In today’s Martin Center article, Andrew Gillen of the Texas Public Policy Foundation takes a look at “gainful employment” regulations in higher education. Gillen explains, “The Higher Education Act, originally passed in 1965 and amended many times over the years, includes a provision that requires ‘vocational’ programs to prepare students for ‘gainful employment.’ The law defines vocational programs as any program at a for-profit college, as well as any non-degree program (e.g., certificate programs) at public and private non-profit colleges.” But what does “gainful employment” mean?
For many years, nobody tried to define it, but during the Obama years, bureaucrats hostile to for-profit education created a definition and applied it very selectively. For-profit schools were attacked while equally bad non-profits got a pass. That ended when Trump took over.
Now, the Bidenistas are back at it, with new regulations that would, in Gillen’s view, have mixed results. They could identify schools that perform poorly for many students, but the enforcement would again be selective, sparing graduate programs that the left loves.
Read the whole thing.