Rep. Hansen Clarke: Congress should cut and cap mortgages and forgive student loans to create jobs

Please let Rep. Clarke know how much we appreciate his suggestion!

Call his office (202-225-2261) and send him a tweet (@RepHansenClarke) - let him know how much it means to the indentured educated class!

RELATED LINKS


"Are Millennials the Solution to the Nation's Housing Crisis," Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais, Future Majority

More Threats To Pell

Higher education advocate at U.S. PIRG, Rich Williams, has written an frightening piece for USA Today about Pell. It is at even greater risk of being eviscerated than previously thought. Neoliberals want us to believe that 'austerity measures' are necessary to 'save' the country from falling apart, but they are feeding the public with lies. At a time when Pell and other 'entitlement' programs should be supported and increased, woefully out of touch and I can only assume economically ignorant lawmakers are pushing for the exact opposite. 

Here's a snippet:

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved austerity measures that expose this same generation to potentially unsustainable debt right now through increased student loans.

The tradeoff promises to not only undermine individual and national prosperity, but also make it less likely that the country will have the resources to meet its obligations in the years to come. Controlling our national debt is not, as they say, an academic exercise. Deficit reduction, like education policy, should focus on ensuring a stable and sustainable economy. If that is the goal, cutting funding to higher education and job training programs is the wrong approach.

I encourage you to read the piece in its entirety here. 

Related Links

"Save Pell," AEM (July 16, 2011)

"Point/Counter Point - Pell Grants," AEM (May 25, 2011)

Image Credit: Angelo Lopez

Thomas M Cooley Law School Sues NYC Law Firm and 4 'John Does' for Defamation: Seeking Answers and Help from the Hill

As AEM reported last week, Thomas M Cooley Law School has filed a lawsuit against a NYC law firm and '4 John Does' for defamation.

This information caused an immediate stir in the blogosphere and was quickly picked up by a number of major media outlets. The most recent piece, by TTR, condemns the school for its hypocrisy.

In an effort to bring this situation to the attention of Michigan lawmakers, I am seeking some help from those on the Hill. I'll be heading to DC in August to represent the indentured educated class, and will certainly bring up the situation if I am granted some meetings with those offices.

One person cynically told me that these lawmakers are to blame for schools like Cooley to operate in the way that it does. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps it is false. (Since Cooley has threatened me with a SLAPP suit in the past, I will continue to remain neutral, as I have each time I've written about them). Nevertheless, I think that Michigan lawmakers, in particular, ought to know about the situation, and then they can weigh in. The former Cooley student, who is fearful that his career will be ruined if they reveal his identity, deserves that much.

Save Pell!

Are you aware that the Pell Program, which helps low-income Americans go to school, is on the chopping block because of this debt ceiling fiasco? That's right. It is. I also wrote a piece recently in defense of Pell, and called for bold increases to the program.


If you tweet, I encourage you to send the President (@BarackObama) and the Whitehouse (@whitehouse), as well as House and Senate leaders tweets that let them know you're worried about Pell. You could send the following, and also call the White House. Here are some suggestions:

• Last night @BarackObama gave hill leaders 36 hours to create a debt ceiling deal. Pell cuts possible.  http://wapo.st/oFgWgZ #SavePell
   
• Congress has identified Pell Grants as target for debt  reduction cuts. #SavePell
   
• Pell faces huge cuts in debt ceiling talks. Neither students or our economy can afford this. #SavePell http://bit.ly/qX1kUU
   
• Tell @BarackObama to stand up for students. Protect Pell in debt negotiations. Tweet @whitehouse or call 1-888-245-0215 #SavePell
   
• Tell @BarackObama to take Pell Grants off the table. Call 1-888-245-0215. Sign the petition http://bit.ly/rruNrD. Tweet @whitehouse #SavePell
   
• President @BarackObama: “I'm prepared to bring down the deficit by trillions...but not by sacrificing our kids' #education." #SavePell
   
• Low-income students  are facing tuition hikes and reduced financial aid packages. Tell @BarackObama to #SavePell. 1-888-245-0215
   
• America needs more college grads. Tell @BarackObama to #SavePell. Tweet @whitehouse or call 1-888-245-0215
   
• Tell your friends to help #SavePell. Sign the petition: http://bit.ly/rruNrD Call the White House: 888-245-0215 Tweet: @whitehouse

A number of organizations have sent the President a letter, urging him to protect Pell. All Education Matters signed that letter too.

Here it is:

July 15, 2011

The Honorable Barack Obama

President of the United States

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

Throughout your presidency you have shown a strong commitment to increasing our nation’s college completion rates and have made great strides toward advancing this goal. As you negotiate with Congress on a debt ceiling package, we urge you to honor this commitment by protecting the maximum Pell Grant and avoiding any eligibility cuts that would be harmful to students. Cutting Pell Grant awards or eligibility will reduce access to college, undermine the economy, and lower college completion rates when we need to be raising them.

As you know, Pell Grants make college possible for over nine million Americans. They enable the neediest among us to get the postsecondary education required to increase their earning potential and keep America competitive in the global economy. Even after the significant increases in the maximum grant that your Administration secured, the maximum Pell Grant will cover less than a third of the cost of attending a four-year public college next year—the smallest share in the history of the program. Furthermore, Pell Grant recipients are already more than twice as likely as other students to have student loans. Make no mistake: cutting Pell Grants at this time—either through a reduction in the maximum award or through harmful eligibility changes—will reduce the number of people who can attend college and earn a degree.

The recent increase in the cost of the Pell Grant program is no reason to make damaging permanent changes to this successful and vital program. Fully 40% of the recent rise in Pell costs is because of the economic downturn, not policy changes. When millions of Americans lost their jobs and saw their incomes decline during the recession, the Pell Grant program responded as it was designed to—ensuring access to education and training when jobs were scarce. Another 22% of the increase was due to the year round Pell Grant program, which was ended under the FY2011 budget agreement, reducing program costs by $40 billion over 10 years. Because of this change and with the economy continuing to recover, program costs have stabilized. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office projects that Pell Grant costs will grow less than 1% a year in the next two years and only 2% a year over the next ten years. After adjusting for inflation, spending on Pell Grants is projected to decline in each of the next two years.

At a time of record income inequality and unemployment, Pell Grants are one of the keystones of economic mobility and opportunity in this country. Cutting Pell Grant awards or eligibility would be pennywise and pound-foolish. We urge you to honor the values you have articulated for the nation and protect educational opportunity in the current deficit reduction package.

Sincerely,

AFL-CIO

All Education Matters

American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers

American Association of University Women

American Federation of Teachers

American Medical Student Association

American School Counselor Association

American Student Association of Community

Colleges

ASPIRA

Business-Higher Education Forum

Campaign for College Affordability

Campaign for College Opportunity

Campus Progress Action

Center for Law and Social Policy

Children’s Defense Fund

College Summit

Community College League of California

Corporate Voices for Working Families

Crittenton Women’s Union

Democrats for Education Reform

Dēmos: A Network for Ideas & Action

The Education Trust

Forum for Youth Investment

Generational Alliance

Green Dot Public Schools

The Greenlining Institute

Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities

Illinois Education Foundation

The Institute for College Access & Success

Institute for Higher Education Policy

Jobs for the Future

KIPP Foundation

League of United Latin American Citizens

MomsRising

NAACP

National Association for College Admission

Counseling

National Association for Equal Opportunity in

Higher Education

National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators

National Association of State Student Grant and

Aid Programs (NASSGAP)

National Black Law Students Association

National College Access Network

National Consumer Law Center (on behalf of its low-income clients)

National Council for Community and Education

Partnerships (NCCEP)

NCLR (National Council of La Raza)

National Education Association

National Organization for Portuguese Americans

National Skills Coalition

Neighborhood Economic Development

Advocacy Project

Public Advocates

Rebuild the Dream

Rock the Vote

Roosevelt Institute Campus Network

Single Stop USA

Students for Education Reform

Thurgood Marshall College Fund

UNCF

U.S. Public Interest Research Group

United States Student Association

Women Employed

Workforce Strategies Initiative at The Aspen Institute

Year Up

Young Invincibles

UPDATE: BREAKING! Thomas Cooley Law School Fights Back And Sues a Law Firm and Four 'John Does'

One of the John Does is saying some interesting things about Thomas Cooley Law School, and I'm not referring to the opinions he (?) stated earlier about the school. His name is RockStar05. He was a student at Cooley for one year, and then transferred to another law school.

Rockstar05 also launched a blog called "Thomas M. Cooley Law School Scam," and that's what has gotten him into trouble. He criticizes the school for a number of reasons. One point he brings up is the school's claim that they are ranked the "2nd best law school in the country."  Rockstar05 found the basis for the claim to be highly problematic. (The reader can be the judge of the school's claim).

Cooley filed a suit against him and 3 other "John Does,"  and that includes Ch. Burns, too. He's how I wound up writing some short pieces about the school in the first place. He got in touch with me about Cooley (you can find all those links below). In any event, Rockstar05 has been responding to the suit that was filed against him by Cooley on JD Underground. (As already noted, Cooley is also suing a small NYC law firm called Kurzon Strauss).

After a reporter got in touch with him, Rockstar05 has had this to say about the suit (truncated version):

RETRACTED

He also stated (again the quote is truncated):

RETRACTED

In addition, he does not think he defamed the school:

 I didn't really 'defame' in my opinion. I was actually thinking of calling the law firm named in the lawsuit tomorrow and asking what their thoughts are and if they would like to represent me. 

I'm just a broke 3L law student and will leave it up to the law firm to do all that discovery crap and actually blowing the lid on Cooley- I just want out of this stupid fucking suit [my emphasis].

That's where I am concerned for RockStar05. He's a broke law student, and just trying to finish up his schooling. What if they unveil his identity before he even graduates from the law school he's presently attending? What will that do for his job prospects? Won't that hurt his reputation and his ability to earn a living?

Rockstar05 has this lengthy address, too (scroll down to the bottom of the comments on his page to these the original):

THIS IS WHAT I AM POSTING IN RESPONSE TO THE LAWSUIT ON MY BLOG POSTING. HOPEFULLY THE JOURNALIST WILL PUBLISH SOME OF MY STATEMENTS TOGETHER WITH HIS ARTICLE TOMORROW. PLEASE PROVIDE ANY THOUGHTS. I CAN MODIFY IT ASAP.

Dear all,

I believe I was very clear throughout my dated blog post that I was expressing my personal opinion. I would analogize my entire post reflecting my personal experience and personal views of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School to watching a movie on a Friday night then publishing online statements asserting that it was a poor investment of time, money, and certainly not worthwhile- to boycott the movie and go ahead and watch that other movie that released the same Friday or any other movie. Do motion picture producers go out and publicly file lawsuits against each and every one who trashes their film? Let’s make the analysis more relevant and assume I flatter myself and liken my blog post to a giant public platform to express my views and opinions. Will Michael Bay go out and sue Roger Ebert, who is arguably one of the biggest critics in America, for trashing his movie?

As for distorted employment data, I have previously acknowledged that this is not a problem that is confined to Cooley alone. The ABA regulation of school reported employment data has been widely criticized by commentators, scambloggers, law professors, in addition to industry experts and analysts as being misleading. Common grounds for criticism include the idea of self-reported employment data by the law schools and notable deficiencies in the reporting in terms of not disclosing overall response rates and either having a breakdown or reflecting employment that actually requires a law degree. Since I concur with the opinions of these critics and publicize it, will this opinion and view subject me to another 200 law suits filed by each and every ABA approved law school?

I would like to make it clear that I never once addressed the quality of the education provided at Cooley but grounded my opinion based on its poor reputation as a fourth tier school, high attrition rates, unfriendly administrative policies, and most reprehensible of all, the school naming itself as the second best law school in the United States of America ahead of such notables such as: Yale, Stanford, Columbia, NYU, UofM, Chicago etc. In fact I would consider their subjective self-proclaimed and advertised ranking as the second best law school equally if not more 'misleading' to the general public than my own personal opinion on Cooley not being a good option for law school. I’ll go out on a limb and speculate that my 'misleading' claim would bear slightly more weight given that the most authoritative ranking of law schools published by the US News ranks Cooley closer to the bottom of the 200 schools as opposed to the top two law schools in the country.

The assertion by Thomas M. Cooley of its status as the second best law school in America is as ludicrous as asserting that I am the second smartest man in America. It would invite the type of backlash that Cooley experiences everywhere throughout the nation. Yet I would not go out and sue someone who has a different opinion, or in the extreme scenario, publicly lambasts me for my declaration and calls me the dumbest man in America.

I will also point out that I never made any allegations with regard to loan fraud or other specific factual claims regarding the Thomas M. Cooley Law School. I simply expressed my experience, views, opinions, and said that I would not recommend the school to anyone. Since I love use analogies (as I used several times in my disputed blog post to insult Cooley), this is similar to using a product then posting a negative review online telling everyone to beware and choose one of the competitors. Do you think McDonalds would come sue me if I said their Big Mac was a load of crap and that everyone should spend their money on a whopper or virtually any other hamburger on the market (or none if that was their only other option)?

Finally, I would like to add that Cooley has not attempted to contact me even once, either through e-mail or through a blog comment on this post. If they had done so, or perhaps even are willing to retract their lawsuit at this early stage, I would consider removing the post altogether. In terms of damages I’m not sure of the basis for Cooley’s request for relief in the amount of $25,000, let alone the special damages and/or actual malice that must be proven in order to successfully sue someone for defamation. I am not technologically savvy and any Joe Shmoe who is disgruntled about their experience and wants to inform others of essentially a 'buyer beware' message can set up a site in less than 5 minutes to publicize his views. Truthfully, I almost forgot about my Weebly blog site until I received an e-mail from a journalist that hit my blackberry informing me that a lawsuit has been directed towards my website. Up until now this blog has had an average of under 30 hits a day for the past few months. Most of the users seem to actually ATTEND COOLEY THEMSELVES, so the damage and defamation would be similar to telling the Detroit Lions they suck. Is a $25,000 lawsuit necessary to vindicate my 'damage' to Cooley by expressing my opinions regarding it. My two-sense on a two-bit site should be hardly anything that would publicly defame and damage a world-class institution like the Thomas M. Cooley Law school which can boast of being the second best law school in the country that is the world’s leader in top educational institutions.

Sincerely,

Rockstar05

As many of you recall, I also received notification from the school (you can find it in the related links). I was told to remove all the things I had written about Cooley. However, I was merely relaying information about claims made about them. In addition, I sent those pieces to reporters in  my higher education circles, encouraging them to investigate the allegations. After I wrote about this piece, at least 5 major media outlets picked it up.

So . . . this raises the question: is it freedom of speech or is it defamation?

Related Links

"BREAKING! Thomas Cooley Law School Fights Back And Sues a Law Firm and Four 'John Does.'" AEM (July 14, 2011)

"Cooley Law School Files Suit to Protect Students, Alumni, and Reputation," Thomas M Cooley Law School  (July 14, 2011)

"Thomas M Cooley Law School - What Are They Hiding?" AEM (June 15, 2011)

"Thomas M Cooley Law School Scam"

"Repost - Investigating Law Schools (Class Action Suit)," AEM (May 22, 2011)

"[UPDATE] Dean Jame Thelen from Thomas M Cooley Law School Responds with a Threatening Letter," AEM (April 28, 2011)

"Part II: Thomas M Cooley Law School," AEM (April 28, 2011)

"[UPDATED] MUST READ: Thomas M Cooley Law School Under Investigation For Serious Title IV Violations," AEM (April 27, 2011)

James Thelen, associate dean of legal affairs and general counsel for Thomas M Cooley Law School