A year ago, Richard C. Blum, then the chairman of the regents of the University of California, spoke at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference 2009, held at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. The corporate confab was hosted by Michael Milken, the “junk bond king” who went to prison in the aftermath of the savings and loan fiasco in the 1980s. Milken, who is barred from securities trading for life by federal regulators, has since recreated himself as a proponent of investing in for-profit educational corporations, an industry that regularly comes under government and media scrutiny in response to allegations of fraud made by dissatisfied students.
