Welcome to Higher Ed on the Hill, presented by CASE. Each month, we will break down the top issues that are driving education policy on the Hill.
The liberal Department of Education has held a deep-rooted vendetta against for-profit schools that, over the past 15 years, has hurt both students and institutions. The DOE’s targeting of disfavored schools has resulted in painful job losses for faculty and employees, thousands of Americans losing out on the opportunity to earn a degree, and millions of dollars in private business cuts in support of degree-based programs.
Most recently, the Department of Education cut the federal student aid program at Florida Career College, a for-profit technical college specializing in short-term healthcare and trades certifications.
Why? Because the Department has no interest in seeing schools that they cannot control succeed.
This isn’t the first time the Department has gone after career colleges. In 2020, they leveraged a lawsuit to deny students of their student loan payments at the Center for Excellence in Higher Education and their affiliated schools: including CollegeAmerica, Stevens-Henager College, and Independence University. The lawsuit was eventually overturned, but in the end the DOE won by inflicting long-term damage that resulted in these schools closing their doors.
Per CASE’s Unfair Application of “The LeBlanc Method” Report, career colleges face arbitrary advertising oversight and unreasonable outcome expectations, without receiving access to government subsidies. Meanwhile, many universities – including state-schools – aggressively advertise online classes, degrees, and certifications without scrutiny from the Department or accrediting bodies. From our perspective, these colleges are provided no due process. The Department acts as judge and jury, making decisions unilaterally and ignoring the repercussions.
Read more at Courthouse News Service and Higher Ed Dive.
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What’s New? How Gainful Employment Changed Higher Ed: Higher education lobbyists and analysts expect the proposed rule to be tougher than the one the Obama administration ultimately put into place, leading to more programs failing—and possibly losing their access to federal financial aid.
More Students Are Learning to be Mechanics, Chefs, and Construction Workers as College Enrollment Shrinks: While colleges have been hit with enrollment declines and growing sentiments that a 4-year degree is no longer “worth it,” many trade programs across the country are experiencing the opposite — enrollment is increasing, research from the National Student Clearinghouse found. Across construction, culinary, and mechanic trade programs, all experienced increases in enrollment between spring 2021 to 2022, the study found.
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Biden Admin Hurting Working Class Students with ‘Witch Hunt’ Against Career Colleges, Watchdog Group Says: The American Accountability Foundation (AAF) released an explosive new report using research and documents obtained by public records requests to argue the Education Department is working with the network of left-wing figures and Democratic state attorneys general to pursue a “witch hunt” against career colleges – also known as trade, vocational, or proprietary schools.
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FOXX SIGHTING: Skills-Based Hiring and Higher Education: “For too long, we’ve allowed education to be controlled by educators,” she said. “More employers need to be collaborating more with colleges, with high schools, and with all the folks out there to help skill development be based specifically on jobs that are available.”
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CASE in the News: Attack on For-Profit Schools Less About Students, More About Profit:
“If you are not part of the traditional, Ivy League, elitist, ivory tower, education establishment, or part of the establishment that bows down to them, then you are an enemy to be dispatched, typically through punishing regulations and restrictions that do not apply to traditional public or private schools,” said CASE chairman Gerard Scimeca.
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What We’re Hearing: COO of the Education Department’s Federal Student Aid office, Richard Cordray, will testify before the House Education Committee later this month. We hear sparks could fly… Here are Chairwoman Foxx’s comments on his appointment in 2021: “I am skeptical that a failed Democrat politician, who has a history of getting consumed by politics instead of caring for consumers, has the capability and serious character required to carry out the duties of COO of FSA.” Read more in the Wall Street Journal.
