[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 169 (Thursday, October 11, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S6806]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        PURDUE GLOBAL UNIVERSITY

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, more than a year ago, Senator Sherrod 
Brown of Ohio and I sent a letter to Purdue University President Mitch 
Daniels in which we expressed our concerns about Purdue's proposed 
acquisition of the predatory, for-profit Kaplan University.
  Kaplan was notorious in the for-profit college industry for their 
mistreatment of students.
  They had been the subject of numerous State and Federal 
investigations and lawsuits for misleading marketing claims, inflated 
job placement numbers, and unfair recruiting.
  As Senator Brown and I cautioned at the time, Kaplan's troubled 
history posed major risks for Purdue's current students and the 
institution's reputation as a top public university.
  We suggested that at the very least Purdue should commit to clear 
protections and reforms for students if it intended to press on with 
the transaction.
  Among our suggestions was an end to the use of predispute mandatory 
arbitration in student enrollment.
  Predispute mandatory arbitration clauses prevent students from 
bringing suit against a school in a court of law when the school harms 
a student, like misleading them about job placement rates or luring 
them with other false information.
  Instead, students are forced into a dispute resolution process, known 
as arbitration, which lacks the procedures and precedents of the court 
system and is often stacked against students.
  The proceedings themselves, including the outcome, are secret which 
hides misconduct from regulators and accreditors.
  The clauses are often buried in the fine print of stacks of 
enrollment documents that students must sign in order to enroll.
  The practice, along with class action bans which prevent students 
from bringing suit as a group, are a hallmark of the for-profit college 
industry; schools like Corinthian, ITT Tech, and Kaplan notoriously 
used the practice to shield themselves from being held accountable 
while exploiting students and taxpayers.
  But predispute mandatory arbitration and class action bans are almost 
unheard of at public and legitimate not-for-profit institutions of 
higher education.
  In fact, in an August 30 public comment letter to the Department of 
Education, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, APLU, 
of which Purdue is a member, and other education organizations wrote, 
``We fail to see how allowing [pre-dispute mandatory arbitration and 
class action bans] is beneficial to the public.''
  Since the Purdue-Kaplan deal was finalized, creating Purdue Global 
University, it turns out that the new school continues to use 
predispute mandatory arbitration and class action bans.
  In response to it coming to light, a Purdue spokesman said that the 
practice was ``inherited from Kaplan,'' in an apparent attempt to 
deflect responsibility.
  The spokesman went on to assert that the Purdue board ``has complete 
control over Purdue Global, and has the final say as to which policies 
it retains, and which it alters . . . and to enact whatever policies it 
deems to be in the interest of students . . .''
  Well, Purdue can't have it both ways.
  Either the continued use of predispute mandatory arbitration and 
class actions bans are a remnant of Kaplan that the board disvows--in 
which case, the board should use its authority to immediately end the 
practice--or the board must accept responsibility for the practice 
continuing under its control and acknowledge predispute mandatory 
arbitration as an affirmed Purdue policy that it ``deems to be in the 
best interest of students.''
  As Senator Brown and I told the Purdue Board in a new letter 
recently, they have to choose.
  We will be waiting.
  I want to be clear: Anything short of meeting the high bar set by 
Purdue's fellow public universities and APLU institutions--not using 
predispute mandatory arbitration and class action bans in student 
enrollment--will be a betrayal of students and Indiana taxpayers.

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