Betsy Devos Remakes Higher Education in the Image of Trump University

The for-profit system of accreditation is as corrupt as the bond-rating system was, only it’s not only dollars at stake but the lives and dreams of a generation of strivers.

MARGARET CARLSON
06.13.18 4:47 AM ET

One of the president's favorite cabinet secretaries is Education’s Betsy DeVos. She might be first if it weren’t for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who has the capacity to ruin the planet while she can only ruin the next generation.

Her latest assault on students comes in the form of restoring the standing of ACICS, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, a deeply discredited accrediting body. It was stripped of its authority by the Obama Administration for approving of schools that promise aspiring students the moon and the stars if only they would take on ever more debt to enroll in worthless courses to land jobs that never materialize.

Many for-profits would cease to exist if ACICS and other accreditors didn’t turn a blind eye to predatory practices that makes payday lenders look like the Federal Reserve Board. They’re the gatekeepers to the spigot of federal funds that flow through students to schools so long as they are accredited. But that process is flawed and rife with conflicts. Often a school picks and pays its accreditor. Many accreditors have executives of schools on their boards. It’s not an arms-length transaction.

Obama moved to curb the worst practices of for-profits in the face of billions of dollars in federal financial-aid dollars going to waste on schools whose business model was to lure students in the door, upsell them, and cashier them out after they’d tapped out on loans.

Of course, DeVos stopped that reform in its tracks.

Not only does anything bearing Obama’s fingerprints have to go, the demise of Trump University must be avenged. The main difference between the hard sell at Trump U. and other fraudulent for-profits may be that the president at least held out the promise of a picture of himself, or a cardboard facsimile thereof, with “graduates” to hang on the non-existent walls of their non-existent offices at their non-existent jobs. When some wised-up students buried by debt and unemployed sued, Trump took after the “so-called judge” (of Mexican heritage) hearing the case. The suit dragged on for years until President Trump finally settled for $25 million, after Trump U. had already died an unmerciful death.

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