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Durbin says for-profit colleges “own every lobbyist” in D.C.

On June 27, 20 state attorneys general announced a court settlement with QuinStreet Inc., a marketing company working for for-profit colleges, that will shut down the deceptive website GIBill.com and turn that web address over to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, The Huffington Post reports.

GIBill.com [1], until recently, looked a lot like a government website. But people who went there seeking advice on higher education options were always steered to a for-profit college that paid for the privilege. Deceptive marketing like this, along with coercive recruiting tactics, push thousands of our troops and veterans to shoddy for-profit colleges that have high prices, low-quality educations, high dropout rates, and overwhelming loan debts for students.

Since these bad practices have now been widely exposed, why are even the worst actors in the for-profit college industry still sharing in the $32 billion in federal financial aid that goes to this sector every year? One word: lobbying.

“It’s reached a point now when you get little or nothing done when you take on the for-profit schools in Congress,” Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) said at a Washington press conference announcing the settlement.  “Why? They own every lobbyist in town.”

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