A Wall Street Journal editorial today asks why the Democrats, so zealous to expand higher education and job training, are hostile to the for-profit sector. Proprietary schools do at least as good a job as non-profits, often better. The piece concludes, “As a policy matters, we’d prefer to see Congress spend less on higher education, whose costs keep rising in substantial part because of the subsidies. But as long as politicians want to subsidize students, they shouldn’t penalize some merely because they choose to attend schools whose owners make a profit.”

I surmise that the hostility stems from the political calculation that for-profit schools are not part of the Democratic coalition, whereas non-profit education overwhelmingly is. Steering more students into government-provided education rewards a loyal constituency and helps build the feeling among people that they’re dependent on government. That’s why the Democrats want to herd everyone into government-run health care.