Education Dept. awards debt-collection contract to company with ties to DeVos

The following article by Danielle Douglas-Gabriel was posted on the Washington Post website January 12, 2018:

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos speaks in October at a dinner in Bellevue, Wash. Credit: Ted S. Warren/AP

A company that once had financial ties to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was one of two firms selected Thursday by the Education Department to help the agency collect overdue student loans. The deal could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The decision to award contracts to Windham Professionals and Performant Financial Corp. — a company DeVos invested in before becoming secretary — arrives a month after a federal judge ordered the department to complete its selection of a loan collector to put an end to a messy court battle. Windham and Performant beat out nearly 40 other bidders for contracts valued at up to $400 million, but their win may be short-lived if the losing companies fight the decision. Continue reading “Education Dept. awards debt-collection contract to company with ties to DeVos”