Vermont College “Feels the Bern” and Closes

The wife of the socialist candidate promising free college is being blamed for closing down a college in Vermont. Burlington College is going out of business, thanks to debt incurred under the leadership of its former president Jane Sanders, also known as “educator” Dr. Jane Sanders.

Alluding to the “Feel the Bern” rallying cry for the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the publication Politico noted that his wife had made a big-ticket purchase during her tenure as head of the small, private college in Vermont “and, in the end, the institution got burned.”

“Anything is Possible,” it says at the top of the Burlington College website. However, the Sanders’ socialist financial magic didn’t work at the college. It ran out of money, as socialists and their institutions usually do.

“Burlington College: Start a Fire” is the gimmicky slogan used to attract students to this unorthodox institution of higher learning. A fire sale would be more appropriate. It’s not clear how long the “Cuba Semester Abroad” program at Burlington College will continue. Officially, the college closes down on May 27.

Sanders and his wife sometimes campaign under the banner, “A Future to Believe In.” That future in higher education does not lie at Burlington College.

Yet, Sanders has been campaigning for months on the basis of giving students access to a free college education and relieving the burden of student loan debt, now estimated at $1.2 trillion nationally.

It was all a fraud—a scam—and his wife, Dr. Jane Sanders, was directly involved in the financial shenanigans. Incredibly, she was given a “golden parachute” worth $200,000 after putting the college in a precarious financial situation. Though he and his wife have a portfolio of stocks and properties worth more than $1 million, on the campaign trail Sanders has said he lives a frugal life and doesn’t care about money or status.

Interestingly, students at Burlington College could get a minor in “Media Studies,” including coursework in “media activism and social movements.” Perhaps they ought to focus their investigative talents on the wife of the socialist candidate running for the Democratic presidential nomination, a woman whose actions contributed to the destruction of an institution of higher learning.

What did Jane Sanders know and when did she know it? The same questions should also be applied to Senator Sanders.

The Jane Sanders link to the destruction of the college could not be hidden and was even highlighted in a CNN article that carried the headline, “Jane Sanders’ former college closes doors citing burden of land deal she orchestrated.” But a Sanders campaign spokesman told CNN that the campaign had “no comment at the moment.”

Suddenly, the disclosure Sanders has asked for from Hillary Clinton, in regard to her Wall Street speeches, was nowhere to be found in regard to Jane Sanders and the Burlington College debacle.

AIM had cited her involvement with the college in a previous article, “Financial Scandals Follow Socialist Millionaire Sanders.”

Back then, we said, “By any standard of fair and objective news reporting, a candidate who promises ‘free college’ to America’s young people should be asked to address the issue of his wife’s financial shenanigans almost bankrupting an institution of higher learning.”

Now that bankruptcy has become a reality, as the college is closing its campus, perhaps the major liberal media will demand accountability from the Sanders.

The Washington Post headline, “Vermont college that Bernie Sanders’s wife once led is closing,” did not quite grasp the magnitude of what had happened under Jane Sanders’ leadership. But the story did not beat around the bush, noting that Burlington College was closing under “the crushing weight” of debt incurred during her presidency.

A Politico story admitted, “The closure is directly related to a big-ticket purchase that Jane Sanders spearheaded during her tenure.” Vanity Fair headlined its story, “Bernie Sanders’s wife drove Burlington College into the ground with a costly expansion.”

Brady C. Toensing, a partner with the law firm of diGenova & Toensing, has filed a legal complaint with federal authorities requesting an investigation into apparent federal bank fraud committed by Ms. Sanders.

At the news conference announcing the closure, a terse “no comment” was offered by the college in regard to official investigations of the circumstances leading to the closure. “I have no comment” was also offered about the role of Jane Sanders in the debacle.

The left-wing magazine The Nation interviewed Jane Sanders about her work as an “educator,” asking what she would do in this field if her husband were elected president. “I see my overall role, if I had the honor, as listening to the voices here in America that are not being heard and putting them out there for people to hear, but also researching and learning some of the best practices everywhere else and bringing them back here and letting them be heard as well,” she said. “Kind of a megaphone.”

Nothing was said about the Burlington College debacle in the interview, which was conducted by a volunteer in the Bernie Sanders for president campaign.

Let’s see if the media “megaphone” holds Mrs. Sanders responsible for depriving students in Vermont of the college education they were promised.

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism, and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org

Photo by Gage Skidmore

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