Goldman Sachs enters field of Higher Education, then uses dubious promises to gain profit

[Stuart G]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/14/goldman-sachs-for-profit-college_n_997409.html

Huffington Post
Chris Kirkham

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Education Management Corp. was already a swiftly growing player in the lucrative world of for-profit higher education, with annual revenues topping $1 billion, but it had its sights set on industry domination. So, five years ago, the Pittsburgh company's executives agreed to sell its portfolio of more than 70 colleges to a trio of investment partnerships for $3.4 billion, securing the needed capital for an aggressive national expansion.

One of the new partners brought an outsized reputation for market savvy, deep pockets and a relentless pursuit of profits -- the Wall Street goliath, Goldman Sachs.

After the deal closed and Goldman became a partner, employees soon noticed a drastic shift in culture. Longtime admissions managers were replaced, ushering in an era in which recruiters were endlessly hounded by supervisors about hitting weekly enrollment targets. The admissions staff nearly tripled, requiring expanded floor space to accommodate a sales force of more than 2,600 across the country

Management handed down revamped telemarketing scripts designed to prey on poor and uneducated consumers, honing in on their past mistakes in life as a ploy to convince them that college would solve all their problems, according to conversations with more than a dozen current and former Education Management Corp. employees over the past two months.

"You'd probe to find a weakness," said Brian Klein, a former admissions employee who worked for three years at Argosy University Online, one of four major colleges operated by EDMC. "You basically take all that failure and all those bad decisions, and you spin it around and put it right back in their face as guilt, to go to this shitty university and run up all of this debt."

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An incredible story of greed in the field of on line education. A lengthy article appears to be well researched and well written

[Trillo]

1. Why is this kind of aggressiveness, in-your-face marketing,

finding a weakness to exploit, legal? It seems finding a weakness to exploit would run counter to granting others "pursuit of happiness".

[MedicalAdmin]

4. They called me and tried that shit with me.

They even started calling our clinic. I finally had to tell that if ANYONE from their company called that line again that I would report them to the AG for making prank calls to a medical clinics emergency line.

That stopped that shit. But honestly their sales pitch is pathetic. I feel sorry for anyone who works for those creeps.

[CoffeeCat]

2. I realized that the crazy theater...

..we are witnessing now--with regard to our schools--was a march toward privatization. The "Waiting for Superman" bullshit and blaming
the teachers, etc.--was such obvious lies.

I knew that grubby corporations wanted to get their paws into education and make their billions. After all, our government serves the
corporations--so the time is ripe for a takeover, right?

I never knew that our old, corrupted friends from Goldman Sachs were involved. But does it surprise anyone?

Obama is going along with all of this---even continuing NCLB and insisting that our schools are failing, not passing "the tests"--thus softening up
the unwashed masses for privatization of our schools.

This is about our children. What will happen to them when corporate Fascists run things? Have people actually gone down that road in their heads?
The power they will have over our children is unbelievable. And these corporate, Fascist thugs are all aligned.

So, when our child misbehaves in school...will the corporate Fascist thugs from Goldman give the nod to the corporate, Fascist thugs at Merck--who
will probably run behavior centers in schools? Will they force us to medicate our children with their drugs? Hey, why not? More money for the
Fascists!

McGraw Hill sells textbooks and is heavily involved in education. GUESS WHO MCGRAW-HILL OWNS....Standard & Poor's, the ratings agency
that recently downgraded America's credit. After Republicans and Democrats came to a stalemate, during aggressive haggling about the budget bill,
S+P downgraded US debt--which tanked the stock market and caused the worst DOW slide since 2008. McGraw Hill president has since resigned
and a DOJ investigation is underway. Looks like they downgraded just to punish the politicians.

I mean...COME ON!!! These corporations are run by a network of interconnected, psychopathic thugs. If our schools are privatized--so many of
these thugs will be involved in our children's lives--as they attempt to shovel down their piece of the pie into their fat gullets. And remember...they
feed our children lunches, provide them with textbooks that teach history and can teach them to think for themselves (or to be mindless drones). The
potential for exploitation is limitless!

These people are the dregs of society!

Do we want them running our school system, and doing God knows what to it--and what will they do to our children?

[Moostache]

3. Education should be a human RIGHT!!!! (same as healthcare)

This country is so fucked up and ass-backward in EVERYTHING that is really meaningful...

Healthcare and Education, the two things that are being ruthlessly exploited for profits the most in this (and others) nation should be viewed NOT as an opportunity to make cash, but rather as basic and fundamental human rights.

Withholding knowledge from those who openly seek it is tantamount to slavery...not in the physical whips and chains and bondage sense, but in a very real mental sense and also in an economic sense.

Withholding primary and basic medical care from those who are not fortunate enough to pay through the teeth for "insurance" is tantamount to murder...only this is very much in the same vein as holding a gun to someone's head and squeezing the trigger.

I know WHY it is not done....but that does not make it any more right.