"EduGate" at the Washington Post

It seems that the Washington Post company has been supporting its propaganda arm by running a fraud on college students.  The fast-growing Kaplan University, an on-line diploma mill educational firm with a number of actual brick-and-mortar campuses has been scamming students and the general public.

From Accuracy in Academia:

Kaplan, which boasts that “We build futures,” is in trouble as a result of the scandal and the high-flying unit is therefore threatening the viability of the Post newspaper, leading possibly to layoffs or firings of news personnel.

Kaplan has been the largest and fastest-growing division of the Post Company.

On August 4, the Senate Committee on Health Education Labor and Pensions held a hearing featuring Gregory Kutz, Managing Director, Office of Forensic Audits and Special Investigations of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO found that “Undercover tests at 15 for-profit colleges found that 4 colleges encouraged fraudulent practices and that all 15 made deceptive or otherwise questionable statements to GAO’s undercover applicants.” Kaplan was one of the guilty parties.

It's not a surprise that the Washington Post would put the best possible spin on this story, after all, they own the paper.  Here's Steven Pearlstein's defense.  They promise never to do it again, and point out that the traditional higher education establishment is as bad or worse.  In this they have my my sympathy; Big Academia exists for its own benefit.  The students get both the bill and the shaft.  Still, it brought a smile to my face to see the moral prigs at propaganda factories like the Washington Post to be revealed as the chiseling crooks they are.

Meanwhile, in the real world, the sharks are circling.  Kendall Law Group Investigates The Washington Post Company for Shareholders 

Kendall Law Group, a national securities firm led by a former federal judge with attorneys that include a former U.S. Attorney, is investigating The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO - News) for shareholders. The investigation concerns potential breaches of fiduciary duties by the board of directors and other company executives in connection to alleged fraudulent, deceptive, or otherwise questionable marketing practices. ... Kaplan College in Florida, a Washington Post school, was named by Kutz as one of the schools that provided “deceptive and questionable” information.

The Washington Post Company sold Newsweek for $1.  It lost over $31 dollars a share when the news of the fraud was revealed.   The stock currently trades at $348, down from $547.  Warren Buffett is a major shareholder and Bill Gates' wife is on the board along with Buffett.  Everyone in the MFM has its problems and everyone has different problems but they all come down to the core problem: readers are leaving them in droves.  Like the parrott in the Monty Python sketch, they only look like they're alive, "pining for the fiords."