20 CommentsBwog returned home to find the following announcement from Director of Media Relations Robert Hornsby in its inbox:
“Last month, Columbia promptly brought information received about David Charlow’s relationship with former preferred lender Student Loan Xpress to the Attorney General’s attention and suspended Mr. Charlow from any engagement in the affairs of the University. As of today, Mr. Charlow has now been dismissed from his employment at Columbia College.
We have been working cooperatively with the Attorney General’s office to provide documents and materials related to Mr. Charlow’s tenure as the head of financial aid for the undergraduate College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science. As these matters are now appropriately in the hands of the Attorney General, we cannot comment further on Mr. Charlow at this time.”
Charlow follows on the heels of the UTexas guy, and will add nicely to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s trophy case. Spec has more here, and the New York Post (they are useful sometimes) has some serious dirt here. Our favorite quote:
“I want by its design to lead the students to [the] best decision in an idiot-proof way,” wrote Charlow to the CEO of Student Loan XPress, the company that earned him over $100,000 in stock sales.
Who’s the idiot now, David?
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20 Comments
@jaded again Dammit bring charlow back. Columbia probably wasn’t paying him enough for the kick ass job he was doing anyway. Financial Services suuuuuucks big time now. No one knows wtf they are doing and they pretend like it’s the student’s fault. Going to the financial aid office should NEVER make you feel worse about your financial situation. And with Charlow gone thayt is what is happening. Charlow was capable of amazing string pulling and red tape bs cutting. I miss him.
@vitriol yay me!
@bill o'reilly looks like cnn has something to say about it, too:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/05/22/student.loans.columbia.reut/index.html
@wirc Pixelicous!
@bah i thought people would complain less now that it’s the summer. nope. now i am metacomplaining! AHHH!
@insider how come nobody’s picking up on the fact that Cuomo’s assistant AG, Benjamin Lawsky is C’92?
@okay, let’s keep him then. He clearly has your best interests at heart.
@that was in response to #3
@bleh I used student loan xpress. it was easy, and not at all extortionist. misleading? yes. unfair competition? probably. to the point at which it was disproportionately beneficial to the company in a way that fucked over consumers? no.
@but... “As of today, Mr. Charlow has now been dismissed from his employment at Columbia College.”
what about SEAS? Does this apply to anything he does for students in any way affiliated with Columbia?
@feel better read more….
Mr. Charlow’s tenure as the head of financial aid for the undergraduate College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
@still it’s that whole CC bias thing all over again
@really? Get over it.
@yes deal with the fact that
its not their fault that “Yale College” “Harvard College” “Dartmouth College” are catch all affiliations for all undergrads at those schools, but the same convention doesnt apply at CU.
most outsiders don’t realize that columbia is constructed convolutedly and by referring to undergraduates as students of the College at the university will somehow have major political implications that touch on deep seated insecurities in all demographics of the undergrad population.
@Well The CC deans administer lots of undergraduate programs that aren’t limited to CC students. It’s not just a useful shorthand.
@Wrong you’re sadly mistaken.
You’re referring to Colombo et. al. They form the “Division of Student Affairs”- which serves CC and SEAS (undergrad as well as graduate I think.) Student affairs runs admissions, residential life, financial aid, advising, the scholars program, academic success programs, student development and activities, etc. they play a much larger role in your day to day life at columbia than your school does.
this is probably part of the reason that CC students are a little insecure. CC itself plays little to no role in students lives. there are no weekly emails from quigley. there’s little to no CC identity or pride. (then again, CC takes shit from all sides for doing or saying anything that seems exclusionary to other schools- it becomes kind of like trying to form a “white students organization” since we’re supposedly in the majority).
@Goondolences Congratulations, you managed to work in silly ideas about reverse racisim into a topic that literally has absolutely nothing to do with race (which is a truly rare topic indeed). I salute you sir.
Everyone else, we made it from 1-10 comments without mentioning the scepter of reverse racism which is currently haunting…uh…America, I guess. This is a completely unacceptable number, and I suggest you turn it around as soon as possible.
@relax and take a suppository. forgive the poor choice in analogies. the point still stands- CC does a poor job of building identity and spirit in its students (something SEAS, and even Barnard, excel at), though a barrier to such efforts is the furor over anything perceived as “exclusionary” by the other schools.
@Whoa Whoa Whoa Are you implying that all Engineers are of a different race than CC students?
You, sir, are only somewhat right.
@ahaha brilliant