Government Crushes For-Profit Colleges, Jobs, Students’ Dreams

The government’s assault on for-profit colleges rolls onward—crushing, as it always does, schools, jobs, and students’ dreams.

A few weeks ago, after years of sustained attacks by the U.S. Department of Education, ITT Technical Institutes closed its doors, explains Allysia Finley in the Wall Street Journal. “The collateral damage includes some 8,000 employees left jobless” and “40,000 students, including 7,000 veterans” left in the lurch.

“It’s a kick in the teeth,” says Air Force veteran Roger Parks, who saw ITT’s hands-on training as “a good fit” for his life and career goals. “Mr. Parks needed a B.A. to advance in his company and was three months shy of graduating when ITT closed.”

The Department of Education, however, is not concerned with such trivialities as individuals’ lives and goals. Rather, the department is concerned with maintaining government control over education, and maintaining the illusion that such control is in the “public interest.”

When for-profit colleges are not assaulted, they and their students tend to thrive and make government-run education look bad. Add to that the fact that the schools aim to profit in the process, and we have a recipe for leftist hatred of these institutions. So statists attack the schools, work to close them down, and wreak havoc on people’s lives.

“My life goal has been ripped up from underneath me,” says Lisa Fernald, “a 38-year-old single mother of two who was a drafting and design student at ITT.” Ms. Fernald “took classes at night and on weekends so she could work part time at Home Depot and at an engineering firm where ITT helped her get a job.” . . .

About Craig Biddle

Craig is editor in chief of The Objective Standard, director of education at Objective Standard Institute, and executive director of Prometheus Foundation. His books include Loving Life: The Morality of Self-Interest and the Facts that Support It and Rational Egoism: The Morality for Human Flourishing. Visit his website at CraigBiddle.com.

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