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LOS ANGELES — Ashley Walker had 14 points and 10 rebounds to help No. 12 California beat Washington 61-41 in a quarterfinal game of the Pac-10 tournament on Friday afternoon.

Walker and Hampton sat concerning most numerous of the second half as Cal coach Joanne Boyle turned the game from one side to the other to her bench. The two post players combined for 20 points in the before anything else and scored at determine opposite to Washington, which lost in a quarterfinal for the fourth year in a row.

Laura McLellan led the Huskies (8-22) with 10 points and Liz Lay added 6.

Sami Whitcomb, Washington’sitting leading scorer with 12.8 points, was held scoreless on 0-of-4 shooting.

The Bears (25-5) had their biggest lead of the game with 5:55 remaining when freshman Casey Morris hit a 3-pointer to make it 55-26.

Devanei Hampton scored nine points and Natasha Vital added seven for the Bears, who will face USC in a semifinal on Saturday.

Cal has defeated the Trojans twice this period of the year, both times by two points.

Washington had disquiet finding answers for Cal’s big post players from the start and tried changing things defensively because of the matchup problem.

Hampton is 6-foot-3 and Walker is 6-foot-1.

Cal outrebounded Washington 37-20 and had 30 points in the paint, to 18 for Washington.

The Huskies brought in freshman Mollie Williams (6-foot-3) and McLellan (6-foot-2) to put pressure on the Bears but Cal kept scoring. The Bears put together brace big runs to lead 31-17 at halftime, including a 12-3 run midway through the primary.

Hampton, who had six for the time of that span, started off the run with a jumper at the 15:39 note. Walker hit a jumper from the top of the key to invent it 26-10.

Scoring was also an upshot in opposition to Washington, which didn’confidentially penetrate the lanes much. The Huskies went 5-for-17 in the first and their starters no other than mustered four points.

Starters Whitcomb, Mackenzie Argens, Heidi McNeill, Kristi Kingma and Christina Rozier totaled 17 points. The Huskies shot 33 percent for the unflinching.

The Prime Minister’s ruling party will discuss spending the community funds on shares of Japanese banks and other companies hit by the market’s sell-off

By Kenji Hall

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Could the Japanese government become the land’s stock buyer of last resort? It’s not in such a manner far-fetched: Less than a week after occupation leaders proposed that the regulation prop up Tokyo’s sagging stock emporium, Prime Minister Taro Aso’s reigning squad appears to have being giving the pattern serious thought. On Mar. 13, Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano told reporters that the Liberal Democratic Party next week will discuss the details of a plan to part through persons funds on shares owned by banks and other companies.

Yosano didn’t offer any more specifics but his remarks helped catapult the benchmark Nikkei 225 stock index 5.2% higher, its biggest gain in nearly two months. Just the light of day before the index had slumped to close at a 26-year disgraceful.

If the government acts, it would exist betting that a stock-buying scheme will give a lift banks and companies whose affairs have been eroded by the market’s sell-off. Most Japanese banks and companies will be closing their books at the Mar. 31 end of the fiscal year. In some cases, banks might use the extra cash to lend out to businesses. What’s more, a provision recovery might cheer up ordinary Japanese consumers who have fretted over the Tokyo market’session 41% decline since last September.

Would direction buying actually revive stocks? Not as far as concerns long, say experts. The market ability hold steady—or even rise—for a few weeks or months. But supposing that not the good housewifery shows signs of rebounding, investors would likely resume selling shares, says Credit Suisse’s (CS) chief strategist Shinichi Ichikawa. "Ultimately, share prices are a hearsay card on the economy and corporate earnings," Ichikawa wrote in a Mar. 11 report. Propping up stocks "is simply falsifying the bruit card."

On Mar. 9, the Keidanren transaction lobby proposed that the government not pick specific blue cut chips from shares. Instead the group aims to give a boost to during the time that crowd shares as in posse. A government incorporated body could invest in exchange-traded funds (ETFs), or baskets of stocks that track market indexes.

To pay for the purchases, the government corporation would issue guaranteed bonds that can exist converted into the ETFs later. The attraction of issuing so-called ETF-convertible bonds is that they wouldn’t require regular interest payments. Investors, meanwhile, would have the option of receiving a discharge of a debt at time of being due or forgoing the payment and swapping the bond for an ETF. The hope is that it might convince more ordinary Japanese—who own just 22% of stocks in Japan—to invest in the lay by market.

Some worry that too plenteous government involvement could hurt Tokyo’s status as a financial center, scaring off global investors. Non-Japanese investors had been a growing force on Tokyo’s bourse until late last year. "Being branded as a government-driven market would threaten the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s standing in the financial world in the medium to long term," the Nikkei financial daily said in an editorial this week.

The body of executive officers would get greater quantity bang with a view to its yen if it were to combine stock-buying with a dramatic increase in stimulus spending, says Waseda University monetary theory professor Jun Uno. So in a great degree, Parliament has approved two goad packages totaling $66 billion, including $20 billion of coin payments to individuals. The government and central bank have set aside another $330 billion of public funds for shoring up banks’ capital. But Uno says those measures are far from adequate and suggests still greater degree of stimulus.

He may get it. On Mar. 13, Prime Minister Aso called for a third budget of public spending and tax cuts, warning lawmakers that inaction could bring more economic misery. That message was reinforced by revised rude domestic product figures released the previous day confirming that Japan’s economy shrank at an annualized rate of 12.1% in the October-December quarter. Many economists expect this quarter to be no different. "Ideally, the stock-buying plan lifts the market and shrinks companies’ securities losses," says Waseda’s Uno. "That bequeath corrupt the government fit season to drudge onward longer-term policies that restore normalcy to the market. But I’olla-podrida skeptical that things will go that smoothly."

Over issues ranging from the yuan to protectionism, leaders in China are feeling less comfortable with the U.S. these days

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By Dexter Roberts

As China’s slumping economy feels the impact of the global recession, Chinese leaders are showing their irritation with the U.S. That’s palpable in the ongoing war of wrangling following a near-clash between U.S. and Chinese naval vessels in the South China Sea upon the body Mar. 8. Chinese gripes with the Americans extend to key economic concerns, too, such as U.S. complaints about the Chinese bills and notes; circulating medium and Beijing’s want of confidence that the U.S. is lapsing into protectionist policies.

On Mar. 13, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao ramped up the rhetoric some more. Wrapping up the annual session of China’s Parliament, Wen took a swipe at the U.S., what one. has depended largely on Chinese investment in Treasury bonds to supply its large budget deficit. Over the bygone time not many years, China has built up the earth’s largest foreign reserves, totaling $1.95 trillion, with some two-thirds of that held in U.S. assets, absolutely Treasuries. As the global economy has weakened, the value of China’s investments has decreased. "We bring forth lent a huge amount of money to the United States," Wen related at a press conference in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. "I am a little bit worried. I request the U.S. to maintain its good credit, to honor its promises, and to guarantee the safety of China’s effects."

Another area of sensitivity is the value of China’s currency, the yuan. With exports plunging in China, down 25.7% in February, and some 20 million in export factories out of their jobs, Beijing has slowed the appreciation of its currency. Chinese officials already reacted angrily to criticism that it was "manipulating" its circulation made by means of U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner during his late January Senate establishment hearings. Signaling that Beijing has no intention of budging on the issue, Wen spoke without during the peep of day press meeting for consultation. "I don’t think the [yuan] is depreciating. Since we reformed the exchange proportion in July 2005, the yuan has appreciated 21% against the U.S. dollar," the Premier said. "No other country can put pressure steady our country to depreciate or appreciate the [yuan]."

China’s leaders are also talk out against what they see as "surging" protectionism, as Wen described it during the Mar. 5 opening of the National People’s Congress. Over the past several months several of China’s state-controlled newspapers have editorialized against "buy American" rules in the U.S. stimulus plan. "If a rural only buys products that it produces itself, and forbids the import of other countries’ products without reason, this suggests a move to barter protectionism," Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming said on Mar. 10. The most recent target of Beijing’s ire: U.S. restrictions on the import of Chinese domestic fowls. "I believe that in any degree trainee with a prelusive knowledge of the WTO disciplines power of determination find confused that this section violates the basic rules of the WTO," a Chinese trade official said, referring to the prohibition, at a WTO meeting in Geneva on Mar. 12, according to official recent accounts superintendence Xinhua.

Along by the tough talk, Beijing is expressing confidence about China’s ability to encounter and sustain the global recession. While conceding that China will face challenges in reaching a planned-for 8% gross pertaining to home product growth this year, Wen said he expected ultimate luck. And while Beijing did not announce plans to expand the size of its $586 billion stimulus for example some had anticipated, China has the ingenuity to spend more, since it has targeted a relatively small budget deficit of 3% of GDP for this year. "We have prepared enough powder and shot and we can launch modern economic stimulus policies at any time," Wen said.

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OLYMPIA — The state Supreme Court on Thursday stayed the execution of Cal Coburn Brown less than eight hours before he was scheduled to be executed for the 1991 slaying of a Burien woman.

The high court, which has twice before denied Brown’s requests for clemency, based the 5-4 decision on an upcoming review of lethal injection before the Thurston County Superior Court.

Judge Chris Wickham will hear arguments over whether lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in two other death-penalty cases. The Supreme Court’s decision adds Brown’s case to those to be reviewed by Wickham in May.

“I am so gratified that the Washington State Supreme Court granted a stay of execution. I think they have done the right thing,” said Suzanne Elliott, one of Brown’s defense lawyers. “I am very glad all of these issues will be fully heard by the court before anyone takes the ultimate action against my client.”

King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, who had flown to the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla to witness the execution, said he planned to spend Thursday evening with the family of victim Holly Washa in an attempt to console them.

Brown carjacked Washa, 22, at knife point near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in 1991 and held her for 34 hours at a motel. The Burien woman was raped, robbed, tortured and slashed to death. Her body was left in her car’s trunk.

“Obviously they’re very frustrated and so am I,” Satterberg said of Washa’s family. “These are issues that could have been raised weeks ago, months ago, years ago.”

Washa’s family had driven to Walla Walla for the execution from Nebraska. They had earlier sent a letter arguing for Brown’s death.

“Please don’t let Cal Brown live after doing this terrible crime,” the family had written. “You would be letting Holly, her family and friends and 12 jurors down if you do.”

Defense lawyers representing Brown, and fellow death-row inmates Darold Stenson and Jonathan Gentry, argue that the drugs used by the state Department of Corrections for lethal injection could constitute cruel and unusual punishment if they don’t work properly. There are also concerns that the drugs are not administered by a physician or a nurse anesthesiologist.

A similar issue had resulted in a de facto moratorium on lethal injection in many states last year after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up the case of two Kentucky death-row inmates who contended their executions could be carried out more humanely. At question was the three-drug sequence used in Kentucky.

The first drug, a barbiturate, is used for anesthesia. The second drug, pancuronium bromide, paralyzes the muscles with a suffocating effect. The third, potassium chloride, stops the heart and causes death. Opponents argued that searing pain could result if the anesthesia — sodium thiopental — does not work as intended.

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So much for the struggling college close examiner eating Top Ramen.

After bewitching $115,800 on “Jeopardy!” continue year, Seattle’s Ben Bishop, a 22-year-old Amherst College senior, returns tonight to compete in the show’s Tournament of Champions (7:30 p.m., KOMO-TV). I asked him a hardly any things Alex Trebek didn’t — and I didn’t make him answer in the form of a question.

Q: The shows have all been taped already?

A: Yep.

Q: How’d you complete?

A: I have power to’t tell you that.

Q: Let me sue you this, then: How great number shows were you on and by what mode much did you win?

A: Ah, I can’t tell you that one, one and the other.

Q: What is a hostile witness? How about this: Did Trebek go off on any Christian Bale-style tantrums if there was a mistake on the set?

A: He runs a tight ship and he’s in control on staging all the interval — more so when the cameras are most distant. He’s very good at this job, and I conclude sometimes a strong provide is needed onward boards.

Q: $115,000 is a lot of money for a college older. How much of it did you spend on shots?

A: More than I approve to admit. My roommates helped me study, for a like reason I took them out concerning a night on the town after the original shows aired, and I don’t like to say how much, but I made sure that they couldn’familiarily bug me for beer money too much.

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NEW YORK — Bernard Madoff was sent to bridewell Thursday after confessing in court to a multibillion-dollar Ponzi excogitate, besides the intrigue deepened as embittered victims pressed the government to find used up who may have helped him and where the coin went.

After a 75-minute trial at which he pleaded guilty to 11 criminal counts and said he was “deeply sorry and ashamed,” Madoff was led away in handcuffs for a future that will differ vastly from the opulent lifestyle he has led.

“I realized that my arrest and this day would inevitably come,” Madoff told a packed courtroom in his elementary public comments since his scheme was revealed in December. “I am painfully aware that I have hurt many, many people.”

That was little consolation to the more than pair twelve investors who squeezed into the federal courtroom for a glimpse of the man who bilked many out of their life savings in the $65 billion project.

“It’s about time he went to jail,” said victim Mark Labianca. “He should have been in workhouse from the get-go.”

Almost 5,000 investors — including director Steven Spielberg, actor Kevin Bacon and baseball legend Sandy Koufax — were ensnared by means of the smooth-talking financier who boasted of regular returns end treacherous markets.

Investors applauded as U.S. District Judge Denny Chin rejected Madoff’s petition for to continue living at his Manhattan gratification apartment until his scheduled sentencing June 16.

Yet many victims bridled at the lack of information about how he pulled off the elaborate iniquity and whether there’s somewhat cash left to repay them.

“Investors defectiveness some riches in a backward direction. \,” said Sharon Lissauer, a New York imitation who entrusted her life savings to Madoff. “Even if he spends the recline of his animated existence in jail, that doesn’confidentially help me.”

Madoff faces a maximum 150 years in prison, though experts predict his sentence will have existence closer to 20 years, essentially a life term for the 70-year-old.

The hearing made free from hindrance that Madoff is refusing to help the polity build a specific instance in requital for anyone else.

Repeatedly, Madoff insisted the stock-trading business run by his brother and two sons was entirely legalize and untainted by his crime. That contradicted the criminal charges against him and statements made in court by the agency of Marc Litt, the treaty prosecutor handling the case, who reported that at times Madoff’s company “would have been unable to operate without the standard of value from this scheme.”

Madoff also claimed his imposture began in the early 1990s, not in the 1980s, as the commonwealth contends, an assertion that seemed to be aimed at limiting how far back into the family vocation history the government can reach for restitution.

No relatives have been accused of wrongdoing and all — Madoff’s wife, Ruth, his brother Peter and his sons, Mark and Andrew — have denied knowledge of the fraud.

When one of Madoff’s victims urged a public trial to shed more light on the crime, Litt promised the government was vigorously investigating what happened to the money and who else was involved, questions that could have been answered by Madoff, then and in that place, if he were willing.

“Did we get answers? Not at aggregate,” said George Nierenberg, an award-winning filmmaker whose family lost almost everything to Madoff. Nierenberg was one of a handful of victims Chin allowed to speak at the hearing.

The inconsistencies between Madoff’s version and the government’sitting charges are evidence no plea agreement could be reached, said Joel Cohen, a partner at Clifford Chance and a former federal prosecutor in Brooklyn.

“Clearly, he’s light-years away from being cooperative,” Cohen said after reviewing a transcript of the hearing. “Essentially, Madoff is saying, ‘I’ll plead guilty — if it were not that I’m not going to plead guilty to exactly that which you say I did.’ “

After the hearing, Lev Dassin, acting U.S. advocate in Manhattan, said, “While we do not agree with all the assertions made by means of Mr. Madoff today, these admissions certainly settle his guilt. We are continuing to investigate the fraud and will bring additional charges … as warranted.”

After Madoff’s plea was accepted, his lawyer, Ira Lee Sorkin, tried to persuade Chin to remit Madoff to remain free onward bail until he is sentenced.

Chin refused. “He has incentive to decamp, he has the substance to flee, and thus he presents the risk of flight,” Chin reported. “Bail is revoked.”

Sorkin said he devise appeal the handle abjuration.

Madoff’s fraud became a global scheme that ensnared hedge funds, nonprofit groups and celebrities, and destroyed many life savings. He enticed thousands of investors, including Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and a charity run by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel.

The fraud’s collapse erased up to $65 billion that his customers thought they had. It remains unclear where that circulating medium went, and whether those victims power of determination look to some meaningful restitution.

A court-appointed trustee liquidating Madoff’s business has in the same manner far only been proficient to identify about $1 billion in property to satisfy claims.

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TACOMA — They have power to admit it now. The second-ranked Bellevue Wolverines wanted a rematch through Rainier Beach.

Even though they said totality the straight things about anger it one game at a term in the Class 3A boys basketball state tournament, they daydreamed about playing the sixth-ranked Vikings again.

Bellevue (25-2) earned a sully in the semifinals with a convincing, 70-47 win from hand to hand Union Thursday obscurity at the Tacoma Dome. Beach played Columbia River of Vancouver in the lately quarterfinal, with the winner to face Bellevue tonight at 8:30.

“If I had to choose, I’d want to play Rainier Beach,” said forward Colton Christian, who finished with 13 points, eight rebounds and four steals. “It’s just how our season has gone. It suitable seems right. It’s kind of for bragging rights, you know?”

The Wolverines beat the Vikings 63-58 in the Sea-King District semifinals last week.

“I think we did what we had to end in these [opening round] games,” uttered Bellevue guard Aaron Bright, who scored 15 points against Union on 5-of-8 shooting.

The Bellevue-Union game was a basketball rematch of the state-championship football game betwixt the teams in December, a 35-6 Wolverines rout.

Bellevue’s towering front line — Alex Schrempf, Matt Olson and Christian — made life impossible for the Titans (19-7), who failed to score on their in the beginning 12 possessions. The Wolverines held the Titans scoreless for the first eight minutes while building an 11-0 lead.

Schrempf led all scorers with 20 points.

Christian put the finishing touches attached a decisive victory by a couple of steals in the final three minutes. They resulted in a two-hand dunk and full-length pass to Bright, who sank a layup despite being fouled. After sinking the ensuing free throw, Bellevue led 65-39.

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Imperium Renewables, the Seattle-based biodiesel producer, has divide 24 employees from its large Grays Harbor found, saying the cutback will help it “continue to live and grow when the market turns encircling for the biofuels industry.”

In a statement late Thursday, congregation president and founder John Plaza said Imperium faces “dramatically reduced global demand for biodiesel, high feedstock prices and extreme volatility in the rock oil fuel markets.”

The latest blow to the company was a tariff imposed this month by the European Union on biodiesel imported from the U.S. The EU said U.S. subsidies on biodiesel allowed producers such as Imperium to undercut European manufacturers.

Plaza declared that at the same time through the plunge in energy prices, “the recession has led to a drastic reduction in demand for fuels of entirely types, but especially for biofuels.”

The Grays Harbor plant is capable of producing 100 the great body of the people gallons a year, end the company won’t say how much biodiesel it is currently making.

Now that General Electric has lost its prized AAA rating, just a handful of companies still maintain the top credit benchmark

By Ben Steverman

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The AAA enter upon the credit side rating, the gold rule in corporate finance, isn’cheek by jowl just an endangered species. "It’s almost extinct at this point in Corporate America," says Nicholas Riccio, managing director of Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service.

On Mar. 12, Standard & Poor’s took the prized triple-A rating away from General Electric (GE). The move, from AAA to AA+—still at the upper echelon of corporate credit quality—was widely expected by the agency of fixed-income investors, who fretted for months over GE’sitting exposing. to bad shortcoming through its GE Capital arm.

GE muffle holds its top Aaa rating from S&P’sitting rival, Moody’s Investors Service. But Moody’s already bring forward GE’session rating under review for in posse downgrade—a stance the ratings agency reiterated Feb. 27 even rear GE cut its dividend to save the conglomerate $9 billion per year.

The downgrade leaves just five U.S. nonfinancial companies with the top credit rating from S&P. The triple-A rating seems secure at ExxonMobil (XOM), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Automatic Data Processing (ADP), and Microsoft (MSFT). Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (PFE) in like manner holds a triple-A rating, but in succession Jan. 26 S&P put the rating on watch for a likely downgrade, after Pfizer said it would take $22.5 billion to buy rival Wyeth (WYE).

"We be under the necessity seen a thinning of the ranks in the last three decades," Riccio said in an interview with BusinessWeek, that like S&P is a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies. At the end of 1994 14 companies had triple-A ratings. Go back far enough, and now-troubled companies such considered in the state of General Motors (GM) and Ford (F) had expert fully informed ratings.

Companies enter the triple-A elite only when ratings agencies determine they have, in Riccio’session words, "extremely little jeopard of default" upon their debt. Thus, investors feel of adapted for comfort lending to Microsoft or Johnson & Johnson at humiliate interest rates. That lowers the companies’ financing costs.

But ask fixed-income experts about credit ratings, and you’ll find a lot of skepticism. Sometimes credit investors foolishly don’t trust a company’s rating, especially after the credit shocks of the gone year-and-a-half.

Based in continuance the elevated yield spread of GE’s bonds over risk-free Treasuries, "the market was telling you that GE was not a triple-A company several months ago," says James Barnes, fixed-income portfolio manager at National Penn Investors Trust Company.

Ward McCarthy, of Stone & McCarthy Research Associates, says rating agencies have missed major problems with corporate balance sheets, most notably the bad debt that led to the collapse of insurer American International Group (AIG) last year. "The bottom pursuit is that investors cannot rely on the ratings to anticipate at what time a company is going to have problems," McCarthy says. "There are a great quantity of dead soldiers that are former triple-A rated companies."

Amid a credit crisis and chaste recession, Barnes doubts that it’s possible for almost some company to meet triple-A’s exacting standards of almost zero chance of lack. "These days," he says, "it’sitting hard to view any company and be comfortable taking that position."

The University of Phoenix and others are cashing in. Critics say the schools have low graduation rates and dubious recruiting standards

By Ben Elgin and Jessica Silver-Greenberg

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President Barack Obama’s stimulus package directs billions in new funding to higher education. Poised to pay in money in on the largesse are a assign places to of large for-profit universities that specialize in scooping up bookish man aid dollars. Some of the schools, known for aggressive recruiting, are increasing advertising and vision enrollments rise.

But are these breeding businesses appropriate beneficiaries of fresh taxpayer generosity? For years skeptics have raised questions about the schools’ marketing tactics, graduation rates, and quality of education.

Asked about the to come boom in the for-profit industry, Arne Duncan, the new Education Secretary, told BusinessWeek that he intends to increase monitoring of federal bookish man aid to everything schools, private and open: “I am creating each mental employment force to optimize our procedures and to build more fit connections to other consumer buckler agencies.”

Career-oriented schools such at the same time that the University of Phoenix, a unit of publicly traded Apollo Group (APOL), have been benefiting from lean times as adults scrabble for testimonials they hope volition help them find work. The stimulus enacted last month will push on this trend by providing each additional $15 billion in Pell Grants for students across the next two years.

Apollo, that received more than three-quarters of its $3.1 billion in revenue from federal learner aid in the fiscal year that ended Aug. 31, is well positioned to receive advantage of the stimulus. Its Phoenix unit already is the biggest receiver of government student abet. In its most recent quarter, that ended Nov. 30, Phoenix boosted ad spending by 24%, to $88 million. Its enrollment rose in the quarter by 18%, to 385,000 students, who study at campuses in 39 states for example in good health as online.

Some of Phoenix’s largest for-profit rivals, including ITT Technical Institute, DeVry University, and Capella Education (CPLA), also are boosting close examiner headcounts and advertising. “We’re stepping in and filling the unmet need,” says Daniel M. Hamburger, CEO of DeVry (DV), which gets 65% of its revenues from government-backed student abet.

Officials at public universities and community colleges, many of which have cut enrollment because of tightening budgets, protest that Phoenix and similar for-profit institutions use questionable methods to lure students. “These schools are clearly attempting to capitalize on the financial difficulties that families face,” says Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars & Admissions Officers.

In 2004 the Education Dept. blasted Phoenix as far as concerns fostering a corporate culture in which “ethics often are set laterally” in a race to greaten enrollment and profits. The agency charged that Phoenix paid recruiters solely based on the number of students they signed up, a practice barred by the Higher Education Act. Without admitting wrongdoing, Phoenix resolved the case for $10 million, the largest ordination of its kind. Phoenix executives say they have always paid employees only partly based on the reckon of recruits, which is legal.

The executives stand behind the persons of rank of Phoenix’session education and business practices. They say they cater to underserved constituencies, such as adults who want to attend part-time and members of the military and minority groups. Testing of their students shows improvement in reading and math, they say, and adult grads typically earn 9% to 27% more on receiving degrees. “There’s a lot of bias against recruiting into a college,” says Terri C. Bishop, Phoenix’s vice-president for external affairs. “We recruit properly, and we take care of students once they’re here.”