Vox Sentences: One of the US’s biggest for-profit colleges is dead. Thanks, Obama.

In DC, an investigation shuts down a for-profit college. In Florida, a "college" (well, "university") investigation was shut down ... for profit?

More like Bye-TT Technical Institute

Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images

• ITT Technical Institute, a chain of for-profit colleges where 35,000 students were starting classes this month, announced Wednesday that it's shutting down instead. [LAT / Jim Puzzanghera and Ronald D. White]
• The proximate cause is the decision made by the US Department of Education two weeks ago to prohibit ITT Tech from enrolling new students if they were on federal financial aid. [Inside Higher Ed / Ashley A. Smith]
• The federal government has been ratcheting up its monitoring of ITT Tech for a few years — two different agencies have looked into the prospect that the college was urging students to take on unaffordable levels of debt. [Mother Jones / Yasmeen Qureshi, Sarah Gross, and Lisa Desai]
• It's part of a broader fight the Obama administration has been waging against the business model of for-profit colleges; it's probed both how those colleges make their money and whether the degrees they offer students are ultimately worthwhile. [Vox / Libby Nelson]
• Tressie McMillan Cottom, a sociologist who's studied for-profit colleges, summarizes her findings about ITT Tech: It failed to solve "the problem all for-profit colleges face: how do you produce prestige that shields you from inquiries that undermine legitimacy without sacrificing profit?" [Tressie McMillan Cottom]
• So what happens to ITT Tech's thousands of students — and their $500 million in debt? Individual students have the option to transfer credits, or apply for discharges and maybe get some money back. [Department of Education]
• It's an indication of how little ITT Tech's credits are worth that financial experts recommend students take the money and run. [NBC News / Ben Popken]

Donald Trump is a man of his word

Johnny Louis/WireImage

• The scandal of Donald Trump's curiously timed donation to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi isn't new, but it's starting to get more attention. Here's what you need to know:
• In 2013, Florida was looking into joining a New York state lawsuit accusing Trump University of defrauding its students. Ultimately, Bondi announced it wouldn't — and Trump cut her a $25,000 check four days later. (A similar thing happened in Texas.) [CBS News]
• In June, Bondi told the AP she'd actually called Trump to ask for a donationbefore she announced she wasn't suing him. [AP / Jeff Horwitz, Gary Fineout, and Michael Biesecker]
• Trump denied Monday that he'd spoken with Bondi, but his campaign basically acknowledged some conversation happened (though they deny any quid pro quo). [AP / Michael Biesecker]
• Trump didn't just donate to Bondi himself, though. In March 2014, he held a fundraiser for her at Mar-a-Lago... [Orlando Sentinel / Scott Maxwell]
• ...at a rate substantially cheaper than the rate he's charging the Republican National Committee to use the resort during the campaign. [Huffington Post / Christina Wilkie, Ben Walsh, Dana Liebelson, and Sam Stein]
• But look. This is not surprising. During the primary, Trump literally bragged about getting politicians to do what he wanted by donating to them. The Bondi scandal is just evidence that he put some of his money where his mouth was. [NRO / Andrew C. McCarthy]

Headphones, jacked

Stephen Lam/Getty Images

• Apple held one of its regular big events unveiling new products today. The Verge has the full rundown of what got introduced. [The Verge / Adi Robertson, Kwame Opam, and Sean O'Kane]
• Of particular interest: a subtle revamp of the Apple Watch that appeals to casual runners... [Vox / Libby Nelson]
• ...and, in doing so, signals a quiet acknowledgment from Apple that the initial premise of the Apple Watch (that everyone really needed a thing on their wrist connected to the internet) was wrong. [Vox / Timothy B. Lee]
• But the real headline is that Apple is getting rid of a headphone plugin on the iPhone 7, instead using wireless "air buds" (which actually look surprisingly capable of staying in your ears while moving). [Natalie DiBlasio via Twitter]
• Apple has a history of killing technologies by removing adapters from its products (remember the floppy disk?), so it's possible the 140-year(!) history of wired headphones is at an end. [TechCrunch / Haje Jan Kamps]
• This is bad news for women, who are now at risk of losing the single best way to signal disinterest in random men on the street. [The Telegraph / Charlotte Lytton]
• (This is a reminder that all of your new iPhones are adding to the depth of a toxic lake in Inner Mongolia.) [BBC / Tim Maughan]

Miscellaneous

• If you read about one local political controversy today, make it the fight over DC's "sex barbershop." [Washington City Paper / Will Sommer]
• Google is attempting to target anti-ISIS videos — "clips like testimonials from former extremists, imams denouncing ISIS’s corruption of Islam, and surreptitiously filmed clips inside the group’s dysfunctional caliphate" — to users with search histories that suggest they're considering joining. [Wired / Andy Greenberg]
• Bill de Blasio has succeeded in creating universal pre-K for 4-year-olds in New York: including the children of the rich. [The Atlantic / Dana Goldstein]
• Seattle's NIMBYish restrictions on small apartments are a disaster for affordable housing. [Sightline / David Neiman]
• Even if you think immigration hurts American workers, there's no way a border wall makes any financial sense. [NYT / Eduardo Porter]

Verbatim

• "I’ve always felt a lot in common with Sisyphus. I’m always rolling that rock, man. One way or another, I’m always rolling that rock." [Bruce Springsteen to Vanity Fair / David Kamp]
• "An apple, cored out so that it can be used as a pipe, sits on a table. Jacob thinks, 'He understood what Tamir meant, about wanting to fuck it. It wasn’t a sexual longing, but an existential one — to enter one’s truth.' With all due respect: What the hell?" [New Republic / Michelle Dean]
• "Our culture treats awkwardness — a transient, skin-deep, situational side effect — as if it’s a fundamental trait that defines a person." [NY Mag / Heather Havrilesky]
• "I hope your girlfriend breaks up with you as soon as possible. I hope she invents time travel so that she can break up with you before you tried to fob her off with 'It’s not about the money, it’s the principle of the thing, and the principle of the thing is that I don’t think I should be held responsible when my actions have consequences I don’t like,' then travels further back in time to convince your ex-wife to leave you sooner." [Slate / Mallory Ortberg]
• "We all call him 'Director Bong,' which, at first you’re like, 'That’s creepy and cultish,' and then within five minutes, you’re like, 'Well, actually, he should be known as Director Bong.'” [Alison Pill to A.V. Club / Alex McCown-Levy]

Watch this: What people miss about the gender wage gap

It's more complex than women earning 79 cents for every dollar a man makes. [YouTube / Sarah Kliff, Liz Scheltens, and Gina Barton]

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