Former Trump U. execs run FL college - $150 mill/yr in FSA.

Discussion in 'Accreditation Discussions (RA, DETC, state approva' started by Johann, Sep 13, 2016.

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  1. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

  2. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Wow, that was a really long article that basically amounted to "it used to be a for-profit school and now is a non-profit school."

    I like little gems like this:

    A "foreign" LLC means that it was formed outside of that state. That's it. If I form an LLC in New York and do business in Florida my LLC is considered "foreign." That's it. There's nothing inherently nefarious about it. It's also such a mundane detail that it should hardly warrant mention in an article like this.

    The funny thing is that this for-profit witch hunt keeps narrowing in focus. First, it was all for-profit schools. Then it was seeming to zero in on NA schools (as when it zeroed in on Full Sail). Now it seems that the media only wants to focus on ACICS.
     
  3. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    What I focused on was not ACICS. It was the involvement of former "Trump University" executives. From a non-university selling $40K seminars, they land at a school getting $150 million a year in Federal Student Aid. Nothing else. Let's hear what you think of that.

    J.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 13, 2016
  4. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    He didn't say you were doing this, he said, correctly, that the mainstream media is now doing this. I don't think it was a particularly off-topic observation.
     
  5. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    I think that I kind of wish I were an executive?

    Personally, as much as I dislike Trump, I don't find Trump U to be the massive fraud that is alleged. As I've said before, Trump University never claimed to be a degree granting institution. They used university in the same way that Hamburger University does.

    I think that any such get rich quick or get rich guaranteed seminar is a ripoff. But it's a caveat emptor sort of ripoff. It's like the sort of ripoff when you pay $75 to have $30 shoes re-soled. You are, indeed, getting a product that most people can identify immediately as largely worthless. Trump University seminars are ripoffs like Tony Robbins seminars are ripoffs.

    That someone made money from them doesn't surprise me. That those individuals went on to make money elsewhere doesn't surprise me.

    Why exactly should I be disgusted that this school pulled in $150M in federal financial aid? If they committed fraud in securing those funds then yes, I'm disgusted. But that hasn't been shown to be the case.

    My biggest issue with UMA is the same issue I have with a lot of (primarily) ACICS schools; tuition is really high for what they are offering.

    The Pharmacy Technician program costs around $16k. This is a program you can get at Penn Foster for under $1k and it includes placement at a CVS/Walgreens for an externship.

    Unlike many of the other schools, however, they also offer a few programs that could very easily help a person move up a few rungs on the earning ladder. They have an RN program and an X-Ray Tech program, for example.

    So yeah, high tuition for low earning fields (pharmacy tech/patient care technician/medical assistant). That's definitely a red flag. But I'd wager that the quality of their education is also a bit higher if they are approved for regulated professions. Overpriced? Quite possibly. Fraudulent? There is nothing to indicate that is the case. With Everest you had people earning degrees in IT in 2013 learning how to use Windows 95. So it was overpriced and the programs were useless. If I were a low skilled worker and a school like UMA helped me become an RN? I wouldn't care if a handful of the executives came from Trump University.
     
  6. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Maybe not massive - It's far from a "Bernie Madoff," but I don't like it at all. Maybe it's just me. I know it doesn't pretend to award degrees - but as I see it, any enterprise is dishonest, if the objective is just to extract large sums of money from foolish people who will cripple themselves with debt. I've no time for people who knowingly take part in perpetrating such schemes. Shame on them - and those who give them work. That is, work beyond a minimum subsistence wage. Everybody has to live - or they'll have to resort to crime.

    The Trump U. thing is a real paradox, to me. I still have the useful, advice-filled free book that Trump U. sent me, at my request. One of its lessons was basically "Don't EVER screw up your good name. In business, it's the most valuable thing you've got." Then Mr. Trump lends his own name to this kind of enterprise? What did he expect?

    Perhaps it's more. There's a big difference in amount and enormity of the cheat, between a $40 K seminar and a $75 shoe-resoling. And at least you get something out of the shoe-deal. They will last a while longer, hopefully.

    Re: ACICS. Personally, I don't see it as worthwhile to get very upset at ACICS. By the time I get good and riled up, they might very well be gone.

    J.
     
  7. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    The media looking for anything, regardless of how minor, non-relevant, or absurd it is, to attack Trump?

    Only if he loses the election. If he wins, they'll hound him for the rest of his life, even out of office, and he'll be blamed for anything and everything if a Democrat succeeds him, ala Bush 43.
     
  8. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    I don't think so either, Steve. Never did. Your interpretation of Neuhaus is faultless, but your translation of Johann-ese might need some work. It's a difficult, disorganized lingo, even for the initiated.

    Perhaps I should have said something like: "Yeah. The media are obsessed with ACICS, but Johann says - enough about ACICS. What bugs Johann is the Trump U. people at this school. What do you think of that?" Hope it's clear now.

    J.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 13, 2016
  9. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    This story is pointless. The media doesn't care about investigating the real issues with Trump. They've mostly ignored the allegations of rape by three different women. Other celebrity and politicians' sex scandals are covered to death.
     
  10. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Ah, okay. Yes, crystal clear. :smile:
     
  11. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    The propaganda wing of the Democrat Party (almost every news outlet) would never, in a bazillion years, pass up that kind of story about Trump, if there was even a scintilla of evidence that made it even remotely plausible.

    Have you ever considered that the women are full of shit and looking for paydays?
     
  12. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    I guess that you don't subscribe to the belief that potential victims of rape deserve to be believed. If there isn't anything else, it further demonstrates a pattern of how Trump thinks of women. And, he has been married three times and caught publicly cheating on his wives. If the same scenario happened with a Democratic politician, you would be all over it. The sad part is that Trump is not even the conservative Republican you think he is.
     
  13. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    They deserve to be taken very seriously. The difference is subtle, but important.
     
  14. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Hillary believes in that, very strongly, now that she's running for President. When her husband was sexually assaulting women, not so much.

    All the women he's promoted to senior positions in his company would likely take issue with that. They have, in fact.

    So what? Ronald Reagan was married twice, and he was the greatest President of my lifetime. John F. Kennedy couldn't keep in his pants, and he did okay as POTUS.

    Uhhh......Bill Clinton?

    Please point out where I ever said that I thought Trump is a conservative Republican.

    HINT: You can't.

    Sorry, I'll go with the successful businessman who says mean things once in awhile and has been married 3 times over the pathological liar who endangered national security on numerous occasions because of arrogance and entitlement, is not indicted solely because of who she is, and looks like she's in God's Waiting Room more and more every day.
     
  15. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    I knew you would come out and show your hypocrisy again. You have double standards.

    I'm sure there are women in senior positions at Fox despite Roger Ailes' history of sexual harassment.

    Yes. You do not hold Trump to the same standards you would hold a Democratic politician such as Bill Clinton. Honestly, it seems as if you have no interest in learning anything about Donald Trump. You just take his word for everything despite him being caught in boldfaced lies such as not having supported the war in Iraq. You don't care to see any of his tax returns, you don't care to learn more about his medical history, and you don't care to know if he's worth as much as he says he is.

    True. Trump is one of the liberal Democratics, a group you keep bashing as if Trump isn't a part of that group. It's interesting how, when Trump's casinos went bankrupt, none of the competing business in the area went bankrupt. What a lot of people also don't know is that Trump was, personally, almost $1 billion in debt. The banks decided that he would be worth more to them if they didn't let him go personally bankrupt, but he sure was close.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 15, 2016
  16. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    There were. And Ailes was brought down because they took him on. Do you really not see how that is different from female executives defending Trump?

    I'm no Trump fan but Bruce is correct that female executives have defended Trump and his treatment of them, and other women, in his organization. How could that possibly compare to a guy who was brought down because women in similar positions wouldn't stand for his harassment?

    If anything, the Ailes situation undercuts any argument a person might have that Trump's female executives are defending him out of fear.
     
  17. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    Yet, Ailes is one of Trump's advisors. Anyway, there were several women in high positions at Fox defending Ailes.
     
  18. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    How so? Specifics, please.

    Have you seen any female executives at Fox come out in defense of Ailes? Many of Trump's female executives have come out in vehement, vocal defense of him. H-U-G-E difference.

    Show me a credible allegation that Trump has ever sexually assaulted multiple women, and I'll hold him to the same standard as Bill Clinton. Show me credible evidence that Trump has ever committed perjury to Congress or endangered national security, and I'll hold him to the same standard as Hillary Clinton.

    Did he lie under oath to Congress about endangering national security?

    None of my business, and I couldn't decipher them even if they were. I looked at Mitt Romney's, laughed, and closed the browser window.

    He's not having very public medical episodes where he has to practically be carried by the Secret Service to his limo, nor is he having private episodes that result in concussions, used to attempt to justify lying under oath to Congress.

    Who cares? The man has a private 757 jet and financed his own primary, he's obviously worth a shitload of money. It doesn't matter to me exactly how much, it makes no difference.

    That's the risk when you run a business, and don't spend your life attached to the government teat with politically appointed positions or elected office. He also doesn't have foreign countries donating billions of dollars to "The Trump Foundation" to provide a comfortable cushion.
     
  19. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

    And their statements are relevant. They don't outweight the accusations, mind you. But they are still statements that we need to take seriously. In the broader context of voices being heard the scale might still tip against a person. But what you seem to be implying is that any accuser must automatically be believed (as opposed to "taken seriously," a distinction Steve noted earlier) but that if a woman is defending the character of someone accused then that opinion is wholly disposable.

    I'm sure that there are folks on here who would take my criticisms of Liberty to be anti-Christian. I'm also sure that there would be others, perhaps from areas of my life not DI, who would argue that I vigorously defended and supported them despite us having very different religious beliefs. If the issue became a public one I'd like to think that both sides might be heard and afforded the same consideration.

    Of course, then that begins painting a portrait of a person that is much more nuanced and could run contrary to a good ol' fashioned media villain (they are notoriously more impactful when you draw them in black and white rather than shades of grey).
     
  20. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    Ivana Trump's allegations are very credible because Trump's lawyer was the one who stated that someone can't rape his spouse. Not only is that not true, but why would any lawyer even think to say that if the allegations of Trump beating and forcing himself on her weren't true? Plus, the amount of money she was awarded was partially based on Trump's treatment of her. So, the court thought she was credible. If Ivana's allegations were true, then Trump did lie under oath. There is also evidence pointing to him lying during the discrimination case.

    If you thought that was what I was implying, then you are totally wrong. You and Bruce were the ones who brought up Trump's supporters to discredit the rape allegations. I'm simply making the argument that the existence of women who weren't mistreated by Trump is not evidence that there are not women who were mistreated by Trump.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 17, 2016

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