Over at Big Government, “Capitol Confidential” avers that the administration and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have been “quietly and shadily” warring against for-profit colleges and universities.
Henry Bienen, vice-chairman of the for-profit Rasmussen Inc., has made a stout defense of for-profits, which provide degrees and vocational training to students seeking a less costly option to four-year non-profit schools,.
According to Forbes, the administration has fired a number of rounds at the industry but recently unloaded its big gun, which could eliminate for-profits as a viable alternative to for-profit institutions. The weapon in question is a proposed “gainful employment” restriction on federal loan money available to students at for-profit schools. Big Government explains the administration’s endgame:
Students at for-profit schools that have either a low graduation rate or an unacceptably high number of unemployed, graduated students would be denied federal student loan and grants. . . . These schools serve primarily lower-income and minority communities who depend so heavily on student loans, such a restriction could put the whole industry in jeopardy.
When such “a regulatory train starts running down the wrong track,” aptly writes Donald E. Graham, CEO of the non-profit Kaplan Inc., “it is very hard to stop.”
The Obama administration seems hell-bent on destroying the for-profits, no matter what the outcomes. Read more here – most interestingly, about the rat’s nest of progressives lobbying the administration to restrict and eviscerate the for-profits.