Student loans owed by 1300 former students of corinthian colleges, now out of business. For some of these colleges, the biggest cash cows are vets who get dollars under the g. I. Bill to pay for education. 1800 colleges have received more than 20 billion tax dollars. Many of the forprofit colleges getting those billions cost more, have higher dropout rates, and leave many with no useful degree. As a u. S. Marine, Brian Babcock fought on the front lines of iraq, including the second battle of falluja in 2004. His post military plan police work. He used his g. I. Bill money to pursue a degree in criminal justice at itt tech. Idt tech was always in the back of my mind. Itt tech was there after i left military life. Sharyl babcock said that itt tech promised that Police Departments everywhere would recognize his degree. He said the 70,000 exceeded the g. I. Bill allotment. We apply to 2223 Police Departments. All of the said that they did not recognize itts degrees for the credit. Sharyl what thoughts went through your head . I was a angry. I had spent all this money on Student Loans and it turns out the degree would have been worthless. Sharyl it is a story told by thousands of vets who attended forprofit colleges, where dropout, default on loans, or graduate in dire debt without a useful degree. Of eight forprofits, seven have been targets of inquiry for possible violations, including deceptive or misleading recruiting. Together, they receive nearly one billion tax dollars over two school years. One of those companies is different universit devry university. Chris was assigned to team the sales team to use who were not suited for college. Reminded me of the film glengarrylen ross. Bricks a Corporate Sales s manager is brought into improve the sales core. They are sitting out there it was similar at the company. Sharyl 15 cam if team cammo dared to let vets delay while in combat, they would be called on the carpet. They wanted to continue to be paid. Sharyl even if they were in a combat zone. Yes. Managements guiding wisdom was get their ass in class. Tactics that work. Asks about costs and benefits, but cannot get direct answers. I ask these questions and i cannot get answers. They are trying to tie me in and sharyl devry officials declined an on camera interview, but said they have a long history of serving veterans and military personnel dating back to the 1940s. We offer quality academics and flexibility. Former congressman Steve Gunderson leads the maine trade group. That is a problem. Sharyl he says for profits are competitors. I have never before seen a situation where a sector is the target of attacks for ideological reasons. There are people who do not believe private sector all to be involved in the design and delivery of education. Sharyl fair enough, but is there any doubt in your mind that some schools have used there is no doubt in my mind that there are bad schools that there are bad schools at every sector of Higher Education who have engaged in Inappropriate Conduct for various reasons, whether it be athletics or whether it be admissions or it be something else. Sharyl he says the industry is improving. A Government AccountabilityOffice Report found that forprofits actually be Public Schools in one area higher graduation rates. With billions flowing to forprofits under investigation, president obama dispatched a warning at Fort Stewart Army base about any forprofits that may be praying on the troops. It is not right. They are trying to swindle and hoodwink you. They dont care about you. They care about the cash. Sharyl as federal scrutiny surged, the industry has countered reth washington lobbyists and campaign cash. Have poured 10 million into Campaign Contributions and spent 41 million on lobbying. That is how you really win friends and influence people on capitol hill. The forprofit colleges and universities have friends in high places. Sharyl you think they are bought and paid for on this issue . I would say they are influenced by it. Sharyl senator dick durbin has pushed one bill after another to fight forprofit College Fraud to see the bills get watered down and voted down. If the schools that are enticing the kids into loans for educations that are worthless have some skin in the game, some responsibility for default, they would think twice about it. But they could care less. Sharyl it turns out taxpayers have the most skin in the game. In june, the federal government said it would forgive loans for students at corinthian college, for 3. 5 billion. Corinthian shutdown in may amid fraud allegations, which the company denied. In may come of the federal vernment charged itt tech with fraud, allegiging it concealed Financial Information from investors. Itt is fighting charges, but declined our interview request. Gunderson says he doubts babcocks idt degree would have really been useless. I am willing to say that if he graduated from an accredited criminal justice program, there are Many Police Agencies that would hire him. Maybe not the one that he wanted to go to, but there are many in evidence all across the country. Sharyl back caught give up on the itt and on police work. He is focused on warning other i think it is a shame that they prey on men and women who volunteer to protect this country and that earned a benefit for their service and then itt and the other forprofit schools are trying to take that. Sharyl senator durbin and other forprofit College Critics recently accused of the department of education of going easy on one company edm c. They agree to a 100 million settlement, but admitted no wrongdoing, which makes it more difficult for student debt to be forgiven. I had, from soccer fields to professional football sharyl beneath the green on as many as 12,000 athletic fields across the country, instead of dirt is a Synthetic Material called black crumb rubber. Many athletes, parents, and environmental groups have raised questions a about the connection between the Synthetic Turf and cancer. Those questions have gone unanswered and there are new questions about whether Government Agencies have failed in protecting the public. Josie sturman has this report. Josie as a former professional and college goalkeeper, steve has spent more than half his life protecting the goal. He is more interested in protecting the kids and athletes i would like to be part of the solution and helping people move away from crumb rubber. Josie crumb rubber is used and is created from groundup tires. Powers spent years diving onto crumb rubber before getting cancer. It turns out that the field they used to play on and coach on or a factor in getting cancer , that is a tough pill to swallow. Josie amy griffin is a soccer coach at the university of washington and is keeping a list including more than 160 people, including 80 goalies. They all have one thing in common. They played sports on crumb rubber fields and they got cancer. Exponentially. We are dealing with a very small sampng. Millns of people have played josie the Synthetic Turf counsels mike cob turn to more than 50 studies that show that crumb rubber is not a hazard. I have seen not one flotilla of evidence that it is not safe. Josie critics say the evidence has been piecemeal. No comprehensive federal study has ever been done to evaluate the Health Impacts of crumb rubber. Do you think the government has failed the American People . Absolutely. Josie Nancy Alderman has been fighting for a crumb rubber ban since 2006. We, give us 10 years. We are going to start to see cancer. Josie she said a yale study supports why. 96 chemicals were found at tire in phils. The government and federal cancer experiment wtihith a whole generation of children and athletes. Josie dr. David brown, formerly with the cdc, says Health Agencies should have flagged the potential problem after hearing of as few as five cases potentially linked to crumb rubber. There are enough to make you cry. We missed it, we did not fight hard enough. Josie the fight is changing. In a congressional hearing, the Consumer Product safety commissions chairman reversed course on crumb rubber. Backtracking from his 2008 statement. Safe to play on means something to parents that i dont think we intended to convey or that we should have conveyed. Josie they want more testing and lawmakers are demanding it. Wheel into ourselves and our children. Cpsc asking for independent federal testing of crumb rubber. We want to really authoritative, existing, and accurate study to be done to know the truth. They should not fear the truth. We should know it. Josie the Environmental Protection agency said it previously looked at crumb rubber, just not comprehensively. They are supposed to go forward with a planned california study that could not settle the debate. We found documents that raised questions over whether the epa should be involved, including this from a 2008 workgroup. The epa involved in pitching crumb rubber as a way to dispose of tires. An espn report found a memo from the apa repor that said so far, no response. People like steve powers are tired of waiting for answers. He does not care who does the testing. His goal is Beating Cancer for good and getting the feds to stop passing the ball. A Central Agency needs to take a hard look at this. Im shocked they are dragging their feet in not doing so. How can they not . Sharyl the epa says it is crafting its response to the house committees letter, although the deadline passed more than a month ago. The Consumer Product safety commissions chairman is also working to his response to the call for independent testing. If Congress Wants that kind of Congress Needs to provide resources and funding. Coming up, it has been a wild year in the media. Sharyl you may already know there is something of a crisis of confidence in the media today. According to a poll this fall, four in 10 americans say they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the mass media to the news fairly and accurately. This ties historic lows set in 2014 and 2012. Among the younger audience, the confidence is even lower. Only 36 say they have a fair amount of trust in the media. Joining us now is howie kur, to give us his top three picks of how the media got it wrong in 2015. Brian williams and his episode of misstating danger comes in at number three. Howie it is still incomprehensible to me how brian williams, who was in danger in a felt the need to exaggerate and embellish things that were not true. Sharyl lets take a look at how he told the tale and how it evolved. On the ground, we learned that chinook ahead of us was almost blown out of the sky. Two of our four helicopters were hit by ground fire. Including the one i was in. No kidding . When the helicopter i was in was forced down after being hit by an rpg. Sharyl he went from being behind a helicopter attack to being in the helicopter attacks. That cost him his job. Howie this was a guy at the top of his profession. Number one nightly newscast. He went through a series of exaggerations, not just about iraq. It is still hard to understand why he felt he needed to make the story even better. Sharyl number two. Minimizing isis. Howie we have the attention when isis was doing those terrible and awful beheadings of journalists, this was the number one story and then came almost a year in which we got distracted by other things, the campaigns, violence at, and terrorism slipped off the medi radar. It was not at the top of the newscast or the front pages. Suddenly, the paris attacks and San Bernardino and the journalists are asking, why didnt you take this threat seriously enough . Sharyl i would argue that we wait too long in the media to get our cues from powers that be. Howie we react to disaster after the fact. Sharyl the number one biggest media mistake of 2015 misjudging donald trump. Howie this might be the biggest political media mistake of the last halfcentury. To completely and totally mock and minimizes chances of becoming a serious president ial candidate after he was shooting constant refrain by the pundits. It was just a summer fling, he was going to implode, and yet, he is such a media menace. He made them look bad. That was reflected in the misjudgment. Sharyl and reiterating some of the publics just trust in what the news med is saying versus what they are happening on the ground. Howie this is what the media cannot understand. When he would call a journalist, we have lost a lot of trust in this business. Sharyl thanks so much. Howie gooto see you. A look at a year of infamy in sharyl as we say goodbye to 2015, it is worth noting that it was quite a year for taxpayer waste. Politicians just seem to give on keep on giving. Not your money, tax dollars. The National Debt is skyrocketing upwards of 18 trillion. As we prepare to root out more stories in 2016, we thought we of our favorite examples. Number five, Congress Questions 1. 8 million tax dollars spent on homeland workers on paid administrative leave. The Government Accountability office estimates it cost taxpayers 3. 1 billion over three years. Number four, who could forget the state department making a generous gift of 250,000 tax dollars to pay for 24 pakistani kids to attend space camp in america. Number three, a handful of u. S. Workers in afghanistan were treated to the gift of life in these luxury villas courtesy of the Inspector General said almost all of that money was wasted. The workers could have lived at a military base or embassy for next to nothing. Number two, while u. S. Vets suffer long waits for medical care system bought itself a gift of art with 6. 3 million tax dollars. It included an impressive display on the side of a parking garage impressive if you know morse code. Coming up in first place at number one, there was this unwanted gift. 36 million tax dollars for a u. S. Military building in afghanistan known as 64k. The marine commander running the surge said, i dont want it, i dont need it, dont build it. Two other generals above him said the same thing, dont build it, we dont need it to we already had a headquarters. It is a waste of money. Sharyl unfortunately, they built it anyway. 3 million for audio video electronics. A halfmillion dollars for a vi video teleconference suite. Can you explain the mindset on a project that no one wants anyway . And again. You have the money, spend it. That is the problem not only in afghanistan and with the military. It is a problem with the entire government. Once money is appropriated, you just spend it. Sharyl that building was never occupied and the Inspector General says it will probably eventually blowdown in the desert. Next week, more from the Inspector General. These aging aircraft were part of a halfllion dollar boondoggle in afghanistan that was so outrageous even the spector general was shocked when he happened to stumble across them. Approximately 600 million for 20 planes that dont work, never worked, couldnt be used, were poorly maintained, and were eventually turned into scrap. Sharyl the incredible story of an Afghan Air Force that never left the ground. That is next sunday on full that is all for this week. Thanks for watching. Im sharyl attkisson. Until next time, we will be searching for more stories that hold powers accountable. Here in vineland, new jersey where progresso light soups are made, ll never give up our cheddar, our cream, and especially our bacon. So we figured out a way to add rich ingredients like this into 22 light soups, all with 100 calories or less per serving