Emma Rindlisbacher

Hi there. I’m a reporter and I write about all sorts of topics: student debt, criminal justice, and financial policy just to name a few. I like stories that involve interesting documents. I also like stories that involve complicated systems that are producing suboptimal outcomes.

Contact

Please reach out if there is a story that you feel needs more attention at

Reporting

(Not a complete list.)

Finance

• Late Payments and Confusion: One Startup’s Struggle to Make Rent Easier
  As Flex worked to overcome technological obstacles, it turned to a decidedly low-tech solution—an army of temp workers who, until recently, made many of the rent payments by manually logging into landlords’ payment portals on behalf of Flex customers. That process had a potential flaw: As Flex’s spokesperson acknowledged, it could have been possible for the temps to retain user data on their personal computers. She noted, however, that there is no evidence this ever occurred or was even attempted.

• She Accused Her Ex-Husband of Abuse. She’s Still Stuck With His Student Loans.
  Spousal consolidation loans came with a catch: There is no mechanism to separate the two borrowers’ loans, even after a marriage falls apart.

• Biden Promised Student Debt Relief for Public Service Workers. The Reality Has Been Painful.
  “Even the best targeting is going to leave out borrowers who we need to be able to capture.”

• Do we know what jobs are in high demand?
  Measuring which fields are in demand is harder than it sounds. Many of the available data sources, experts say, have significant flaws. And that causes problems for education providers who are trying to understand market demand and map their programs to it.

• Revature Coding Program Promises Jobs—but Costs $36,500 to Quit
  Recent grads are being lured into ‘indentured servitude’ by a training program that costs $36,500 to quit

• Landlords Are Charging You Junk Fees For Services That Screw You
  Tenants are paying fees to have their credit scores lowered, among other dubious services.

• The new American dream
  Outsourced tech jobs are returning to the US. So why are staffing firms hiring so many young Americans to sit around and do nothing?

Criminal Justice

• Decider, M.D.
  One man, Dr. Warren Roberts, determines whether prisoners in Oregon get medical treatment for their illnesses and injuries.

Politics

• This Republican Wants to Extend a Real Estate Tax Break. He Could Be a Big Beneficiary.
  Rep. Tracey Mann invested heavily in opportunity zones.

• Dems Demanding SALT Tax Cuts Stand to Benefit
  Lawmakers leading the charge to reinstate state and local tax breaks could score thousands in annual deductions.

• GOP Lawmaker Leads Fight To Get His Industry A Government Bailout
  Rep. Van Taylor voted against aid for renters and student debtors — but the real estate mogul is now using his office to pressure the government to give his commercial real estate industry a bailout.

• This Democrat Wrote a Water Recycling Law. It Could Benefit Her Financially.
  There’s no evidence that Rep. Susie Lee intended to profit from her legislation. An ethics expert says it’s still a problem.

Research and Miscellaneous

I occasionally will help various types of organizations conduct research.

• Flying Under the Regulation Radar: University Partnerships with Coding Bootcamps
  Bootcamps—for-profit, unaccredited, short-term educational programs—have continued to find new university partners during the pandemic. These partnerships have been especially lucrative for coding bootcamps—a popular variant that teaches computer programming—who typically collect 80 percent of the revenue generated from the program and who use the partnerships to gain exemptions from state regulations. But the lack of oversight of these partnerships is cause for concern, especially given past abuses in the industry.