by Seton Motley 
One of my life’s maxims is:
Education and knowledge are often mutually exclusive.
With the Barack Obama Administration’s all-out assault on the for-profit higher education industry, one of the books I have long intended to write is becoming ever more true:
College IS for Dummies.
We the People who closely follow politics have assuredly noticed an incessant trend on Talking Head TV.
Very often the Leftist debater is – a college professor. Often teaching some very Leftist, completely pointless “scholastic” field.
For instance, National Review’s John Derbyshire rightly calls for an end to all collegiate programs that end in the word “Studies.” Do a little Web search, and you’ll quickly reach the same conclusion.
The point being – college campuses are rife with hard Left ideologues posing as “educators.” Hiding there because their worldview doesn’t jibe with Reality.
And because they are paid handsomely to spout utter nonsense to the next generations – at a $100,000+ premium to the victims…I mean students.
The new meat can’t even get through orientation – the indoctrination is already underway.
Is this claptrap Leftist racket worth your time and considerable coin? Hardly.
The Obama Administration certainly sees it exactly this way, given all they’ve done to further government-ize it all.
The Left does little better than funding its fellow travelers with our money.
We already have myriad federal government collegiate funding streams. Scholarships, fellowships, grants, and on and on and on and….
Then came the Age of Obama.
Beginning with ObamaCare – for which the federal government nationalized the entire college loan industry.
Lock, stock and toga – swallowed up by the Leviathan. In a feeble, tiny attempt to try to offset the ginormous cost of the Leviathan swallowing whole the private sector health care industry.
Flash forward a bit. Can you in the very near future see the federal government waiving your mountain of college debt – meaning We the People pick up the tab – in exchange for some time spent community organizing? I certainly can.
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Now the Obama Administration is going after the one facet of higher education that still retains some remnants of private sector freedom and rationality – the for-profit colleges and universities.
And they are doing so in the unilateral, Congress-free fashion that has become an Administration hallmark.
These Agencies, Departments, Commissions and Boards can’t legally do anything unless and until Congress writes a law giving them the authority.
As we’ve seen with Network Neutrality, Cap & Trade, Card Check and a whole host of other power grabs, the Administration does not find illegality to be any sort of impediment.
The Administration’s Department of Education in June jammed through new “Gainful Employment” regulations. (Again, without the legal authority to do so.)
These new regs leave virtually unscathed public (read: government) schools. They are written so as to almost exclusively assault for-profit schools – threatening to pull the plug on federal aid to most of these institutions.
Nothing like equal protection before the law. Or unlawful regulations.
To “validate” this Huge Government move, Uber-Leftist Iowa Senator Tom Harkin commissioned an undercover General Accounting Office (GAO) report on for-profit schools.
Shockingly, the fix was in – it found for-profit schools were nearly universal corrupt.
The “report” itself, however, was deeply flawed. The GAO themselves subsequently said so.
But this is standard government operating procedure. Issue a flawed report to “justify” new Huge Government regulations. Impose said regulations. Then “revise” the report.
But the regulations remain.
Harkin also held a for-profit college show trial – I mean hearing. So biased and corrupt it was that the Committee Republicans boycotted en masse.
Think this to be merely de rigueur Hill partisanship? Hardly – Harkin’s office was tampering with witnesses.
Now we have Eric Holder’s Justice Department backing this multi-jurisdictional foul play. Something they are not at all averse to doing – just ask AT&T.
Justice has filed a complaint alleging:
EDMC (Education Management Corporation) falsely certified compliance with provisions of federal law that prohibit a university from paying incentive-based compensation to its admissions recruiters that is tied to the number of students they recruit.
The fact that they have outlawed performance-based incentives in education is an irony not lost on too many of us, I am sure.
Congress enacted the incentive compensation prohibition to curtail the practice of paying bonuses and commissions to recruiters, which resulted in the enrollment of unqualified students, high student loan default rates and the waste of program funds.
We can’t have private sector “enrollment of unqualified students, high student loan default rates and the waste of program funds.”
That’s what government-mandated affirmative action is for.
What are the odds that this Justice Department filing is just as accurate and authentic as the aforementioned book-cooked GAO report?
I ask this aloud simply to induce pondering.
And the clock on the “revision” starts…now.
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The Obama Administration’s oft-illegal assault on all things private sector is nothing if not thorough. These free market-seeking missiles have found targets aplenty throughout.
The nation’s for-profit colleges and universities have not been spared.
And, as always, these Leftists have not allowed facts to get in the way of a good beating.
Just another day in the Age of Obama.
Big Government
