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Republican Bruce Rauner’s generosity to educational causes is one of the accomplishments he’s touted most often during his campaign for governor.
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“Over the last 20 years my wife and I have dedicated our lives to education improvement,” he said during a stop at a Humboldt Park church last month. He noted that they had donated millions of dollars to charter schools and education reform organizations through their charity, the Rauner Family Foundation.
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In fact, Rauner says that ensuring a “high-quality education for all” is the key to the state’s future. “Education isn’t just a state obligation—it’s a moral issue,” proclaims his “blueprint” for what he’ll do if elected. “It’s a matter of fairness and social justice.”
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It’s a powerful statement. But as a longtime venture capitalist and investor, Rauner hasn’t always put his money where his ideals are.
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The GOP candidate made some of his vast fortune—and continues to collect money—from for-profit schools that are accused in court of exploiting students, handing out worthless degrees, and raking in millions of taxpayer dollars through fraud.
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As you’ve undoubtedly heard by now, Rauner made hundreds of millions of dollars as a leader of the private equity firm GTCR from 1981 to 2012. Though he left the business shortly before launching his bid for governor, he continues to have investments in it.
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In 1999 GTCR funded the creation of ForeFront Education, a for-profit company offering college degrees and training for jobs including medical assistants, paralegals, and office administrators. As with all of its investments, GTCR was interested in this segment of higher education because of its growth potential—or, as the Chronicle of Higher Education later reported, “because of its high profit margin.”
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As investors, Rauner and his colleagues were onto something: the for-profit college industry was entering a boom time. By 2010 it was generating $30 billion a year, according to an investigation by Bloomberg News. But it did so “by targeting vulnerable populations—disabled military and veterans, the homeless, immigrants and minorities—with misleading promises of low costs, online academic help, and lucrative jobs after graduation.”
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Read More: http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2014/10/20/how-bruce-rauner-makes-money-from-for-profit-schools-and-worthless-degrees
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