Newly released financial disclosures reveal Bill Clinton received $16.46 million in payments from a George Soros-backed for-profit education company, as Hillary Clinton’s State Department funneled tens of millions of dollars to a group run by the company’s chairman.
With $4 billion in annual revenue, Laureate Education is America’s largest for-profit college company. From 2010 until just days before the 2015 release of Clinton Cash, Bill Clinton served as Laureate’s “honorary chancellor.” When the Clinton campaign team obtained a copy of the book and its Clinton-Laureate connection revelation, Bill Clinton abruptly resigned.
Laureate’s chairman and longtime Clinton crony, Douglas Becker, is also the chairman of a nonprofit sister organization called the International Youth Foundation (IYF). Indeed, IYF’s offices are less than a mile from Laureate’s in Baltimore. Shortly after Laureate made Bill Clinton its honorary chancellor in April 2010, Hillary Clinton made Laureate part of her State Department Global Partnership. IYF received USAID funds before Hillary’s tenure at the State Dept. But the grants the group received exploded after Bill Clinton was put on the Laureate payroll.
According to a Bloomberg analysis of the Clinton Cash revelation: “In 2009, the year before Bill Clinton joined Laureate, the nonprofit received 11 grants worth $9 million from the State Department or the affiliated USAID. In 2010, the group received 14 grants worth $15.1 million. In 2011, 13 grants added up to $14.6 million. The following year, those numbers jumped: IYF received 21 grants worth $25.5 million, including a direct grant from the State Department.”
As the leader of the embattled for-profit college industry, Laureate has come under fire and been investigated for its practices in monetizing education, reports the Washington Post. Still, Clinton proudly championed the group that paid him over $16 million and allowed his image to be plastered all over Laureate’s $200 million annual marketing materials, even as Hillary Clinton pumped tens of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to Laureate’s sister group.