32 billion a year in revenue

88% of their students leave saddled with debt averaging $39,950

Interest rates, penalties, and collection fees can double the cost

The cost can end up double the cost of a Harvard education

They spend 17% of their budget on teaching, 19% on corporate profits and 23% on marketing

CEOs at the corporate schools average pay is $7.3 million

72% on those who graduate are in jobs that average less pay than high school dropouts

A well-known senator stated that “they own every lobbyist in town”. Their lobbyists include former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and former Democratic House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, obviously paid co-conspirators.

Their campaign dollars amounted to $3 million in last year’s congressional races and $4.4 million in the 2012 presidential and congressional campaigns, with 70% going to GOP candidates.

On their convention stages they prance out people like Colin Powell, George W Bush, General Wesley Clark, and Jeb Bush.

The scam artists’ TV personalities are people like Suzy Orman and Steve Harvey, who apparently are paid co-conspirators.

Wall Street owns 34% to 100% of the eight largest for-profit college corporations.

Jim Hightower says his education at the University of North Texas in the 1960s cost about $800 per year, about $6,000 in present dollars. I had similar experience at Kansas City Junior College and the University of Missouri at Kansas City. The highest fees were $12 per credit hour, so the total cost was probably $1,500, about $12,000 in present dollars, total cost for a bachelor’s degree.

Have our leaders no shame, no compassion, no interest in educating our youngsters? Education – the only salvation for sustenance of our way of life for future generations, the only way of a rewarding life for our present generation of youngsters as they pursue the globalized employment market which is ever-increasingly competing with robots, which are owned by the rich and powerful, for low-wage jobs.

We need to get down and dirty with these inconsiderate vultures – down and dirty with the Hightower Lowdown and Jim Hightower.

Read the article: http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/debtstrike#.VUknTZNs_Kg

Think about!