We’re suing the Census Bureau
Over the past several months, Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting has been trying to learn more about the 2020 census.
Part of that work has involved asking the U.S. Census Bureau detailed questions about its workings and budget. But more often than not, bureau officials have refused to answer our questions – or just ignored them.
So, we turned to something of a last resort: submitting several Freedom of Information Act requests to the bureau in an attempt to better understand problems that potentially could lead to a miscount of America’s population. Despite its legal obligation to respond to our requests, the bureau has failed to answer all but one, which it has responded to only partially, with heavily redacted documents.
So now we’re suing.
Veterans Affairs bans University of Phoenix from new GI Bill enrollments
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced last week that it intends to forbid the University of Phoenix and three other institutions of higher education from enrolling new students using the GI Bill, citing a decades-old law that bans veterans’ benefits from being paid to any school that “utilizes advertising, sales, or enrollment practices of any type which are erroneous, deceptive, or misleading.”
The move follows a record $191 million settlement between the for-profit college and the Federal Trade Commission in December. Under the terms of that agreement, the University of Phoenix and its corporate parent, Apollo Education Group, agreed to pay $50 million in cash and cancel $141 million in student debt to settle federal charges alleging it marketed false job opportunities to students, including veterans and active members of the military. The University of Phoenix did not admit to any wrongdoing.
“It’s about time,” said James Adams, a two-tour Iraq War veteran who told Reveal that he enrolled at the University of Phoenix after what he describes as a “pressure campaign.”
“They kept calling and calling,” he said, “until I finally broke down and said I’d go to the school.”
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