Don't worry. Like all good CEOs, she got a golden parachute.
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.
As Heat Street reported last month, the college almost immediately fell short on its financial obligations as fundraising pledges and commitments Ms. Sanders cited in the loan agreements never materialized.
Less than a year after leading Burlington College into massive debt, Ms. Sanders resigned, taking with her a $200,000 severance package.
Sanders had arguably committed fraud in the process. But that's just the beginning of the disaster at Burlington.
Many students took out tens of thousands of dollars in loans to attend, but their investment was questionable: Only a third of former Burlington College students earn more than the average person with a high school diploma.
The college accepts more than four out of five applicants, according to U.S. News and World Report. However, 76 percent of Burlington students failed to graduate in six years or less. But 73 percent are paying down their student loans, a rate that is higher than the national average and an indicator that many students are not in financial trouble, despite low earnings after college.
On what basis did Jane get the job, you might ask? Guess.
Jane Sanders took the helm in 2004 after having a successful year as interim president at Goddard College, in rural Plainfield, Vermont, and working in various roles for her husband.
Emphasis on that last part.
"(Jane Sanders holds a a doctorate in Leadership and Policy Studies from the Union Institute, a nontraditional school that critics sometimes call a diploma mill."
And the nepotism train just kept on running.
Her daughter Carina Driscoll, Sanders’ stepdaughter, also drew a salary from the campaign. She was paid more than $65,000 between 2000 and 2004, according to her mother.
After working for the campaign, the senator’s wife would come under scrutiny for expenditures at Burlington College, where she was hired as president in 2004. While she led the school, it paid six-figure sums to her daughter and the son of a family friend.
Of course it did. We need to do something about all that greed on Wall Street.