A Lesson From Trump University's Predecessor
Nearly 47 years ago, in July 1970, The Atlantic published “Let Us Now Appraise Famous Writers”—a devastating, and at times wickedly funny, takedown of a huge mail-order correspondence school called the Famous Writers School. The author, Jessica Mitford, a renowned investigative reporter, later wrote in her book Poison Penmanship that the article was “one of the few clear-cut successes, however temporary, of my muckraking career.”
Yet in retrospect, Mitford's exposé is more notable for its eerie prescience. The rise and fall of the Famous Writers School turns out to bear an uncanny similarity to the sordid saga of Trump University.
Like Trump University, the Famous Writers School misled people with promises of career training, relied on deceptive ads to recruit students, pretended to be a legitimate academic institution, and used aggressive sales tactics to prey on people's dreams. Far from being innovative, Trump University's sales "playbooks" were pedestrian—similar to those used by correspondence schools in the 1970s. Just as was the case with Trump University, Mitford's exposé prompted an investigation by New York’s state attorney general.
Trump University did differ from the Famous Writers School in at least one notable respect: Unlike the Famous Writers School, Trump University was unaccredited, making its students ineligible for federal student loans and grants. Yet the rise and fall of both schools is a cautionary tale that continues to bear on the debate in Washington in 2017 over how for-profit schools should be regulated by states and the federal government.
In an ideal world, for-profit colleges pioneer educational innovations like online learning and respond more nimbly than highly regulated public institutions to the career needs of working adults. But in the cases of the Famous Writers School and Trump University, the desire to maximize profits ultimately undermined educational quality, exposing the need for regulation to protect consumers and ensure accountability for better student outcomes.
* * *
Mitford started to report on the Famous Writers School after her husband, the civil-rights lawyer Robert Treuhaft, represented a 72-year-old semi-literate widow in a case against the school. Treuhaft's client had drained her savings of $200 after a salesman talked her into making the down payment on a $900 contract for a home-study course.
As soon as the salesman left, the widow had second thoughts and returned her lessons unopened. But Famous Writers refused to release her. “You are
