Paying Up And Paying Back

Is student loan forgiveness the whole solution?

    No

Can it be made better if we put more Dems in office?

    Yes

Will Republicans work with us to make it better?

    No

Will Republicans fuck it up if they get back in power?

    Yes

Republicans Opposing Student-Loan Relief Are Forgetting the Biblical Tradition of Debt Forgiveness

While President Biden’s announcement of student-debt forgiveness elicited shouts of joy from many of the 43 million Americans who could experience relief under his plan, Republicans have responded by declaring their opposition to the very idea of debt forgiveness. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell accused Biden of “socialism,” while Pennsylvania Representative Dan Meuser declared it a “moral hazard” to forgive “self imposed debt.” For decades, Republicans have claimed to champion biblical values, and MAGA enthusiasts like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have more recently embraced the goal of a “Christian nation.” But nothing exposes the hypocrisy of Christian nationalism more than Republicans’ knee-jerk reaction against debt forgiveness. It is, after all, something Jesus taught his disciples to pray for.

“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” is more than a line from the Lord’s Prayer that children memorize in Sunday school. For practicing Christians, it is a regular reminder of the Jubilee tradition that Jesus embraced in his first sermon in Luke’s gospel. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” Jesus declared from the prophet Isaiah, “and has anointed me to proclaim… the favorable year of the Lord.” As his 1st-century hearers knew, Jesus was referring to the debt forgiveness laid out in Leviticus 25, which prescribes a regular social practice of clearing debts in order to correct for the accumulated injustice of an unequal distribution of resources in society. The idea doesn’t come from Karl Marx, as McConnell suggests, but from ancient Scripture.

It’s amazing to us that many of the same people who consistently vote for corporate tax breaks and policies that give more money to our wealthiest neighbors cry “socialism” when anyone proposes relief to poor people who are saddled by debt. As people who took vows to proclaim the biblical text, we find such reactionary defense of wealth to be the antithesis of biblical values.

While the Jubilee is a clear command of Scripture, biblical scholars have debated how often it was actually practiced in ancient Israel. But the economic historian Michael Hudson, who has directed a decades-long study at Harvard’s Peabody Museum, argues in his book …and forgive them their debts that the notion of Jubilee wasn’t simply an ideal for ancient Israel, but rather a practical lesson learned during the Babylonian exile. Ancient Mesopotamian societies had learned from experience that crippling debt was an inevitable consequence of lending at interest (what the Bible calls “usury”). For the good of the whole, a practice of “Clean Slate” debt forgiveness emerged to keep society functioning. The children of Israel came to understand this practice as God’s design.

Some of Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Critics Went to College for Less Than $400 Per Year

Of course, people of goodwill can disagree on policy. While some conservatives have expressed concern that Biden’s debt-forgiveness plan could exacerbate inflation, we side with those who argue that the Administration should do more, along with Congressional action, to address extreme inequality and the racial wealth gap in America. By forgiving twice as much for borrowers who qualified for Pell Grants as undergraduates, Biden’s plan does target relief to low-income families, which are disproportionately Black, brown, Asian, and Native. Equally important to the plan is its hedge against interest going forward. For borrowers who pay 5% of their expendable income toward repaying the undergraduate loans each month, interest will be forgiven. And low-income debtors who make less than 225% of the federal poverty line will not owe any payments until their income rises to a living wage. These, too, are steps toward an economy where people who go to work every day can afford to feed, clothe, and house their families, and even take a little time off now and then to enjoy time with one another.

But it’s not enough. The $20,000 cap for Pell Grant recipients, for instance, leaves millions of those most severely impacted by predatory lending still saddled with debt. To experience the full benefit of Jubilee, we need to wipe the slate clean for those who are carrying the heaviest burdens of debt.

As Christian pastors, we know that the false promise of a “Christian nation” has persuaded millions of Americans to support policies that hurt God’s people. In a multi-faith democracy, we don’t need our faith to be privileged by state power. But every faith can and should inform our vision for our common life. The tradition of debt forgiveness, which is shared by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, offers a powerful vision for a way forward from the historic inequality that currently harms our economy. It’s no surprise that defenders of the wealthy elite are crying “socialism.” Their forebearers attacked New Deal and Great Society programs along the same lines. But moral movements throughout our nation’s history have made the case that moral policies that lift from the bottom are good for all of us.

Biden’s student-loan forgiveness plan won’t bring the Jubilee we pray for every day, but it’s a step in the right direction. Some of us would love to hear the President and other Democrats talk more about how policies like this help poor and low-income people, not just the “working class.” Such public commitments to the common good can go a long way toward motivating voters who don’t believe politicians from any party care about them. If a moral movement of people committed to the common good can rally for the midterms, this week’s action shows that the Biden Administration is ready and willing to push further toward an economy that works for all of us in 2023. That’s a vision we pray more Americans can get behind.

Oops Again, Republicans

Hoping this is another sign that Republicans have badly over-reached, and that the ladies are coming out to show these idiots what happens when you fuck over half the population.

Judge who denied Florida teen an abortion citing grades loses reelection

A state judge who, in a highly publicized case, denied a 17-year-old an abortion in part because of her grades lost his election in a Florida primary on Tuesday.

Jared Smith, who was appointed to Florida’s 13th Circuit Court by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in 2019, narrowly lost his nonpartisan primary against attorney Nancy Jacobs.

Jacobs received roughly 51.9 percent of the vote, beating Smith by about 3.7 percentage points, or roughly 7,900 votes.

Smith had ruled in January that the 17-year-old, who was kept anonymous in court documents, could not receive an abortion, citing her grades. An appeals court overturned the ruling.

“While she claimed that her grades were ‘Bs’ during her testimony, her GPA is currently 2.0,” Smith ruled. “Clearly, a ‘B’ average would not equate to a 2.0 GPA.”

Florida is one of six states that require both parental notification and consent for minors to obtain abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The teen had asked the court to waive the requirement.

Under Florida law, a judge can waive parental consent if it finds by “clear and convincing evidence” that the minor is “sufficiently mature” to decide to have an abortion. In considering those requests, judges are required to assess factors like the minor’s age, overall intelligence and emotional stability.

The statute has led to multiple high-profile cases, including one earlier this month in which a Florida appeals court ruled a 16-year-old did not demonstrate she met the maturity requirement to circumvent the parental notification and consent requirements.


Smith received an array of endorsements in the primary race, including former Florida Gov. Bob Martinez (R), the Tampa Bay Times’s editorial board and multiple retired judges who served on the circuit.

Democrats have hoped the Supreme Court’s overturning of the constitutional right to an abortion in June will help energize voters in this year’s midterm elections and avoid steep losses for the party as it seeks to maintain control of Congress.

Voters in Kansas, a traditionally red state, rejected a ballot question earlier this month that would remove abortion rights from the state constitution.

As voters headed to the polls in Florida on Tuesday and defeated Smith in his circuit court race, New York’s simultaneous primary showed another sign of the potential impact of the abortion ruling.

Pat Ryan (D), who made supporting abortion rights a cornerstone of his campaign, defeated Marc Molinaro (R) in the state’s 19th Congressional District, a bellwether district that voted for former President Obama in 2012, former President Trump in 2016 and President Biden in 2020.

Well Shit

I've always kinda liked Shaq. I can't now. I just have to walk away.

Shaquille O'Neal clarified his comments about the Earth being flat after taking a flight from the United States to Australia.

The NBA legend, 50, was asked during an appearance on The Kyle & Jackie O Show if his former comments about the conspiracy theory were a "joke" or if he did, in fact, believe the notion to be true.

"It's a theory," O'Neal told hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson. "It's just a theory, they teach us a lot of things. It's just a theory," he repeated.

The former LA Lakers star explained his rationale by using his flight from the U.S. to Australia as an example."I flew 20 hours today, not once did I go this way," O'Neal said, noting he "didn't tip over" or "go upside down." He added that he's also unsure about whether the planet is spinning.

"You know they say the world is spinning? I've lived on a lake for 30 years and I've never seen the lake move to the left or right," he told listeners.

When Kyle mentioned that it's possible to travel from the U.S. to Australia from both coasts, Shaq responded, "It's still a straight line."

The NBA Hall of Famer first made his opinion known in 2017 while chatting with co-host John Kincade on The Big Podcast With Shaq.

"It's true. The Earth is flat," he said at the time. "Listen, there are three ways to manipulate the mind—what you read, what you see and what you hear. In school, the first thing they teach us is, 'Oh, Columbus discovered America,' but when he got there, there were some fair-skinned people with long hair smoking on the peace pipes. So, what does that tell you? Columbus didn't discover America."

"I'm just saying. I drive from Florida to California all the time, and it's flat to me," he continued. "I do not go up and down at a 360-degree angle and all that stuff about gravity. Have you looked outside Atlanta lately and seen all these buildings? You mean to tell me that China is under us? China is under us? It's not. The world is flat."

He then went on to dispute satellite imagery, calling it "drawn and made up."

Flat Earthers, and the Rise of Science Denial in America

At the time, a slew of basketball stars including Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving, former Denver Nuggets wing Wilson Chandler and Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green also agreed the Earth was flat.

The news gained so much traction that NBA commissioner Adam Silver had to address it during a press conference at the 2017 All-Star Game.

"Kyrie and I, you know, went to the same college. He may have taken some different courses than I did," Silver said to a room full of laughter, before adding, "Personally, I believe the world is round."

O'Neal later backtracked on his comments during the NBA on TNT broadcast, claiming he was joking.

Newsweek reached out to O'Neal for comment.

Several scientists previously spoke out on why O'Neal's comments are potentially problematic, whether he's teasing or not.

Sam Bentley, a geology and geophysics professor at the star's alma mater, Louisiana State University, told Bleacher Report in 2017 that the former center should "act responsibly" considering he has such a large platform.

"If Shaquille O'Neal is claiming that the Earth is flat based on his observations driving from California to the East Coast, then he is not using all of the available data," Bentley told the outlet.

Derek Muller, who earned a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Sydney and runs the YouTube channel "Veritasium," agreed.

"It leads their fanbases to consider ridiculous ideas to be true," Muller noted. "Obviously, these people have god-like reputations among some of their fans. They're clearly prominent, and even if you don't fully believe them, it definitely raises the visibility of the claims."

He added that it "does damage in the long term" because "you have a group of people who don't know what to believe."

"When you don't have those established consensuses, the world makes bad decisions."

Overheard

Republicans

claiming that Republicans

committed Voter Fraud

against Republicans

to ensure

that Republicans won and Republicans lost

in Republican Primaries.

Peak Republican.

What Ho, Propaganda

Like any other tool, propaganda - which is basically Sales & Marketing - can be in service of good things as well as the dark and nefarious.

The messaging has to line up with reality for it to be assessed as ethically worthy, and not deemed valuable simply because it's effective at motivating the masses.

What you're trying to motivate those masses to do is kinda important if you want to keep the thing legit.

"We need to be brave in the face of an aggressor nation that has invaded our country, and has articulated an intent to annihilate or national identity..."

...is quite a bit more in keeping with the moral code of decent human behavior than...

"Ukraine is ours, but they are being misled by evil forces within, so we must rid the earth of people who refuse to see themselves as truly Russian..."

With ‘bravery’ as its new brand, Ukraine is turning advertising into a weapon of war

When a preview of Vogue’s October 2022 cover story on Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska hit Twitter on July 26, 2022, reactions on social media were swift and polarized. Some critics said that a photo shoot by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz for a fashion magazine was a “bad idea” and glamorized war.

Others lauded the magazine and Ukraine’s first lady for bringing awareness to the suffering of Ukrainians, five months after Russia first invaded its neighboring country.

In the cover photo, 44-year-old Zelenska wears a cream-colored blouse with rolled up sleeves, black trousers and flats. She sits on the stairs of the Ukrainian Parliament, leaning forward with hands intertwined between her knees. Her makeup is minimal, her hair casually tossed as she looks directly at the camera. Within hours Ukrainian women started using the hashtag #sitlikeagirl to share photos of themselves in the same pose as a show of solidarity.

Vogue’s profile of Zelenska, headlined “A Portrait of Bravery” and written by journalist Rachel Donadio, fits into a larger communication strategy, mounted by Ukraine’s government, that’s intended to keep the world focused on the country’s fight against Russian aggression. As part of that effort, Ukraine also initiated a nation branding campaign in April with the tagline “Bravery. To be Ukraine.”

As a communications scholar, I have studied how former communist countries like Ukraine have used marketing strategies to burnish their international reputations over the past two decades – a practice known as nation branding.

Ukraine, however, is the first country to launch an official nation branding campaign in the midst of war. For the first time, brand communication is a key part of a country’s response to a military invasion.

Nation branding and the end of communism

The idea that nations can be branded emerged at the beginning of the 21st century. This kind of work uses advertising, public relations and marketing techniques to boost countries’ international reputations. Campaigns are often timed to coincide with major sporting, cultural or political events – like the Olympics.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, formerly communist Eastern European countries were particularly eager to rebrand themselves and get an updated international image.

When Estonian musicians won the international singing competition Eurovision in 2001, Estonia became the first post-Soviet country to hold this prize. Subsequently, the country’s government hired an international advertising company to design a modern national brand for Estonia as it prepared to host Eurovision the following year.

Research has shown, however, that former communist countries’ nation branding efforts were not meant just for international consumption. They also provided a new way to talk about national identities at home, and re-imagine national values and goals, via marketing terms.

But until 2022, no country had used nation branding to fight a war.

‘Bravery is our brand’

Executives from the Ukrainian advertising agency Banda first pitched the idea for Ukraine’s Bravery Campaign to the government shortly after Russia invaded in February 2022. Based in Kyiv and Los Angeles, the agency had already worked before the war on government-sponsored campaigns, marketing Ukraine as a tourism and investment destination.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy endorsed the wartime branding campaign and publicly announced its launch on April 7, 2022, in a video address. “Bravery is our brand,” he stated. “This is what it means to be us. To be Ukrainians. To be brave.”

In the following months, Banda produced numerous messages in formats ranging from billboards, posters and online videos, to social media posts, T-shirts and stickers. A campaign website offers downloadable logos and photographs and asks visitors to share the message of bravery and donate to Ukraine.

Some billboards feature images of courageous, ordinary Ukrainians and soldiers. Other billboards are emblazoned with bold slogans in the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag. They urge audiences to “Be brave like Ukraine” and say that “Bravery lives forever.”

Inside Ukraine, the campaign’s messages appear on everything from juice bottles to 500 billboards in 21 cities. The campaign is also running in the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada and 17 countries in Europe, including Germany, Spain and Sweden, according to AdAge.

This massive communication effort is happening at a minimal cost to Ukraine. Banda is donating its services, and the Ukrainian government pays only for production costs. Media space, including high-profile billboards in Times Square and other major cities, was donated by several global media companies.

Branding as a weapon of war

Banda’s co-founder, Pavel Vrzheshch, has said the campaign aims to strengthen Ukrainians’ morale as they continue to fight Russia. But the focus on bravery is also about Ukraine’s future, he says.

“The whole world admires the Ukrainian bravery now, we must consolidate this notion and have it represent Ukraine forever,” Vrzheshch said in a media interview.

At its core, the campaign attempts to transform an intangible value, like bravery, into an asset that can be converted into real military, economic and moral support. In other words, it aims to cultivate positive public opinion in the West that will support further aid to Ukraine in order to help fight the war.

This way of using brand communication in a war is unprecedented in at least three ways.

First, rather than relying only on diplomatic channels to seek international support, Ukraine is harnessing popular media and social media networks to speak directly to citizens of other countries. It gives ordinary people around the world a chance to show solidarity through donations or by sharing campaign messages and pressuring their government to support Ukraine.

A formal brand campaign also allows Ukraine to extend the visibility of the war beyond news coverage. As the conflict continues, it is likely to fade from news headlines in international media. But billboards, social media posts and the strategic use of entertainment publications like Vogue can keep it in front of audiences.

Finally, the best brand messages connect with consumers by inviting them to imagine better versions of themselves. Famous ad slogans like Nike’s “Just do it” or Apple’s “Think different” illustrate this idea. So does Ukraine’s call to people around the world to “Be brave like Ukraine.”

It is notoriously difficult to measure the effectiveness of nation branding campaigns, as brand consultants point out. The process is costly and time-consuming, and results are often contested.

The direct impact of the Brave Campaign may not be clear for months to come. It is also not clear how long its message will continue to resonate. But it is clear that Ukraine is transforming nation branding into a new propaganda weapon, adapted for the age of consumer culture and constant media stimulation.

Today's Quote

I know just enough about myself to know I cannot settle for one of those simplifications which indignant people seize upon to make understandable a world too complex for their comprehension. Astrology, health food, flag waving, bible thumping, Zen, nudism, nihilism - all of these are grotesque simplifications which small dreary people adopt in the hope of thereby finding The Answer, because the concept that maybe there is no answer, never has been, never will be, terrifies them.

--John D MacDonald - A Deadly Shade Of Gold

Waste Fraud & Abuse

Here's the cautionary tale that always goes with big attempts to do big things.

There's a shitload of problems with the programs intended to help the people who really need - and really deserve - help.

But instead of addressing the problems created by the shitty behavior of bad actors who always jump in looking for a quick score at other people's expense, we're bound to hear that somehow that shitty behavior is proof that we should never even try to help people - that we should just leave it all to the pros - the guys who have that shitty behavior down to a science, and can pull it off better cuz they've got dark money sponsorship and political cover from the usual rent-seeking plutocrats.

And we'll be right back to groveling for a few crumbs as we slouch towards authoritarian rule.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Millions in covid aid went to retrain veterans. Only 397 landed jobs.
Nearly $400 million went to a veteran retraining program as part of the American Rescue Plan

The offer to military veterans left unemployed by the coronavirus pandemic was tantalizing: A year of online courses courtesy of the federal government. Graduates would be set up for good jobs in high-demand fields from app development to graphic design.

“I jumped at it,” said Jacqueline Culbreth, 61, an Air Force veteran laid off in 2020 from her job as a construction estimator in Orlando. “I was looking forward basically to upping my earning power.”

But more than a year after enrolling at the Chicago-based Future Tech Career Institute, Culbreth is no closer to her goal of landing a job in cloud computing. Like many former service members enrolled at the for-profit trade school under a pandemic relief program run by the Department of Veterans Affairs, she soon found herself immersed in discouraging chaos.

Schedules were disorganized and courses did not follow a set syllabus. School-provided laptops couldn’t run critical software. And during long stretches of scheduled class time, students were left without instruction, according to interviews with Culbreth and 10 other veterans who attended the school.

In February, VA cut off tuition payments to Future Tech, leaving Culbreth and more than 300 other veterans in the lurch.

The disarray at Future Tech is the most painful example of broader problems with the $386 million Veteran Rapid Retraining Assistance Program, or VRRAP. Many schools proved unable to attract students or deliver promised services. In addition to Future Tech, nearly 90 schools have had their approvals yanked, according to VA officials, including several that were actively serving about 100 veterans. Some schools were cut off amid allegations of predatory practices, while others simply went out of business.

As of Aug. 1, only about 6,800 veterans had enrolled in the program, far fewer than the 17,250 Congress created it to serve, the agency said; just 397 had landed new jobs.
The

The story of VRRAP illustrates Washington’s often losing battle to effectively spend the torrent of cash Congress threw at the coronavirus pandemic starting in March 2020. In all, lawmakers approved more than $5 trillion for covid relief, an unprecedented wave of emergency loans, grants and other assistance intended to fight the virus and pull America out of its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. But haste and carelessness in crafting the aid created a wellspring for fraud and waste — a mess that hundreds of federal investigators are still trying to clean up.

In VRRAP’s case, Congress bungled both the program’s design and its timing, critics said, diminishing the likelihood of attracting students. As of last week, roughly half the money had been spent, leaving VA on track to return tens of millions of dollars to the U.S. Treasury when the program expires in December.

Lawmakers didn’t address VA’s long struggle to police for-profit schools that engage in deceptive practices, as they set up a program that attracted many for-profit entities. Future Tech had been barred from receiving VA tuition payments for several courses in 2012 after Illinois officials concluded that the school — then doing business under a different name — had submitted false reports and misled veterans. The school regained its eligibility in 2017, Future Tech said in a statement. Under VRRAP, it charged VA more than $25,000 per student per year, according to a tuition statement seen by The Post — just under the federal cap of $26,000 and about $7,000 higher than other computer boot camps approved by the program.

Future Tech said the school saw “tremendous success” with the pandemic program. The company described its earlier loss of eligibility for VA funding as the result of “minor” violations that have since been resolved. Its tuition and fees for VRRAP were appropriate, the statement said, for a year-long, 18 hour-per-week program that includes a laptop, practice exams and vouchers to take certification exams.

Future Tech acknowledged that illness and supply-chain snarls caused by the pandemic disrupted some courses for some students, but said the impacts were limited. It castigated Illinois officials for moving too hastily to shut off VRRAP funds.

“This decision disrupted the training for more than 300 veterans when just a handful had issues that could and should have been dealt with individually,” the company said. “We will never know what could have been achieved.”

‘We wanted to help them’

The troubles with VRRAP were achingly predictable: A similar program rolled out in 2012 — the Veterans Retraining Assistance Program, or VRAP — also failed to attract students and was widely regarded as a flop. Nonetheless, veterans advocates began pushing for another education benefit after the pandemic plunged the economy into free-fall, leaving many veterans unemployed.

Lawmakers did not include the program in the first covid aid package, the $2-trillion Cares Act signed by President Donald Trump. Instead, they waited until 2021, adding it to the $1.9-trillion American Rescue Plan Act signed by President Biden.

By then, VRRAP was a solution to a problem that no longer existed. At the height of the pandemic in 2020, veterans experienced a jobless rate of 6.5 percent, compared with 8 percent for nonveterans. By 2021, the unemployment rate among veterans had fallen to 4.4 percent. Last month, it stood at 2.7 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, hovering near record lows.

“We wanted this done sooner than it actually got passed. Now you have people saying, ‘Is it really needed? No one is using it,’ ” said Tom Porter, executive vice president for government relations for the nonpartisan Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which was involved in crafting the legislation.

James Ruhlman, VA’s deputy director for program management for education, acknowledged that the agency had a limited view of veteran unemployment during the pandemic. He said that even the Labor Department struggled to understand employment trends.

VA officials had other concerns about the program, which also provided students with a substantial monthly housing allowance, current and former agency officials said. In recent years, a swell of soldiers returning from the post-Sept. 11 conflicts have gotten an education using GI Bill benefits, and hundreds of schools have been vetted by state officials. But the VA inspector general also issued repeated warnings about duplications, delays and “financial risks” from the agency’s reliance on for-profit schools, including an emergency warning in 2018 that many states were failing to properly monitor the schools and getting poor oversight from VA.

To avoid repeating that troubled history, the agency structured tuition payments to be spread out, so the final check of three would be sent only after a student finds a job. But multiple schools with spotty track records that had qualified for other education programs got the green light to serve VRRAP students.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) publicized the Future Tech case after officials in Illinois investigated student complaints. “I don’t know if they did their due diligence,” he said of VA. “For-profit schools by and large are a fraud on the public, and the victims in this case are veterans, thinking that they were taking advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic opportunity.”

Asked about the timing of the program, Durbin said lawmakers were rushing to respond to an emergency. “We didn’t know if this pandemic was going to last two months or two years or longer,” the senator said. “We saw some very vulnerable people who had served our country. We wanted to help them. We just went to the wrong place.”

There were other issues. The narrowly drawn legislation limited tuition support to veterans who were not eligible for other educational benefits and were not receiving unemployment insurance or enrolled in any other federal or state jobs program — which risked leaving very few eligible applicants.

Meanwhile, the Veterans Benefits Administration, which oversees employment and training programs, did little to market the initiative, according to congressional aides and veterans’ advocates.

“You would think something like that would be put out,” said Kevin Keller, an official with the Illinois Marine Corps League and other state veterans groups. “But the word never got out from VA.”

Some school administrators described a labyrinth of red tape as they tried to get paid or get questions answered, with emails languishing for months in no-reply inboxes at VA.

“Collectively, we feel like it was too big of a program [for VA] to quickly launch without understanding the space they were entering into,” said Alicia Boddy, chief operations and development officer at Code Platoon, a Chicago computer coding boot camp. She meets monthly with a group of other school administrators.

“Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong,” Boddy said.

A study in chaos

Future Tech grabbed an opportunity. Biden’s signature on the legislation was barely dry when the school began trumpeting the new benefit to veterans. In one May 2021 email, it advertised a “12-month program to fully utilize the 12 months of eligibility awarded you by VA.”

Opened in 2006 as the Computer Training Institute of Chicago, Future Tech now operates from a high-rise office building across Michigan Avenue from the Art Institute of Chicago. In a 2012 interview with one of its alumni, then the host of a local TV show on technology, program director Paul Johnson touted the school’s track record of connecting students with high-paying jobs.

“We network with the VA, we network with a number of different corporate organizations,” Johnson said.

In 2012, the school received approval from Illinois officials to provide VA-funded courses to veterans. (VA authorizes officials in each state to vet local educational institutions.) Within 10 months, however, the state had stripped Future Tech’s eligibility for federal funding for the courses after concluding that administrators were submitting false reports and misleading veterans about costs.

Details of that decision were revealed after Johnson sued VA in federal court in 2013; the lawsuit was dismissed. In a statement, Future Tech said the 2012 violation “was regarding a statement on our website. The other violations mentioned were also minor. FTCI has added several new leaders and staff and strengthened our oversight” and regained VA eligibility in 2017.

As the pandemic deepened, the school switched to an online format. Last year, Johnson changed its name to Future Tech Career Institute, according to Illinois business records, and began welcoming VRRAP students.

It didn’t take long for dissatisfaction to settle in. “People were complaining to VA: ‘Hey they’re not teaching us,’” Culbreth recalled.

Promised a year of comprehensive training, many students said they found only disorganization as swelling enrollment outpaced instructors and administrative support.

“We literally didn’t know what class we were taking next,” said one veteran, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to be publicly associated with the school.

Tyra White, a former Air Force police officer now living in New Orleans, enrolled in Future Tech in June 2021 to study graphic design. She said students were continually added to her course on Adobe Creative Suite with no notice, taking the instructor off guard. Two other students in the course confirmed her account.

“We’d be in the middle of something, maybe in the third week of the program, and then someone would enter the program brand new and then just be thrown into the third week’s content,” White recalled. The instructor “would have to teach them on the break everything that was presented to us on week one.”

Two days a week, students were assigned to “lab time,” White said, when they were supposed to work independently with access to instructors to ask questions. But instructors were usually teaching an entirely different course and therefore unavailable, she said.

“The entire atmosphere while we were there was totally discouraging,” White said. “It was so disorganized.”

Even the promised laptops were a problem: In an email sent to Johnson that was reviewed by The Post, a student complained that some students had yet to receive their computers weeks into classes, while others had been given machines with insufficient memory.

In some cases, the school did not give students access to basic software programs, said Kenneth Bainey, a retired information technology professional based in Canada who teaches project management part-time at Future Tech.

“There were terrible issues with administration,” Bainey said. Textbooks “took a month to get,” he said, adding that he was forced to search for some chapters online.

Last week, Bainey placed blame on the students, saying some veterans were “terribly destructive.”

“They came to class, never did any assignments and expected certification,” he said. “We had to get rid of them, and then they complained.”

Future Tech blamed the chaos on the pandemic. “We did have some staffing challenges and online challenges — COVID made the world very difficult for all,” its statement said.

While illness caused staffing shortages that forced instructors to take on extra classes, this was done “for the shortest time possible,” the company said. Book delays were “isolated cases, not the norm.” Like the problems with laptops, delays were caused by “supply chain issues we are all sadly familiar with.”

Under VRRAP’s strict rules, students couldn’t switch schools without losing benefits. Many veterans complained bitterly to VA — and to Johnson, according to emails reviewed by The Post. By February, with rumors spreading that Future Tech might close, Johnson admonished students not to gossip, saying it could trigger “anxiety, PTSD or trauma.”

“Everything will work out,” he wrote in an email reviewed by The Post. “All of you will be fine.”

‘I’m so disappointed’

Three-and-a-half weeks later, VA cut off payments to Future Tech.

A VA claims processor in Muskogee, Okla., had become suspicious after spotting a tenfold spike in enrollment in December 2021, VA officials said. Years of experience suggested that exploding enrollment at a for-profit school could be a sign of trouble.

VA notified the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, which found serious problems at Future Tech, including missing instructors, changing course lengths, students forced to take night courses when they had requested a day schedule, instructors who lacked certifications, “substantial misrepresentations” and sloppy record-keeping, according to a letter sent to Johnson in February.

For Future Tech students, the decision abruptly cut off not only tuition payments but also a housing allowance of more than $2,000 a month. Culbreth said she briefly was forced to live out of her car and in a homeless shelter.

Frustrated by the lack of instruction, Culbreth had joined other students in an independent study group and managed to earn specialized certification in cloud web services. But she had hoped to earn certification in three or four other areas. Today, she works as a project coordinator for a tech company, a less technical position that doesn’t pay enough to rent her own apartment, she said.

“I’m drowning here,” said Culbreth, who has been staying with a friend. “I’m so disappointed. I would have finished. I would have gotten my certifications. I wouldn’t have let anything stop me.”

The program’s disappointing showing has prompted two congressional hearings. In February, Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.), chairman of a House subcommittee focused on economic opportunity for veterans, pressed for data on education quality at for-profit schools and asked how VA defines “successful employment.” Program integration officer Ricardo DaSilva conceded that the agency does not study job retention.

In May, a senior VA Education Service official objected to Levin’s proposal to boost enrollment by adding four-year colleges to VRRAP’s roster of schools, saying the change would cause “new administrative burdens” months before the program expires. Levin fired back: “The status quo is entirely unacceptable.”

A month later, Congress passed legislation authorizing VA to recover at least $4.2 million in tuition and fees from schools whose approvals were pulled, including Future Tech. Nothing has yet been recovered, and Ruhlman said he is not confident anything will be.

“I wouldn’t say it will be easy to get it back,” he said.

Asked about the program’s failures, Ruhlman said “there are hurdles and a number of administrative problems to be solved in the rollout of any federal program.” He noted that VRRAP was created “in a very fairly short period of time.”

In July, Future Tech changed its name yet again: It is now the Institute of Business and Technology Careers, according to Illinois business records. The school said it has been told by state officials that it could reapply for future VA programs.

Ruhlman predicted VA officials would “put that application … under extreme scrutiny.”

“Given what has happened,” he said, “I would say that the bar would be fairly high.”

Today's Tweet

Canceling student loan debt? Are you shittin me?? pic.twitter.com/bKh45qntS0

— Corey Ryan Forrester First of His Name (@CoreyRForrester) August 24, 2022

Try Helping Instead

"I worked twenty-nine hours a day at fourteen jobs, and walked 11 miles to class in the snow with nothing on my feet but Wonder Bread bags - in the dark and uphill and blah blah fucking blah."

Cliché du jour

If you had a really shitty life, and now you think everybody else should have a really shitty life, cuz hey - you did, and you turned out OK, here's the thing: you did not turn out OK.

WaPo: (pay wall)

Opinion
Stop improving things right now! Everyone must suffer as I did!

DISGUSTING! AWFUL! I have just received word that life is getting marginally better for some people, and I am white-hot with fury! This is the worst thing that could possibly happen! I did not suffer and strive and work my fingers to the bone so that anybody else could have a life that does not involve suffering and striving and the working of fingers to the bone. I demand to see only bones and no fingers!

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night thrashing because I have had the nightmare again, the nightmare in which someone else is being spared a small hint of the suffering I endured. The world should not get better! The world should get worse along with me and perish along with me.

Every time anyone’s life improves at all, I personally am insulted. Any time anyone devises a labor-saving device, or passes some kind of weak, soft-hearted law that forecloses the opportunity for a new generation of children to lose fingers in dangerous machinery, I gnash my teeth. This is an affront to everyone who struggled so mightily. To avoid affronting them, we must keep everything just as bad as ever. Put those fingers back into the machines, or our suffering will have been in vain.

When I see unleaded paint or un-asbestosed homes, I froth at the mouth and start stomping up and down like Rumpelstiltskin. And who are we to think we deserve better than to die of sepsis? Why shouldn’t smallpox be out in the world for us as it once was? Are we too good for scurvy, now? Our great-grandparents made do without penicillin, did they not?

Who qualifies for Biden’s plan to cancel $10,000 in student debt?

What a fallen, broken world we live in. The audacity of people trying to eat food not contaminated by waste, or increase the number of rhinos in the wild — they had better not! Clean the air? YOU STOP THAT RIGHT NOW. Inhaling thick lungfuls of coal smoke was miserable for me, and it will be miserable for you. Put the cockroaches back into the kitchen, please, and lye back into the meat!

I look down at the face of my sleeping child and I vow: If this baby’s life is even one particle easier than mine was, I will burn this whole place down!

John Adams wrote that “I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.”

This just shows you what a fool John Adams was! No one should get to study Painting, Poetry or Musick EVER, and if they do, they should pay for it their entire lives.

I am not opposed to this student loan forgiveness plan because I fear it won’t ease the suffering of millions; I am opposed to it because I fear that it will.

I fought uphill battles and squinted into the night and toiled and burdened myself in the hope that my children, one day, would also get to work exactly that hard, if not harder, and suffer at least as much as I did, and have, if the Lord allows, lives worse than mine. God, please make their lives worse!

Overheard

Republicans want you to know

that they're very upset

about being judged

by the content of their character

instead of the color of their skin.