Dick Durbin: “I rise today to speak to two separate issues. First, I wish to speak to the issue of for-profit colleges and…”

“I rise today to speak to two separate issues. First, I wish to speak to the issue of for-profit colleges and universities. Yesterday another for-profit college was accused by a Federal agency of misleading and deceiving students. The Federal Trade Commission announced it filed suit against DeVry University for advertisements that deceived consumers about the likelihood that students would find jobs and earn money after they graduated from DeVry. DeVry's commercials and advertisements date back to at least 2008-- about 9 years that they have been claiming that ``since 1975, 90% of DeVry graduates system-wide in the active job market held positions in their fields of study within 6 months of graduation.'' Starting in 2013, they also claimed that DeVry graduates ``had 15 percent higher incomes one year after graduation on average than graduates of all other colleges and universities.'' The Department of Education started investigating these claims in August of last year. After asking DeVry for proof of their statements in these ads, the Department announced yesterday that the company was ``unable to substantiate the truthfulness of those representations, as is required by federal law.'' As such, the Department of Education ordered DeVry to stop making these false claims and required DeVry's future claims related to employability and income to be verified by an independent monitor.…”