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Page 2 The Skanner Portland January 10, 2018 ® Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Opinion Black Students Hit Hard by For-Profit College Debt Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor M Jerry Foster Advertising Manager Christen McCurdy News Editor Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Melanie Sevcenko Reporter Monica J. Foster Seattle Office Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer 2017 MERIT AWARD WINNER The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publi- cations Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 info@theskanner.com ounting student debt is a nagging problem for most families these days. As the cost of higher education rises, bor- rowing to cover those costs of- ten becomes a family concern across multiple generations including the student, par- ents, and even grandparents or other relatives. Today’s 21st century jobs usually demand higher edu- cation and specialized skills to earn one’s way into the middle class. In households where educational loans are inevitable, it becomes an im- portant family decision to determine which institutions are actually worth the debt in- curred. Equally important is the institution’s likelihood of its students graduating. Higher education institu- tions that do not provide its students and graduates with requisite skills and knowl- edge become money pits that lead to deeper debt and likely loan defaults. New research by the Cen- ter for Responsible Lending (CRL) analyzed student debt on a state-by-state basis. An interactive map of CRL’s find- ings reveal on a state basis each of the 50 states’ total undergraduate population, for-profit enrollment, and the top for-profit schools by en- Charlene Crowell NNPA Columnist rollment for both four-year and two-year institutions. Entitled “The State of For-Profit Colleges,” the re- port concludes that investing in a for-profit education is almost always a risky prop- osition. Undergraduate bor- rowing by state showed that “ students, making sacrifices and struggling to manage family and work obligations to make better lives for their families,” noted Robin How- arth, a CRL senior research- er. “For-profit colleges target them with aggressive mar- keting, persuading them to invest heavily in futures that will never come to pass.” CRL also found that wom- en and Blacks suffer dispa- rate impacts, particularly at for-profit institutions, where they are disproportionately enrolled in most states. For example, enrollment at The report concludes that invest- ing in a for-profit education is almost always a risky proposition the percentage of students that borrow from the federal government generally ranged between 40 to 60 percent for public colleges, compared to 50 to 80 percent at for-profit institutions. Additionally, both public and private, not-for-profit institutions, on average, lead to better results at a lower cost of debt, better earnings following graduation, and the fewest loan defaults. “In many cases, for-profit students are nontraditional Mississippi’s for-profit col- leges was 78 percent female and nearly 66 percent Black. Other states with high Black enrollment at for-profits in- cluded Georgia (57 percent), Louisiana (55 percent), Mary- land (58 percent) and North Carolina (54 percent). Focus group interviews further substantiated these figures, and recounted poi- gnant, real life experiences. Brianna, a 31-year-old Black female completed a Medical Assistant (MA) certificate at the now-defunct Everest University. Once she com- pleted her MA certificate and passed the certification test, she found she could only find a job in her field of study that paid $12 per hour, much less than the $35,000-$45,000 sala- ry that Everest told her would be her starting salary as a medical assistant. She was also left with $21,000 in student debt. As a result, she has struggled since matriculation with low credit scores and cramped housing conditions for herself and three children. The Midwestern states of Indiana, Michigan and Wis- consin have female-dominat- ed for-profit enrollment and disproportionate Black en- rollment, too. These were also states with some of the lowest for-profit graduation rates after six years of study. Medi- an for-profit student debt in many states is much higher than for their public counter- parts. These disparate outcomes are even more grievous when one takes into account that for-profit colleges are pri- marily funded by taxpayers, receiving up to 90 percent of their revenues from feder- al financial aid such as Pell Grants, federal student loans and veterans benefits. www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. ©2018 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. Local News Pacific NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar LOCAL NEWS BRIEFS d ay ! • L i ke u s o n F ebo m me • nts TheSkannerNews o k • learn • co in y o u r c o m m u n to y • ac it Updated daily. Is Trump the Worst President on Minority Issues in 50 Years? D onald Trump, a man best known as a “birther” with a reality TV show and a real estate empire, who claimed that Mexico was sending drugs and rap- ists to the United States, was sworn in as president on Jan- uary 20, 2017. What happened next was predictable and we should expect more of the same in 2018. Here are seven decisions from the past year confirm- ing that Trump has been the worst president for African Americans, Hispanics and other minorities over the last 50 years. 1. Trump picks Jeff Sessions to succeed Loretta Lynch as Attorney General of the U.S. Trump went out of his way to make sure that his adminis- tration’s justice policy reflect- ed 1940s America, when he selected Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III as his Attorney General. According to a Huffington Post article published in Jan- uary 2017, Sessions not only supported gutting the Voting Rights Act in 2013, he also has “a record of blocking Black judicial nominees.” Sessions, “unsuccessfully prosecuted Black civil rights activists for voter fraud in 1985 ― includ- ing a former aide to Martin Luther King, Jr.” Since, Sessions has taken over at the Justice Depart- Lauren Victoria Burke NNPA Columnist ment, he has recused himself from an investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election and ordered a review of Obama era police reforms. “ of America’s 45th president on the issue of race. “I am not putting anybody on a moral plane, what I’m saying is this: you had a group on one side and a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious and horrible and it was a horrible thing to watch, but there is another side,” said Trump. “But you also had peo- ple that were very fine people on both sides.” Trump also said, “I’ve con- Trump says ‘there were very fine people on both sides’ at the Char- lottesville White nationalists rally This is one time where the selection of Rudy Giuliani for attorney general may have ac- tually looked like a more mod- erate choice. 2. Trump says “there were very fine people on both sides” at the Charlottesville White nationalists rally, during a Trump Tower press confer- ence. Never mind that one of the largest gatherings of rac- ists in America since the end of the Civil Rights Movement occurred only eight months into Trump’s presidency. Put that aside. Trump’s “both sides” comments on who was to blame for the public street fight in the college town was all anyone needed to under- stand regarding the thinking demned many different groups, but not all of those people were neo-Nazis, be- lieve me. Not all of those peo- ple were white supremacists by any stretch. Those people were also there, because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue Robert E. Lee.” 3. Trump calls for NFL own- ers to fire players over silent protests. Trump said NFL owners should respond to the players by saying, “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, he’s fired. He’s fired!” Just in case you missed it with his comments on Charlottes- ville, Trump was back again to spoil the start of the NFL season by commenting on players who dared to silent- ly protest racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem. Trump called kneel- ing during the anthem, “a to- tal disrespect of our heritage,” and a “total disrespect for ev- erything we stand for.” The result was more protests by NFL players who then locked arms on sidelines across the U.S. with many White players and coaches participating. Even Rush Limbaugh found himself having issues with Trump on this one. “There’s a part of this story that’s start- ing to make me nervous, and it’s this: I am very uncom- fortable with the President of the United States being able to dictate the behavior and power of anybody,” said Lim- baugh. “That’s not where this should be coming from.” 4. Trump uses an executive order to block travel of refu- gees from majority-Muslim countries to the U.S. When you have former staffers for Jeff Sessions writing ex- ecutive orders on immigra- tion policy, you can expect what happened at the Trump White House on January 27, 2017. With absolutely no warning, on the seventh day of his presidency, Trump signed an immigration and travel executive order. Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com nt • lo c a l n e w s • eve
