Harassing and Closing Proprietary Colleges
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.
