Don Graham funnels scholarship money to for-profit Kaplan U

Former Washington Post Publisher Don Graham has raised $81 million for a college-tuition scholarship program for undocumented immigrant students — and attracted gold-plated donors like Bill Gates, Mike Bloomberg and Bill Ackman to the cause.

But Graham has raised some eyebrows by quietly sending 5 percent of the scholarship students to his for-profit Kaplan University schools, The Post has learned exclusively.

The potential conflict of interest — sending 40 of the 800 winners of “TheDream.us” scholarships to his own schools since September — is not sitting well with some supporters, who weren’t aware of the money flow.

“I didn’t do this to subsidize the Graham family,” said one supporter, who requested anonymity because the benefactor still believes “Graham is doing this to help the kids.”

The Graham charity pays full college tuition for low-income immigrants who don’t have access to other forms of aid.

Graham told The Post he has made it clear to donors that “no one would profit from the program.”

Kaplan, owned by Graham Holdings, loses money educating the scholarship students because it slashes tuition rates to accommodate the program’s demand that a four-year education cost $25,000 or less, a Kaplan spokesman said.

But Graham critics — who stress that he was among the most influential opponents of reforms aimed at for-profit colleges — suspect the funneling of Dreamer scholarship students to Kaplan is also a ploy to help his struggling schools.

“Kaplan is dying for new students,” said education advocate David Halperin, who calls himself a “strong supporter” of the scholarships.

“But there are plenty of much more affordable online colleges, and plenty not under investigation by multiple state attorneys general,” he said. “It is a clear conflict of interest to found a charity and then have that charity send money to a business that you own.”

So far, Kaplan is slated to receive less than $1 million from TheDream.us — a small piece of Kaplan’s $1 billion in higher-education revenues last year.
But enrollment is down, falling 13 percent over the past two years, as Kaplan settled some investigations and closed some schools.

Three state probes are continuing.

To keep federal loans under the 90 percent-of-total-revenue limit, Kaplan was “aggressively recruiting” students who don’t qualify for those loans, according to a 2012 Senate report.

Meanwhile, the scholarship program, started in September, made an appeal this week for an additional $30 million in donations, after Graham and Ackman said they had each pledged an additional $15 million to TheDream.us.

Ackman declined to comment on the program. Neither Gates nor Bloomberg could be reached for comment.

So far, 80 schools around the country have agreed to join the program, including New York City’s CUNY system, which has taken 200 students.