Several times in the past few weeks I have asked posters who praised the positive impact of the Trump Administration slashing regulations to come up with an example of a single regulation whose elimination had led to a positive. No one has provided an example yet.
Here is a report on how the Department of Education’s elimination of regulations on for-profit colleges – regulations that were put in place because of scandals in which for-profit colleges collected large fees for worthless degrees – has led to a new generation of students being saddled with the cost of college credits that have proven worthless.
Under Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos’ leadership of the Department of Education the requirements that for-profit colleges provide data on the outcomes their students achieve (do they get a return on their investment in education) have been eliminated. Here is the story of Dream Center Education Holdings – an church-based outfit that apparently had no business being in the business of higher education, lied to it students and charged them for worthless credits because they believed that DeVos and company and their backs and would continue to modify regulations to keep them in business. Recently uncovered emails document how DeVos team lied to Congress to cover their tracks.
Most of the money that was lost appears to have come from federal education grants… in other words – a waste of taxpayer money.
It’s fine to rail against the concept of regulations but when you have a market like for-profit education – that has always been shot through with fraud – much of it funded by tax dollars, who other than government can step in to protect consumers from businesses intent on ripping them off? DeVos hired a former industry lobbyist to police the industry… how could you not expect a swampy result?
This is a clear case where the taxpayers and the students would have been better off if the Obama-era regulations had remained in place.
Trust that they won’t produce liberal brainwashed scientists selling their science for the govt handout. And they won’t produce libera brainwashed people in general. Places like MIT? Part of the liberal fascist groupthink.
All schools should be held to this standard and also be a co-signer for any students that borrow money to attend their school. If they can not pay back the debt applying the education they received, the school loses. Dividing the schools into for profit or non-profit isn’t what’s important. The education received is.
There is an important distinction however. Most for-profit schools promise education that leads directly to a specific career. The not for profit schools promise general education and the outcome is much more depending on career choices and interests of the individual student.
It would be dangerous precedent to propose that Stanford University and Devry Technical College are to governed by similar standards – they have very different goals.
The school provides an education and the student applies that education in the field they pick as their career. That career is to then provide the necessary income to survive and possibly thrive. At minimum, the loan should be paid back. How is it dangerous to hold Stanford to the same standard in achieving this as any other school?
Because you undermine the legal status of not-for-profit organizations when you insist on the same standards as for-profit organizations. The next step would be to question why churches get any tax benefits compared to medical offices.
A large number of for profit “colleges” – Trump University for example – have been organized to rip off their customers. Just because they have appropriated the name “university” does not put them in the same category as the hundreds of universities whose mission is education and research.
One of the key aspects of research is that one has to be free to follow unsuccessful lines of research. If you don’t take such risks there is no real chance of advance. There is no such risk in a for-profit university. The standards should not be the same.
This is an interesting turn in the discussion. I started this discussion to point out an instance in which Trump era deregulation had harmed consumers and you have come back with the notion that regulation should be extended even more broadly than under the Obama Administration. So I take it you are comfortable with extending the reach of government regulation.
DeVos is a piece of ■■■■ human and was the catalyst for me to actually call my senators for the first time. Lot of good that did with the even ■■■■■■■■ “human” Ted Cruz.
But the similarity you are seeing does not hold up. For-profit institution promise to prepare people for specific jobs and the point of the Obama regulations that DeVos voided was to tell potential students… here is the probability that the school can deliver on this goal.
Not-for-profit universities promise to prepare students to be educated citizens. There is no way to measure an equivalent outcome… unless you want to turn the traditional institutions of higher learning into trade schools.
