Nearly a month ago embattled for profit-college group Corinthian Colleges Inc. announced it had found a buyer for 56 of its campuses under the Everest and WyoTech brands. But the proposed $24 million sale to Educational Credit Management Corporation has drawn the ire of consumer advocates for its lack of protections to students and the possibility that all liabilities related to litigation or private student loans carried by CCI would be waived. [More]
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Consumer Advocates Warn Sale Of Corinthian Campuses To Loan Servicer Company Could Further Hurt Students
By 12.17.14
Senators Ask Dept. Of Education To Discharge Student Loans For Everest, WyoTech, Heald Students
By 12.10.14
While Corinthian Colleges — the failing for-profit educator behind schools like Everest University, WyoTech, and Heald College — sorts out new owners for most of its properties, several thousand of the schools’ students are left in limbo, unsure of who is responsible for their education — and unsure if that pricey education is worth the huge loans they’ve taken out to pay for it. Yesterday, a group of a dozen U.S. Senators asked the Dept. of Education to consider giving these students a way out of their federal student loans. [More]
For-Profit College Hired Exotic Dancers As Admissions Reps
By 12.5.14
The operators of a now-defunct for-profit college in Florida allegedly told its admissions directors to do whatever it took to sell the school to potential students. Among the tactics used by the school is one straight out of a wacky, low-budget, late-night college movie you might see on Cinemax. [More]
Payday Lenders Now Outnumber McDonald’s (But Still Not As Many As Subway)
By 11.26.14
There are more than 14,000 McDonald’s locations in the U.S., meaning you’re rarely more than a few miles away from a Big Mac. But even though payday loans are illegal in more than a dozen states, these short-term predatory lending operations outnumber Golden Arches eateries by nearly 1.5 to 1, though they still have some catching up to do with the vast number of Subway stores. [More]
Corinthian Sells 56 Everest, WyoTech Campuses To Loan Servicer ECMC In $24M Deal
By 11.20.14
Embattled for-profit college chain Corinthian Colleges, the operator of schools like Everest, Heald and WyoTech, found a buyer for at least half of its campuses in the form of student-loans servicing company Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC). [More]
Pennsylvania Sues Think Finance, Alleging Illegal Payday Loan Scheme
By 11.14.14
Pennsylvania is one of several states with laws prohibiting payday lending, but the often predatory products still find their way to consumers via online marketplaces and companies’ claiming affiliation with American Indian tribes. In an effort to crack down on such nefarious lenders, the state’s attorney general filed a consumer protection lawsuit against a Texas-based company for allegedly engineering a payday loan scheme over the internet. [More]
Why You Shouldn’t Get A Reverse Mortgage Just Because Fred Thompson Tells You To
By 11.13.14
Turn on the TV and you’re just about guaranteed to come face-to-face with a celebrity or public figure selling a product or service. While those spokespeople may carry an air of respect and trust with consumers, what happens when the product they so happily lent their voice to turns out to have devastating affects on the consumer? Not much really, but it might be time for that to change. [More]
Wells Fargo to Sell $8.5B In Government-Backed Student Loans to Navient
By 11.13.14
Earlier this year, Wells Fargo announced plans to get out of the payday loan-like business of direct deposit advances. Now it looks like the banking giant is getting ready to shed another aspect of its business: government-guaranteed student loans. [More]
New Prepaid Debit Card Rules Would Add Protections, Curb Overdraft Abuse
By 11.13.14
A growing number of America’s unbanked and under-banked consumers have been turning to prepaid debit cards as an alternative to checking accounts. Between 2003 and 2012, the total amount of money deposited annually onto these cards increased from $1 billion to $65 billion, and that amount is expected to near $100 million for 2014. But those cards often come with hefty fees and lack protections of other financial products. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is looking to make prepaid cards safer and lest costly with a new slate of proposed rules. [More]
For-Profit Online University Lets You Spend ThoughtCoins On Way To Job As Digital Gardener
By 11.7.14
Have you been thinking about enrolling in a for-profit online college that saddles you with thousands of dollars of debt and no job to show for it? Then get ready to spend your ThoughtCoins and ClassPoints at a school that will still take all your money but lets you skip the classwork and guarantees you a job when you graduate. [More]
For-Profit College Group Sues, Doesn’t Want To Be Responsible For Graduates’ Success
By 11.6.14
Last week, the U.S. Dept. of Education finally passed a somewhat compromised rule aimed at reining in for-profit colleges by penalizing them if too many of their graduates failed to succeed. But even that flawed rule is too much for a group representing for-profit colleges, which labeled it “arbitrary and irrational” in a lawsuit seeking to block it. [More]
Fifth Third Bank Backtracks On Its Pledge To End Payday Loans
By 11.4.14
In early 2014, the four major banks still offering customers payday loan-like services announced they would discontinue their often under-fire programs by the end of the year. Apparently Fifth Third Bank has changed its mind, announcing plans to continue with a revised, supposedly less harmful version of the service for existing customers. But consumer groups say the revamped service doesn’t actually address the problems that led banks to discontinue programs in the first place. [More]
Tribes Suing New York For Restricting Payday Lending Businesses Drop Federal Suit
By 11.3.14
Despite having some of the toughest regulations prohibiting high-interest, short-term loans, New York has continued to face issues in the form of illegal online payday lenders who claim to have affiliation with Native American tribes. But those issues came a step closer to being resolved late last week when two American Indian tribes with online lending operations abandoned an effort to block the sate from restricting their businesses. [More]
Rule Aims To Hold For-Profit Schools Accountable For Grads’ Success, But May Fall Short
By 10.30.14
The Dept. of Education has been trying for years to craft a “gainful employment” rule that would penalize schools — mostly for-profit career training programs — by taking away access to federal funds if they fail to provide the adequate tools for their students to find work. Two years after failing to enact a heavily compromised version of these rules, the Ed. Dept. folks have unveiled the latest version with stricter guidelines, but which some consumer groups say don’t do enough to protect students at these schools. [More]
UK Artist Creates Payday Loan Store For Kids
By 10.30.14
At first glance, the bright blue London storefront with a hand-painted technicolor scene of a cartoon cityscape in the window — complete with a smiling yellow mascot — looks like some sort of kid’s toy store or maybe a daycare center. That is, until you see the sign that reads, “Payday Loans 4 Kids.” [More]
1-In-4 Americans Turn To Payday Loans & Other High-Cost Financial Products
By 10.29.14
When discussing the topic of payday loans — or other high-cost, short-term financial products like auto-title loans and check-cashing — there can be a tendency to treat them like something that only a small percentage of Americans use. But a new report from the FDIC confirms that 25% of us have turned to one of these potentially predatory services in the past year, and that this rate has not been going down. [More]
Wisconsin Sues Corinthian Colleges Over Everest’s Job-Placement, Graduation Rate Claims
By 10.27.14
Corinthian Colleges, the for-profit educator behind controversial school chains like Everest and WyoTech, is facing yet another lawsuit. This time, it’s from the state of Wisconsin, which alleges that Everest misrepresented important information, like graduation rates and job-placement stats, in order to lure students in. [More]
14 Attorneys General Back Bill To Create For-Profit College Watchdog
By 10.7.14
More than six months after a bill that would improve coordination and oversight of the for-profit college industry was introduced in the Senate and House, a number of state attorneys general have signed on in support. [More]
