Quacking the Code: This week in Paul Krugman's lies. Vol. 1

Douglas Becker, here at a Clinton Global Initiative event,
is the founder of Laureate International Universities, a private
college that hired former Pres. Bill Clinton for $16-18 million
for a symbolic position as "chancellor". Washington Post
Trump University was a classic example of a get-rich-quick
real estate guru seminar that rightfully is blamed for defrauding
consumers. Mother Jones
Pay attention readers, this is what SELECTIVE JUDGMENT is: Condemning the deeds of one person while validating them when someone else is committing them. Paul Krugman, the leading Quackonomist in Hillary Clinton's media priesthood, condemned Trump today for (among everything else) an apparent case of bribery during the Trump University legal battle. Up to here he is fine, because in truth Trump U and other private for-profit universities have made a mockery of higher education. Just last week ITT Tech was shut down after it could no longer collect money from student loan payouts.

But does Krugman mention Clinton's Laureate International Universities involvement? Bill Clinton earned between $16 and 18 million for being that institution's CHANCELLOR from 2010-2015, meaning during his wife's time as Secretary of State. University chancellors are typically ceremonial figure heads that actually have few functions in a college's administration. So essentially that university gave Clinton a check for a job that has no responsibilities. Here are some questions that maybe should have been posed to Chancellor Clinton while he was in that position:
  • Does he have any knowledge of why Chile's accreditation bodies removed LIU's certification in January 2014, during his tenure?
  • How does he explain his participation in what in effect is a debt-leveraging corporation as explained by CNBC just last year.
  • How can they stand behind their position on student debt for low-value degrees given Laureate was compared in the same CNBC article to Corinthinan College and Apollo Education, two competitors roundly condemned for the same practices.

Good for the goose?

Trump's organization was, let's not sugarcoat it, a worthless, fraudulent, waste of money for customers. Yet it never claimed or aspired to accreditation and was basically a series of superficial seminars. So yes it was dirty, but the layers were very thin on this "university". There's no reason to defend Trump University, unless you're a member of the Trump Organization, pure and simple.

Unlike Trump U, Laureate International appears to operate on an even more sophisticated for-profit level that is much more consistent with ITT Tech, DeVry, Strayer, Phoenix and others. Ironically, Mother Jones published a scathing indictment of these very school models in 2014.
  • But what's the key difference between Laureate and the other big for-profits? Whereas ITT and DeVry primarily operate in the US domestic market, Laureate is a worldwide phenomenon and the majority of its students/customers are from Latin America. Many of the same shenanigans that apparently would not be either legal or acceptable in the USA are somewhat legal there. The Washington Post states that it is the largest for-profit higher ed network in the world, with 800,000.
  • The same for-profit college practices criticized by higher ed advocates here in the USA are employed very flexibly by Laureate. Its purchase of the Brazilian Institute of Medicine and Rehabilitation was met with major cuts in staff and the purchase of others caused massive instructor union protests.
Some have made the case, a precarious one but you can entertain it below, that for-profit higher ed is just the result of the vastly inflated value of public colleges.
The truth is that the for-profits have not been very effective either. But comparing Trump's pathetic seminar to Clinton's job with Laureate, basically a no-show job, is not possible. Trump should have to answer in the legal sense for that in CIVIL court and I don predict a judgment against him. But Trump U is, as he would say, "small potatoes" in comparison to Laureate's worldwide diploma mill powerhouse.


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