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A Further Perspective
The GAO’s Credibility Gap
The Obama government’s dirty war against for-profit schools gets dirtier still.
I was a recent guest lecturer at Johns Hopkins University. During the course of my talk I remarked to the students that I never would have imagined I would have written three columns on the topic of colleges and college admissions procedures. I can now add a fourth column to my résumé.
Reading the prior columns on this topic is worthwhile. They provide the reader a clear understanding of the assault on career colleges by the U.S. Department of Education. Unlike state-owned public institutions and private, not-for-profit colleges, career colleges operate on a for-profit basis.
The first two columns (October 6, 2010 and December 1, 2010) detail the systematic attack on the for-profit college universe. The third column (December 14, 2010) reports the major revisions made to a Government Accountability Office report that originally alleged unethical and, at times, fraudulent actions by career college recruiters.
The GAO delivered the report to the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee during an August 2010 hearing. The report formulated the basis of critical testimony that leveled very serious charges regarding career college recruiting practices.
I found numerous inconsistencies in the GAO report and had countless questions regarding assertions made in the report. I believed some of the claims in the GAO report raised serious questions about the agency’s methodology and its interpretation of conversations between college officials and undercover GAO operatives.
I put several questions to the GAO. The agency appeared to fully answer some of questions and offered only vague responses to others. In a matter of weeks after I submitted my questions the GAO quietly released a revised version of the original report. After being questioned over the revisions a GAO spokesman stated, “Ultimately nothing has changed with the overall message of the report, and nothing has changed with any of our findings.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. The revised findings significantly changed the report. In addition, they were significant enough to call into question either the competence or the integrity of the GAO.
I was not the only one challenging the GAO. The Coalition for Educational Success is an interest group comprised of career colleges. The coalition filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education after the agency refused to release documents requested by the coalition under the Freedom of Information Act. Of interest to the coalition were documents possibly showing ties between Ed Dept officials and stock investment “short sellers.” Allegedly a small number of investors “shorted” the stock of several publicly-traded companies that operate career colleges whose stocks dramatically fell in price after the Ed Dept begin threatening to implement new restrictive regulatory policies affecting only career colleges.
In late 2010, the coalition hired Norton-Norris, a consulting firm specializing in higher education. The firm was asked to review dozens of hours of audio recordings given to HELP Committee Chairman Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) by the GAO. The recordings purportedly captured exchanges between college recruiters and undercover GAO personnel posing as prospective students.
Norton-Norris first discovered that several audio recordings of some of the conversations were missing so the authenticity of GAO investigations involving some schools could not be verified. Additionally, it appeared the undercover GAO applicants turned recorders on and off during some conversations thereby eliminating a electronic record of some portions of the interviews.
Norton-Norris was able to confirm the accuracy of the GAO’s findings in only 14 of the reported 65 conversations.
According to a 68-page report of the firm’s findings (GAO Bias Evident in Report to HELP Committee), “the GAO misrepresented conversations and explanations to meet their needs.” The firm found “fragments of discussions were extracted to embellish and even fabricate [the GAO’s] claims of deceptive and questionable behavior [by career colleges].”
In its review of the tapes, the firm found numerous instances in which the GAO fabricated entire conversations. Further, the GAO studiously ignored statements in the exchanges that portrayed career college recruiters as acting professionally and responsibly.
According to the revised GAO report, a college recruiter “told the undercover applicant that getting a job is a ‘piece of cake’ and then told the applicant she [the college recruiter] has graduates making $120,000-$130,000 a year.” In scouring the audio tapes of that interview, Norton-Norris found that conversation never took place. It was completely fabricated by the GAO.
In another scenario, the GAO alleged a college recruiter misled an undercover applicant regarding the true cost of a program by providing a quote for only nine months and not the entire 12 months of a year. According to Norton-Norris, the confusion was in the minds of the GAO officials who did not understand the differences between a calendar year and an academic year. In fact, the college recruiter complied with the National Association of College Admissions Counseling’s Statement of Principles of Good Practice. To do as the GAO suggested would have been in violation of the practices that all colleges — regardless of profit status — practice.
About the Author
Mark Hyman hosts “Behind the Headlines,” a commentary program for Sinclair Broadcast Group. You can follow him on Twitter at @markhyman.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (22) | Leave a comment
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Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 1.18.11 @ 6:13AM
Many of the investigators at GAO are retired Secret Service agents who are brain dead.
Jay| 1.18.11 @ 1:58PM
Not likely GAO employees are retired Secret Service; both are civil service and you can't retire from one civil service job and get full pay for another. They could be former Secret Service agents who simply changed jobs. If that is true, it might explain the work that is not up to normal GAO standards. When you enter GAO right out of college (as I did), its rigorous standards and procedures for gathering and documenting information are drilled into you from day one and frequently thereafter.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 1.18.11 @ 3:40PM
You're wrong. Due to an anomaly in the retirement system many can retire and go on to double dip and double and triple their salaries. Here's the story:
http://findarticles.com/p/arti.....101941826/
At a time when federal law enforcement finds its resources stretched to the limit with the war on terrorism, an increasing number of retired U.S. Secret Service agents are taking advantage of an anomaly in the retirement system, unavailable to other federal law-enforcement agents, that gives them complete retirement benefits even if they return to service as full-time investigators in other government agencies, INSIGHT has learned. One result of the legal but controversial special treatment extended to Secret Service retirees has been the packing of federal Offices of Inspectors General (OIGs) with a "good-old-boy" network of former agents who frequently lack the specialized investigative skills needed to carry out the missions of the internal watchdog agencies, according to critics of this so-called "double-dipping" practice.
Payment of full retirement benefits, along with postretirement salaries as federal investigators, enables Secret Service retirees to earn incomes far above those of members of Congress and even of the Cabinet. This bypassing of the normal rules of the federal personnel system--which are applied to all other job applicants, no matter how qualified--has allowed retired Secret Service agents to compete unfairly for jobs within the federal IG community, say rivals and other critics, and to network their colleagues into OIG positions throughout government.
saleboter| 1.18.11 @ 7:25AM
Profit is a four letter word in this administration
Lois C.| 1.18.11 @ 9:28AM
Wow, a government agency manipulated evidence to suit their claims then lied about it. And the news here is...
Richard| 1.18.11 @ 11:06AM
The Democrats are turning America into a corruptocracy. Apparently the liberal education establishment does not like career colleges so that dislike is sufficient to use government to shut them down. I never thought I would see such as this in America but then I have said that since the Democrats took power.
Ned| 1.18.11 @ 1:20PM
Osama Obama is merely following the highly effective patterns and procedures established in the Clinton administration - "Cheat until caught, then lie."
David W| 1.18.11 @ 11:48AM
Apparently the corruption of the Justice Dept has spread to the Education Dept and now the GAO is as corrupt as the rest of the government. I hope Issa is reading this.
mames| 1.18.11 @ 12:00PM
Defund these departments and then close many of them down for good. We do not need someone from DC telling us how to spend our money on education. The next thing you know they will be telling how to spend money on our health...never mind!
seattlebred| 1.18.11 @ 1:09PM
So true, Mames. Every time some investigated report like this arises (kudos to Hyman), I can't help but consider it in terms of a national health care system. Surely continued and growing loss of integrity will eventually undermine a government. Let's remember how perpetrators are caught: spin is nebulous, short-selling is tangible and verifiable.
Jay| 1.18.11 @ 1:50PM
I retired from GAO many years ago, so the article caught my eye. This never would have happened on any project I ever worked on or knew about; we were forced to be meticulous in our documentation because everything was checked by someone not involved in the project.
It looks like this work may have been done by investigators, not auditors. I was an auditor and was familiar with requirements on auditors (we had very few investigators then). Investigators then were known to be less meticulous in their work and documentation. That's not an excuse, just an explanation.
Roy| 1.18.11 @ 2:14PM
I work for a private government contractor. Though our dealings with the GAO are not in any way related to education, my experience with the office has been that they are fair, honest, and hold close to the letter and intent of the law. I am surprised by this article, but then again there is always the chance of bad apples in every organization.
Osamas Pajamas| 1.18.11 @ 3:40PM
I have no doubt that members of this fascist regime and its cronies, confederates, partners-in-crime and misc hangers-on drive down stock values and profit from short-selling.
PattyMor| 1.18.11 @ 4:32PM
The witch hunt has all the fingerprints of George Soros and other insider dealers. They get the GAO to beat up the for-profit schools, while they short the stock and make a bundle of money.
Seek| 1.19.11 @ 1:49PM
The GAO is without question one of the best policy research organizations in the nation. I've used their publications in my own professional work for more than three decades. Their nonpartisan researchers do thorough work and get the facts right -- not something you can count on in polarized Washington, D.C., where someone always is trying to score points for "diversity" or "winning the culture war." They define the task, gather data, summarize data, make recommendations and draw conclusions.
Now here's the dirty little secret about for-profit colleges and universities: Their enrollments are disproportionately black and Hispanic. Surprise -- default rates on loans at the University of Phoenix and the others are sky-high. These insitutions have the sales pitch to a fine science. It's about making money. In other words, for-profit universities are to higher education what subprime lenders are to regular banks.
Steve | 1.19.11 @ 7:24PM
It seems you put a lot of faith in the GAO, Seek. I, on the other hand, do not. Every institution is made up of people who can be influenced one way or another. This isn't to say that the GAO cannot be trusted. What it does mean, however, is like any report, you must not take their reports as "gospel."
JJ| 2.3.11 @ 1:47PM
One thing I want to clarify for some of the commenters: The GAO is not part of the Obama Administration. It is one of the few agencies in the Legislative branch (not the Executive), and it works for Congress. In fact, it's nickname is the Congressional Watchdog. If people truly want increased accountability and better oversight of the Administration, then it would be completely counterproductive to defund GAO because of this one audit. I can assure you they are not part of some grand conspiracy funded by George Soros (gee, wonder where people got THAT idea?)
Also, to respond to Jay's point re: auditors vs. investigators: He is correct; this particular audit was performed by GAO's Forensic Audits / Special Investigations unit (i.e., the same unit that conducts covert testing on TSA's airport screeners). It is true that they play by slightly different rules than typical GAO auditors.
Adidas | 8.11.11 @ 5:31AM
is good
العاب بنات | 4.11.12 @ 2:30PM
is nic