Written by Matthew C. Keegan // 01/31/2011 // College News // 1 Comment
Founded in 1937 as the American Institute of Commerce, Kaplan University is owned by the Washington Post Company and is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. Yet, its accreditation and relationship with one of the most powerful media companies in the world hasn’t kept the school from being targeted for closure by critics who contend the school has defrauded the federal government and students.
Critics say Kaplan U. is putting them deeply in debt.
A group of students has started a petition on Change.org to urge the Washington Post Company to shut down the for-profit university, alleging that the school and others like it have harmed “…millions of…students, [who] end up victims of an industry that siphoned off more than $4.3 billion dollars of federal student aid in 2008-2009 alone.”[1]
The petition was started by Shannon Croteau who says that she was just 11 classes away from completing her degree with Kaplan University Online, deeply in debt and unable to secure financial aid. Croteau claims if she was to get her degree it would be worthless in New Hampshire, her home state, with little chance of securing the promised $65,000 paralegal position her education would have provided she alleges Kaplan told her.
Croteau has been joined by about two dozen other students who say they were educated by Kaplan. The students and petitioners are asking that Washington Post Chairman Donald Graham stop admissions to the school unless “meaningful reform” is put in place. Just one week after the petition was launched, 10,000 people have added their names to the list. Each person who signs the online petition generates an email to Graham
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Center Stage for the 21st Century
Power Plays in the Indian Ocean
By Robert D. Kaplan
March/April 2009
Article Summary and Author Biography
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