Bill Clinton’s job with a forprofit college draws scrutiny.
While much of the controversy about Hillary Clinton’s State Department tenure has involved donations to her family’s charity, the Clinton Foundation, a close examination of a deal with Laureate International Universities reveals how Bill Clinton leveraged the couple’s connections during that time to enhance their personal wealth — potentially providing another avenue for supporters to gain access to the family.
After an August 2009 State Department dinner in which then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton added Laureate founder Doug Becker to the guest list, Bill Clinton was hired by the for-profit college company as a consultant and “honorary chancellor,” paying him $17.6 million over five years until the contract ended in 2015 as Hillary Clinton launched her campaign for president.
There is no evidence that Laureate received special favors from the State Department in direct exchange for hiring Bill Clinton, but the Baltimorebased company had much to gain from an association with a globally connected ex-president and, indirectly, the United States’ chief diplomat. Being included at the 2009 dinner, shoulder to shoulder with leaders from internationally renowned universities for a discussion about the role of higher education in global diplomacy, provided an added level of credibility for the business as it pursued an aggressive expansion strategy overseas, occasionally tangling with foreign regulators.
In addition to his wellestablished career as a paid speaker, which began soon after he left the Oval Office, Bill Clinton took on new consulting work starting in 2009, at the same time Hillary Clinton assumed her post at the State Department. All told, with his consulting, writing and speaking fees, Bill Clinton was paid $65.4 million during Hillary Clinton’s four years as secretary of state.
Details of Bill Clinton’s compensation are found in the couple’s tax returns, which were made public by his wife’s presidential campaign.
The Laureate arrangement illustrates the extent to which the Clintons mixed their charitable work with their private and political lives. Becker, for example, donated to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and last year donated $2,700 to her current effort. Laureate has given between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to the charity’s website, and made millions of dollars of charitable commitments through the Clinton Global Initiative, an arm of the foundation that arranged for corporations to make public pledges to their own philanthropic projects.
Aides to Clinton and representatives of Laureate characterized the arrangement as one that advanced global access to education.
Angel Urena, a Clinton spokesman, said the former president “engaged with students at Laureate’s campuses worldwide and advised Laureate’s leadership on social responsibility and increasing access to higher education.”
Laureate had grown rapidly under Becker and has in recent years been largely focused on growing internationally. The company has said in regulatory filings that it enrolls more than 1 million students on 87 campuses in 28 countries. It has five U.S. campuses.
Laureate hired Clinton as scrutiny of private colleges was increasing in the United States and internationally. Congress in 2010 launched an investigation into for-profit schools, which critics say profit from needy students while making often grand but unfulfilled promises of valuable degrees.