Last month, Betsy DeVos testified to Congress about her role in the student loan program.
Her Department hounded students to pay back loans instead of canceling them because their for-profit college defrauded them. A federal judge ordered the Department to stop harassing the students, then fined the Department $100,000 for violating the court order.
Rep. Josh Harder of California grilled her for her failure to side with the students. He accused her of acting like a lobbyist for the for-profit colleges.
It’s a powerful segment. Worth watching to see her utter and callous indifference to the suffering of students who accumulated tens of thousands of dollars of debt for a worthless degree.
Rep. Harder said he understood why she didn’t care: a student’s debt of $40,000 represented a minuscule fraction of the cost of one of her 10 yachts.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We should think about hiring some people who used the public education system to work in public education in government.
It’s silly that people who have no practical experience either with or in public education systems run public education.
This has been going on for years, too. Is there some reason we never hire public education graduates to run federal public education policy? Are our graduates barred from employment there?
Hiring anti-public education crusaders to run our systems- the systems they reject and have absolute contempt for- is a waste of taxpayer money. We should not be paying them for this “work”. They return no value to our students.
DeVos’ behavior is exactly why she should not be in the position she now holds. Her family has made a fortune off the backs of working families with pyramid scheme, Amway, aka, Scamway. It has also been reported that her family has investments in the college loan business. Students’ income should not be factor in forgiving debt when the court has already ruled. DeVos is arrogant. She believes she is above a court order.
It has also been reported that she is trying to move the “college loan portfolio” to a stand alone corporation so that the next president would not be able to forgive the debt through executive order. She like so many in #45’s cabinet is a scheming opportunist. https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/05/flat-out-corruption-devos-accused-scheming-stop-next-president-canceling-student
“A federal judge ordered the Department to stop harassing the students, then fined the Department $100,000 for violating the court order.”
I think it’s important to note that the students had to sue to get relief. The hundreds of people these students are paying in the Trump Administration refused to assist them in any way, so they had to bring a private lawsuit. It’s not easy to sue. It’s a huge time investment. They shouldn’t have to sue the people they’re paying in order to force them to provide service. This is ludicrous. The US Department of Education under Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos has decided they’re paid not to work for students, but to work against them. They should be fired, not for their far Right anti-public education ideological crusade they’ve been conducting for 3 years but because they don’t do their jobs- they don’t perform the minimum work they’re paid to do. We don’t even need to go to the ideology.
The people who work in the ED Department are either career people, who do what they are told no matter who is Secretary, or Betsy’s political hires from rightwing circles who share her hatred for public schools.
DeVoodoo is EVIL.
And, to anyone who was familiar with DeVos’ work in Michigan this was predictable. They hired an anti-public education lobbyist to serve in a position where the vast majority of students attend the schools she opposes and hopes to eradicate.
How did they think this was going to go? They imagined public school students would BENEFIT? No, they didn’t. They simply didn’t care. The ideological crusade was more important than 40 million students, who they threw under the bus.
“They”=Donald Trump
the ideological crusade: there it is
I laugh at how ungenerous our current crop of political leaders are.
I’m late middle aged and I got free community college and my bachelor’s degree cost the princely sum of 1500 dollars a year.
This is not ancient history. I’m baffled by how they all claim they can’t afford any assistance to students.
How is that fair? None of these people actually paid for their own college. Where do they get off scolding 17 year olds? Where would they all be if no one had helped them?
They’re just so dishonest. No 17 year old should take advice from them. It will be lousy advice.
I also would take a very skeptical approach to the ed reform “apprenticeships”.
Hiring a “movement” with absolutely no experience in trades or hourly work and one wholly funded by billionaires to design training programs for entry level workers will be a disaster for students. Ivanka Trump and KellyAnn Conway should not be advising working class students. It will be cheap garbage. Students should approach it like any other advertisement. Let the buyer beware. Beware A LOT with these folks. Best to not go to them for advice. Find a trustworthy adult with some actual work experience.
What does Ivanka Trump know about work? What does Jared or Eric or Donald Sr or Don Jr?
Ditzy DeVoid, aka Cruella DeVille’s Younger Sister, Clueless
(to the tune of “My way”)
Breaks,
a few I’ve had,
like my rich Dad
and whom I married.
Yachts,
I’ve worried not.
O’er life’s great storms
I’ve, heedless, ferried.
I’ve learned
to con the pawns.
To feed upon
their dreams was child’s play,
and in my work
I didn’t shirk,
to do it AmWay.
to dooooo it ScamWay.
These students are just another example of the callousness to the
American people by the Trump organization. Trump has used the presidency to fill his and his cronies pockets with money, note the tax code, so why worry about the people who have been swindled by “colleges”, not accredited who in so many instances have used federal money given often to returning veterans. Makes perfect sense, money more important than people.
It is sickening, frightening how the reputation of the U. S. is being turned around by this administration. I fear we will NEVER overcome the hysteria garnered against us by this president and his cohorts. Once admired, now?Someone rightly stated that Trump is the only person who makes George W look almost good by comparison.
Betsy is only one of those who are either abysmally ignorant or supremely self indulgent.
God help us all now.
It is obvious that to DeVos, anyone that belongs to the working class is worth less than the dirt that sticks to the bottom of her shoes.