Patterico's Pontifications

6/11/2016

Bill Clinton Gets Rich Peddling Influence for a Sketchy Higher Education Company

Filed under: General — JVW @ 11:08 am



[guest post by JVW]

This past winter, Patterico covered the the scandal encompassing the practices of the eponymous university promoted by the presumptive GOP nominee for President. Lawsuits brought against the school allege that they engaged in all sorts of unsavory business practices, including misleading promises and skillful manipulation of students to convince them to pay exorbitant tuition for carlessly-designed and poorly-executed coursework. The suit has been in the news lately as the candidate has taken to questioning the ability of the federal judge assigned to the fraud cases to deliver fair rulings, based mostly upon his Mexican heritage.

Well, earlier this week American Thinker published a post outlining the involvement of the husband of the presumptive Democrat nominee for President in the for-profit higher education world. Bill Clinton served as “honorary chancellor” for Laureate Education, who runs the for-profit B-Corp Laureate International Universities, from 2010 to 2015. During this five-year position, Clinton was paid some $16.5 million (a quick trip to the calculator will suggest that this is $3.3 million per year) for his services, which mostly seem to consist of flying around the world making speeches on behalf of the corporation, which brags that its network includes 80 campuses, both traditional and online, in 28 countries. The business model of the school apparently includes enlisting other high-profile international figures, as the homepage showcases former leaders such as Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice, Ernesto Zedillo, and others who have spoken at Laureate-sponsored events.

Do you believe in coincidences? According to a report in Bloomberg marking Clinton’s severing his ties with Laureate: “Laureate hired Bill Clinton just as the Obama administration was working on its first try at controversial regulations on ‘gainful employment’ and as then-Senate HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) launched a series of hearings scrutinizing the industry, which relies heavily on federal student aid grants and loans for revenue.” And it may surprise you to learn that while the Obama Justice Department was hammering away at DeVry, ITT, the University of Phoenix, and other for-profit educational institutions, Laureate International Universities somehow escaped their notice.

Beyond lending his (cough, cough) prestige and making appearances at Laureate International University events, what exactly did Bill Clinton do for his $16.5 million? Clinton Cash, Peter Schweizer’s exposé of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s lucrative financial network published last year, tells us that the United States Department of State, headed by Secretary of State Hillary! Rodham Clinton, arranged $55 million in taxpayer grants for the International Youth Foundation, a charitable nonprofit whose chairman, Doug Becker, is also the chairman of Laureate. A report in Bloomberg last summer summarizes Schweizer’s findings as follows:

Citing the foundation’s tax filings, Schweizer writes that while IYF had received government grants (mainly from the U.S. Agency for International Development) as far back as 2001, they “exploded since Bill became chancellor of Laureate,” accounting for the vast majority of the nonprofit’s revenue. In 2010, “government grants accounted for $23 million of its revenue, compared to $5.4 million from other sources. It received $21 million in 2011 and $23 million in 2012.

The Clinton campaign disputed Schweizer’s characterization. “This is yet another false allegation in a book that is fast being debunked,” said Brian Fallon, a campaign spokesman. “The International Youth Foundation was funded by the Bush administration, well before Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State. In fact, the group’s USAID funding actually went down in the year that she arrived at the State Department, not up.”

A Bloomberg examination of IYF’s public filings show that in 2009, the year before Bill Clinton joined Laureate, the nonprofit received 11 grants worth $9 million from the State Department or the affiliated USAID. In 2010, the group received 14 grants worth $15.1 million. In 2011, 13 grants added up to $14.6 million. The following year, those numbers jumped: IYF received 21 grants worth $25.5 million, including a direct grant from the State Department.

For what it’s worth, Laureate International Universities is listed as having donated between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000 to the Clinton Foundation, the charitable wing of the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Global Initiative. Doug Becker is not listed has having made a personal donation to the foundation, because screw opening your own wallet when you can use refunneled taxpayer grants to purchase access and protection.

Shortly after the publication of Clinton Cash, Bill Clinton resigned from his honorary chancellorship at the university. Whether this was because the five-year agreement had run its course (the Clinton camp’s explanation), whether it was because he was clearing out the closet skeletons in advance of his wife’s Presidential run, or whether it was because his lavish compensation was an embarrassing revelation that complicated her lame attempts at populist appeal, the Clintons seem to have been pretty fortunate that this story quickly disappeared.

So why does this blog post refer to Laureate as a “sketchy higher education company”? Turns out that Laureate Education is the parent company of Walden University Online who is being sued for many of the practices that have led the Justice Department to crack down on for-profit universities. Here is Jonathan Turley’s explanation:

Laureate Education was sued over its Walden University Online offering, which some alleged worked like a scam designed to bilk students of tens of thousands of dollars for degrees. Students alleged that they were repeatedly delayed and given added costs as they tried to secure degrees, leaving them deeply in debt. Laureate itself has been criticized for “turbocharging” admissions while allowing standards to fall and shortchanging education.

Yet while the current Administration was making so much trouble for other for-profit universities, Laureate-Walden seems to have escaped their notice. Turley again:

The Wall Street Journal reported that Laureate was able to “skirt” regulations on reporting “gainful employment” due to its large number of schools and students outside of the country who do not receive federal aid. The Journal noted “[o]nly 31% of students who enroll at another Laureate school, Santa Fe University of Art and Design, graduate. After 10 years, a mere 58% earn more than Americans with a high school diploma.”

Clinton resigned from his post just before his wife declared her candidacy but praised the company for producing high quality education. Yet, MarketWatch reported “five out of its six U.S. campuses are on a list of 544 schools the Department of Education is monitoring over concerns about shaky finances or regulatory compliance.”

What is Hillary Clinton’s disposition on for-profit colleges? Like any good progressive Democrat beholden to the higher education monopoly, she’s wary of them.

Will this be yet another double-standard largely ignored by the lapdog media, or have the Clintons so worn down basic decency that even leftist sources will have to acknowledge how ugly this sort of hypocrisy truly is? It’s going to be an awful summer and fall.

– JVW

58 Responses to “Bill Clinton Gets Rich Peddling Influence for a Sketchy Higher Education Company”

  1. [tapping the microphone] Is this thing on?

    JVW (eabb2a)

  2. I’m sure the Clintons will have some perfectly reasonable, totally plausible explanation that isn’t self-serving in any way whatsoever, but rather highlights their dedication to bettering this country in ways those nasty, racist, classist Republicans and their vast right-wing conspiracy could never begin to imagine.

    Because the Clintons aren’t in it for the money, of course. They just want to make the world a better place. Can they help it if people just seem to throw money at them in gratitude?

    arik (02de93)

  3. The suit has been in the news lately as the candidate has taken to questioning the ability of the federal judge assigned to the fraud cases to deliver fair rulings, based mostly upon his Mexican heritage.

    Now hold on a minute there, JVW. We all know that Trump walked all that back, saying he had been “misconstrued”.

    If I had a rolleyes smiley I’d place it right here.

    Bill H (971e5f)

  4. Hillary admitted she and Bill were “dead broke” when they left the White House, even though he was to receive a healthy six figure pension and she had just been elected to the US Senate with a salary exceeding six figures.

    It’s a good thing these two sh*theads were able to pull themselves out of poverty.

    Can’t wait ’til she’s President.
    The Holier-than-thou crowd in Texas thinks they’re exempt from Presidential executive orders — but just wait.
    And Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Warren will want to teach y’all a thing or three about states’ rights.

    It’s allllll about principles — the principles of the winning team in November.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  5. At least “Crooked Hillary” is more accurate than”Lyin’ Ted”.

    But that still does not change the fact that Trump is as corrupt as she is, and would do as much executive ordering as her.

    kishnevi (b58549)

  6. Given my conversations with neighbors, coworkers, etc, highlighting her misfeasance and misprision won’t do any good.

    They understand how corrupt she is. They merely think that he would be a disaster in the WH and she won’t.

    kishnevi (b58549)

  7. They merely think that he would be a disaster in the WH and she won’t.

    But the problem is that she poses the greater long-term threat. Ol’ Whazzizname would indeed be a disaster, but I think we would be smart enough to see his Presidency as an aberration, much like the governorship of Jesse Ventura or the mayorship of David Dinkins. Hillary! would further erode our trust in government, and she would continue down the path of using so-called “government service” as a means to acquire great wealth. She would have the longer-lasting ill effect upon the republic.

    JVW (eabb2a)

  8. kishnevi,

    Your friends and neighbors probably haven’t heard about Benghazi or exposing CIA agents’ names and locations in unsecured email transactions.
    Or about sucking the marrow from the bone in Haiti — wut??? Haiti??? “Whatchu talkin’ ’bout Willis?!”
    But hey, Donald Trump ran a fraudulent university.
    Whereas Hillary ran a fraudulent State Department.

    So, let’s elect Hillary!
    OMG.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  9. But that still does not change the fact that Trump is as corrupt as she is, and would do as much executive ordering as her.

    kishnevi (b58549) — 6/11/2016 @ 2:17 pm

    ==========================================

    Now that is just pure, unadulterated horsesh*t.

    Colonel Haiku Channeling Leviticus (2601c0)

  10. kishnevi,

    The “amount” of executive ordering is not the goddamn issue.
    Instead, the issue is the quality of executive ordering.

    Let’s use basketball as an example.
    If during the Chicago Bulls’ heyday, Steve Kerr or Michael Jordan took 8 three-point attempts in a championship game, that’s a good thing.
    If DENNIS RODMAN took as many three-point attempts, that’s not a good thing.

    It’s the quality, not the quantity.
    That’s not to say that Trump’s executive orders would be on par with Steve Kerr’s three-point shooting, but Trump’s executive orders would likely be less punitive to the country than Hillary’s.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  11. CS—in fact, a number of those coworkers are from Haiti.
    They may or may not know about Benghazi but that is because the GOP took years to stop going after the wrong end of the stick….by which I mean focusing on what was said after, instead of focusing on what was done (and not done) before.

    And Trump’s executive orders would be just as bad.

    kishnevi (b58549)

  12. I largely agree with JVW above, and I already said, if it is between Clinton, I mean anyone of the party of Obama and the Clintons, and Trump, I will vote Trump,
    But we are not in such great shape as to assume we will do well enough with Trump for four years.
    The cold winters and Northern Pike of MN managed through Ventura,
    but the US and the rest of the world are in need of something more.

    I will not settle for Trump until I have to.
    It is June. Presumptive nominees are just that,
    presumptive and presumed.

    MD in Philly (cf3c76)

  13. Are you cracking kidding me, kish, we have seen how warnings to state went un headed for the better part of a year.

    narciso (732bc0)

  14. CS, disagree with the analogy,
    executive orders usurping the balance of power are bad, even if for the moment Trump’s are more in line with ones preferences.

    MD in Philly (cf3c76)

  15. And Trump’s executive orders would be just as bad.

    But they won’t because he does not desire the same things Hillary! does. Because he’s not a communist.

    Rev. Hoagie© (734193)

  16. They can play politics and juggle for power,
    or declare war on the Constitutional corruption, and make every House race an infomercial with facts and 8×10 glossy black and white photos with writing on the back explaining,
    Because with the administration stalling and the press letting them do it,
    one had to find a way to get the public exposure,
    and they didn’t do it and are paying the price.

    MD in Philly (cf3c76)

  17. Are you cracking kidding me, kish, we have seen how warnings to state went un headed for the better part of a year.

    Exactly. They should have concentrated on that. But instead of focusing on that they complained that Rice did not use the right phrase afterwards..

    kishnevi (b58549)

  18. Rev H
    He’s not a communist. He is an authoritarian statist. That is no better.!

    And may I remind you that up to the point he became a candidate he was supporting all those things she supports?

    As far as I know he still is fine with perverts in the locker room.

    kishnevi (b58549)

  19. kishnevi,

    It’s just a matter of opinion, don’t be offended.
    You happen to think that Team Clinton is not the Criminal Enterprise that many of the rest of us see them to be.

    But what the Clintons did to Haiti is sickening, and if you wish to debate it, I’m game.

    Trump’s a punk, but he’s not the sh*thead that Hillary is. Again, that’s just an opinion.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  20. Yes, he thought NC was stupid to make it an issue because it cost them business and $$$$.

    MD in Philly (cf3c76)

  21. Gospodin Clinton is traitor to Revolution, to Party and to People. Is blood-sucking capitalist whyo amass wealth by exploiting innocent youths who attend soulless capitalist for-profit universities, and is big disappointment too.

    narodnyi komissariat (dbc370)

  22. I see nothing from kishnevi to suggest he thinks any different about Clinton than any one else,
    there are few, if any, here who do not think she is a corrupt disaster.

    MD in Philly (cf3c76)

  23. MD in Philly,

    We just disagree — that’s fine.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  24. Mr. The Donald is the least authoritavidist person i know about in America and i read TMZ every day

    happyfeet (831175)

  25. Mr happyfeet,

    The Mr Donald’s not even as authoritative as Kim Kardashian’s thighs!

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  26. I am inclined to believe you, happyfeet. Real persons of authority do not need to lie and whine. They say it and it is done. Among all his other pansinesses, Trump is also a sissy.

    nk (dbc370)

  27. her thighs are very sassy and lucrative and you know what? Mr. The Donald is like the last person to begrudge Kimmy K the authoritateyness of her thighs

    he’s a gracious gracious man and a big-hearted babaloo besides

    happyfeet (831175)

  28. MD, thank you.
    CS….My opinion of the Clintons is the same as yours.
    It is my opinion of Trump which differs from yours.

    Put it another way…. there is no way I will vote for Hillary in November. No argument could persuade me she is not as bad as I think she is. Hades could turn into a frozen lake and I still would not do it.

    I might be persuaded to vote for Trump, if I am persuaded he is not as bad as I think it is. A very small chance of that, but better than Hades turning into a frozen lake.

    As of now, my actual plan is to vote for Johnson.

    kishnevi (07cb64)

  29. It’s not just that the Judge is Mexican. He’s La Raza.
    When the Minuteman Project is harassed for watching the border or shouted down at a speaking engagement it’s this Judge and/or his fellowship that are doing the nasty.

    The case itself is designed to bring private schools under the regulation of State Government. Where are all you small government proponents? Why aren’t you pounding the table on this point? Why aren’t you singing the praises of small government crusader Donald Trump?

    The woman bringing the case is a grifter, claiming she paid double the highest fee paid by anybody from the Scheiderman investigation, in order to pad her payout.

    After she was cashed out the Judge keeps the case alive for the George Stephanopolous (big time multi million dollar clinton contributor) of law firms.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  30. It also depends upon what state one is in. Here in PA it might make a difference and I will not vote a write in for Cruz just because,
    but if I was in CA or TX or lots of states where the outcome is not in question,
    no way would I vote for Trump.

    MD in Philly (cf3c76)

  31. 18.Rev H
    He’s not a communist. He is an authoritarian statist. That is no better.!

    You seem to believe that is what he is. I don’t. I see him as a blustering bully but I’m reasonably sure being in office with handlers will calm that tendency. OTOH, Hillary! brings in an entire new dimension of communist opportunism to continue the Fundamental Change™ obama began. She is a radical leftist and to them everything is political from how and where you worship to whether you can own a firearm to who gets to piss next to your daughter. That is because their only standards are they have no standards. She already sold 20% of our uranium down the drain for money do you want to give her the other 80% too?

    Oh, and anything is better than a communist. Trust me, I fought against them. I’ve met them up close and personal.

    Rev. Hoagie© (734193)

  32. Prop 227 passed by a margin of 61% to 39% in California.

    Prop 187 election map

    Do not tell me what can’t be done. (YouTube)

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  33. gotta hate them commies

    they steal all your sh*t and they smell like pee

    happyfeet (831175)

  34. I had an uncle who was a Communist and another who killed Communists. I liked the Communist better. Everybody did. Even the government. It only sent him to jail for six months for “atheism”. It gave the one who killed Communists three separate death sentences (they were commuted).

    I also had two uncles who were killed by Communists and three who were killed by Nazis. Decisions, decisions. Whom to hate today and why?

    nk (dbc370)

  35. i hate the carbontards most of all

    it’s plant food they’re so stupid

    happyfeet (831175)

  36. We Just Disagree “We’ll Hang You From a Tree” Mave Dason

    Been away, haven’t seen you in a while
    How’d you vote, did you pick the one who’s vile?
    And do you think that we’ve heard things differently?
    Don’t seem the same, seems you’ve lost your fealty

    So don’t throw that dog a bone, ’cause she’s heading off to jail
    Trump ain’t a good guy, but he ain’t a bad guy
    You vote for Hillary, we’ll hang you from a tree
    Ooh-hoo-hoo, oh-oh-boo-hoo

    She’s leaving soon for a place with cells and bars
    Not good enough, should be parcel post to Mars
    Why should we care when we’re just trying to have some hope?
    We were friends, but now it’s time to grab some rope

    No we can’t leave it alone, couldn’t do it if we try
    Trump ain’t a good guy, but he ain’t a bad guy
    You vote for Hillary, we’ll hang you from a tree
    Ooh-hoo-hoo, oh-oh-boo-hoo

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  37. Jon Voigt pretending to be FDR for President.

    There’s my third party nom.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  38. poor perverted mitt just can’t shut his perverted amoral slut mouth

    he’s as incontinent as hillary

    happyfeet (831175)

  39. this was during the civil war, or after,

    narciso (732bc0)

  40. Why would we hang them from a tree? Why would we hang anybody?

    We’re just trying to draw some Cruzers over to the Trump column. Nobody’s voting for Cackles.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  41. i like trees

    happyfeet (831175)

  42. Occupation, civil war, king, junta, narciso.

    nk (dbc370)

  43. Just kiddin’… we’d give ’em hugs.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  44. that’s four instances, was he army, police, militia?

    narciso (732bc0)

  45. The one with the death sentences? Death squads during the civil war; trial and prison after, under the king.

    nk (dbc370)

  46. One of the uncles who was killed by the Communists, a veteran of 1940, was real National Guard.

    nk (dbc370)

  47. I wrote something similar a couple of days ago. It must be that Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy that the Charmless Phony told us about. Link.

    Bird Dog (1df851)

  48. this fellow’s history mentioned in hastings, shows how competence in intelligence, is a rarely achieved mean,

    http://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/may/18/guardianobituaries1

    narciso (732bc0)

  49. Hillary to the Pillory in 2016!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  50. the haiti case, is a larger offense, as is this pattern,

    https://world.wng.org/2016/05/troubling_ties

    narciso (732bc0)

  51. She puts her left foot out
    She pulls her left foot in
    She only kicks ’em in the balls
    She never takes ’em to her chin
    She thinks the laws are hokey
    That the laws are just for schleps
    That’s called the Hillary Step

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  52. nice

    happyfeet (831175)

  53. kishnevi (07cb64) — 6/11/2016 @ 5:09 pm

    The Donald would get Doc Carson on the phone to talk him through your heart problem.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  54. I like the cartoon.
    Of course, Trump would just hire a real surgeon with a proven record, just like he did with the ice rink in New York.

    Ingot (1de9ec)


Powered by WordPress.

Page loaded in: 0.1068 secs.