The Democrats’ Backroom Hypocrisy on For-Profit Colleges

Published July 6, 2016 11:51am ET



The Democratic party published a draft of its official platform last week that continues the Obama administration’s attack on for-profit higher education. The relevant section of the platform reduces the entire for-profit university industry to the Trump University case, claiming that the school “scammed many out of their hard-earned savings and led to no degree and no obvious benefit to their education or economic prosperity. Democrats will not tolerate this type of fraud.” In reality, however, it’s a different for-profit school that has captured the attention of Democrats.

In 2015, the Department of Defense and the Federal Trade Commission took aim at the University of Phoenix, with the former cutting off the school from its tuition assistance program for members of the military and the latter investigating several aspects of the college’s internal operations. The Democratic platform pledges to continue these sorts of crackdowns against bad for-profit schools. But as both the Chicago Tribune and Politico reported last week, President Obama’s best friend, golf buddy, sometime business partner, and chief presidential foundation planner Marty Nesbitt has purchased the University of Phoenix’s parent company—this after the administration’s assault on the mammoth pioneering for-profit school made it a good buy.

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