Burlington College Closes Due To “Crushing Weight of Debt” Acquired By Jane Sanders

Burlington College announced today that it will close on May 27 after it found itself unable to recover from “the crushing weight of the debt” incurred under Jane O’Meara Sanders, the college’s former president and wife of Bernie Sanders.

I just want to remind everyone that this is the woman Sanders trusts with his finances. Clearly not a great idea, and one wonders how these two are qualified to run a country when Jane ran a college into the ground.

So Jane took out a $10 million loan to buy up some land. She claimed she had $2 million in pledged donations, though only $279,000 materialized. It seems pretty clear she was run out of town for her gross mismanagement, but she still kept her $200,000 severance package. Almost the amount of donations that were secured!

The Catholic diocese is requesting that Jane be looked into for fraud. It sounds like she really should be investigated.

As Ms. Sanders pursued financing for the land acquisition, she repeatedly said that Burlington College had received more than $2 million in fundraising commitments and pledges, according to numerous records.

But in fiscal year 2011, Burlington College raised only $279,000—though the college had earlier claimed to have secured $1.2 million in confirmed pledges.

That sounds like fraud to me. If you go get a home loan and claim that you're making way more than you are and have more assets than you do, you're on still on the hook and essentially defrauded the bank.

Remember too that Jane was said to have gotten this job because she married Bernie, and the people in charge of hiring thought it would be beneficial to have his influence.

I want to note that I didn't come up with the title, it wasn't a fat joke.

Link

Can't they just borrow other people's money?

Surely this can be fixed by taking it from the wealthy?

OK ... socialism?

The smart play would have been to issue bonds.

Even Socialists screw up sometimes !!!

I wonder if Crooked Hillary has some friends on that college board.
Timing on this is very suspicious.

Aren't these the folks that blasted Trump for building his BILLIONS with a loan of a million?

I have a feeling that there are WAY more skeletons in Sanders closet than we realize. He's been such an ineffectual politician and remained so unknown there hasn't been reason to look into him.

Clinton can't touch Bernie...so she's using her friends to go after Sanders' wife in order to hurt HIM.

I'm not defending the financial aspects of the accounting...but the timing of the announcement of the closing the college NOW...along with placing the blame firmly at Jane Sanders' feet smells like something straight out of the Crooked Clinton playbook.

a reply to: IAMTAT

Dude I'm pretty sure things line up right and Jane was just a massive idiot with her finances. After that it was just a matter of time.

But I do think it's a good idea to point out that Hillary is crooked and totally would pull strings.

No more leftists in the government.

I'm not a Sanders voter...but I believe he is trying to take the high road in this primary...Clinton, on the other hand lives on the low road...with her trolls living under the bridges and Soros paying out for dirty tricks at every intersection.

a reply to: Domo1
She left that position 5 years ago.

a reply to: ugmold

What are you trying to say?

a reply to: Domo1

Doing some light reading into the school it looked like a compete poop show. With only 70 students enrolled it was bound for failure, well it clearly was on that road to begin with. I guess Jane bought up land to expand upon and hope to attract more people to enroll but it failed. As far as her being investigated for fraud the only source I can find reporting is the unknown Heat Street and it's unknown because it literally just launched last month but fun fact, it's owned by News Corp. So they may be pushing click bait to get page views.

But speaking of college and fraud, Trump is set to go to trial for his fraudulent Trump University November 28, after the election of course.

Also sad, the Catholic Church sold the land because they needed money to settle a sex abuse law suit.

Ouch, and this story is from one of the most liberal papers around, the Washington Post...

Burlington College, a small Vermont private school once led by the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, said Monday it will close later this month, citing “the crushing weight” of debt incurred during her presidency.
www.washingtonpost.com...

a reply to: Gazrok

To be fair, the Washington Post is very much in the pocket of Hillary. You'll be hard pressed to find one article critical of her. Pretty much every article they've published about Sanders had been a hit piece. Even when the article is about him succeeding they attempt to diminish that success.

a reply to: Domo1

I like the part of the article that says this is recycled garbage.

In 2004, Sanders was named President of Burlington College, a private, non-profit liberal arts school founded in 1972 in Vermont.[1][2] In 2008, some students in the college Student Government Association petitioned for a meeting after a professor Sanders had hired was not reappointed. The college Board of Trustees held a meeting and agreed to review policies and procedures, including adopting a formal grievance policy, but also voted to reaffirm its support of Sanders, "The board is quite confident in Jane’s leadership, and we stand by her."[11] In 2010, Sanders oversaw the purchase of property formerly owned and occupied by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington. The College based the real estate purchase on projections that enrollment would rapidly grow from fewer than 200 to as many as 750 students, with a corresponding income increase from tuition fees.[12] The college's finances, which have been in a precarious position since 1972, "took a turn for the worse in 2010" when the $10 million lakefront property was purchased.[12] The US Department of Education rated the financial health of the College at 2.3 or higher on a scale of minus 1 to 3.0, for the five fiscal years prior to Sanders' departure in 2011, but by fiscal year 2013 the rating had dropped to 0.4 ("not financially responsible").[13] With the College unable to collect on some promised pledges after Sanders had resigned, and the enrollment increase plans failing, the Diocese settled the loan debt with the College in 2015 for $996,000 less than the agreed amount, and with $1 million of the repayment made in shares of an unidentified LLC company.[14]

In 2011, the college trustees, while crediting Sanders with acquiring a permanent campus for the 200‑student college, called a meeting for September 2011 and accepted Sanders's resignation. "We reached a decision which I believe is best for both the College and me," Sanders said after the meeting, "The board and I have different visions for the future and that’s perfectly fine."[2][15][16] Sanders's salary as President was $160,000, with a contract for the position through 2013; on departure she received the title of President Emeritus and a $200,000 severance. During her tenure as President, Burlington had an endowment of "about $150,000",[2] and fundraising revenue had increased from about $25,000 when Sanders first arrived to $1.25 million (including a $1 million bequest) by 2011.[15]

In 2016, Burlington College announced it was closing its doors effective May 27, 2016 due in part to "the crushing weight of the debt incurred by the purchase of the Archdiocese property" [17]

Sanders later became a member of the Vermont Economic Development Authority.[18]

wikipedia

originally posted by: Domo1
a reply to: ugmold

What are you trying to say?

Well you can make of this what you like, she is not the Sanders that is running for President.

Shall we look at Trump's failures? He is running for President.

Atlantic City

Trump Steaks (lol)

Trump U

GoTrump.com

Trump Airlines

Trump Vodka

Trump Mortgage

Trump The Game

Trump Magazine

Trump Ice

New Jersey Generals

Tour de Trump

Trump on the Ocean

The Trump Network

Trump Network

Trump New Media

a reply to: ugmold

Well you can make of this what you like, she is not the Sanders that is running for President.

She is the Sanders that Bernie relies on to take care of his finances. That is clearly a very bad decision.

a reply to: Domo1

Unless the Sanders are going bankrupt I think they'll be just fine and if somehow Sanders becomes president do you really think Mrs. Sanders will be balancing the budget? You're looking to attack Sanders and using one weak argument to do it. Who do you support, Trump?

originally posted by: Swills
a reply to: Domo1

if somehow Sanders becomes president do you really think Mrs. Sanders will be balancing the budget?

Hey, it could happen.
Crooked Hillary just announced she was going to put Bill in charge of fixing the economy.

a reply to: Domo1

If you look into the story a bit deeper you'd find that the person to blame isn't Sanders who resigned from there 4 years ago but the new person who took her place, Christine Plunkett.
link

From everything that I keep reading Sanders Wife actually did a great job there and things were going very well. She resigned after her and the board of trustees disagreed and that is when the whole place started going down hill. Then 4 years later they are now in trouble.

So I'd say your OP is nothing but a hit piece against Sanders Wife that doesn't hold much water once you look into it a bit more. Not a shock to see something like that happening after all since the media is desperate to find something to put Sanders out of the Race. I guess they'll just have to keep trying as this one is easily exposed as a bunch of BS.

a reply to: IAMTAT

Well, she said that because she knows Dems who love Bill and what he did with the economy in the 90s will drool to know he'll have another shot at it.

Jane Sanders, on the other hand, no one is drooling over.