Team Trump reverses course on American education policy. We wonder why.
- On This Day In The Trump Administration
- Feb 20, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Feb 22, 2024
February 21
On This Day In 2017
The Obama Administration had pushed students to attend community colleges rather than for-profit colleges, arguing that community colleges lead to better educational outcomes. Why?
The New York Times detailed “the for-profit industry’s scandal sheet…. Exorbitant tuition, aggressive recruiting practices, abysmal student outcomes, regulatory evasion and manipulation were rampant. ‘These practices are…systemic throughout the industry, with very few exceptions,’ noted Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who headed the committee” that investigated the sector.
So, sensibly, regulations were placed on the for-profit educational machine.
Trump’s focus: The Trump Administration, led by Betsy DeVos—who is, as the NYT explained, “an ardent campaigner for privately run schools and has investments in for-profit educational ventures,”—reversed course.
As the Times noted: “Since Election Day, for-profit college companies have been on a hot streak... You do not need an M.B.A. to figure out why. Top officials in Washington who spearheaded a relentless crackdown on the multibillion-dollar industry have been replaced by others who have profited from it.”
Even Trump personally had made money from the industry: “President Trump ran the now-defunct Trump University, which wound up besieged by lawsuits from former students and New York’s attorney general, who called the operation a fraud.”
Trump’s team does his bidding: But the new GOP chair of the oversight House committee claimed the time had come to simply stop worrying about such problems. Now, the Republicans “will do ‘everything we can to roll back those (Obama) rules and regulations,’ whether through new legislation or executive orders.”
One of the changes Betsy DeVos pushed for made it harder for students who had been cheated or duped by their for-profit school to get loan forgiveness. How coincidental is that?!
Sources/Links for further reading
OTDI 2017, the New York Times print edition outlined the situation
Politico had further details
Summary: Trump and Betsy DeVos push for-profit schools