No Good Guys in This Fight

George Leef

In recent months, the for-profit higher education industry has come under attack by Iowa Senator Tom Harkin for using sleazy tactics to enroll weak students, pocket federal subsidies, and often leave the hapless students with loan debts they can't afford to repay. The tale sounds bad and with Democrats desperate for some villain these days, Harkin and friends have tried to make as much as they can of this. As usual, there is much more than meets the eye, and Tim Carney, one of the best journalists around, digs into it here. In a nutshell, some of the schools are sleazy and they're all "subsidy sucklers" as Carney puts it. In the absence of federal money, they might not exist at all and if they did, they'd have to operate in a vastly different fashion. On the other hand, the politicians and their allies have greatly overstated the case in order to reap political and monetary profits. Carney's conclusion is right on the mark: "When you inject government into an industry, you get some pretty unsavory results."

  • Share

Most Commented

January 24, 2024

1.

After Claudine

The idea has caught on that the radical left overplayed its hand in DEI and is now vulnerable to those of us who seek major reforms. This is not, however, the first time that the a......

February 13, 2024

2.

The Great Academic Divorce with China

All signs show that American education is beginning a long and painful divorce with the People’s Republic of China. But will academia go through with it?...

October 31, 2023

3.

University of Washington Violated Non-Discrimination Policy, Internal Report Finds

A faculty hiring committee at the University of Washington “inappropriately considered candidates’ races when determining the order of offers,” provided “disparate op......

Most Read

May 15, 2015

1.

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist?

A look at the double standard that has arisen regarding racism, illustrated recently by the reaction to a black professor's biased comments on Twitter....

October 12, 2010

2.

Ask a Scholar: What is the True Definition of Latino?

What does it mean to be Latino? Are only Latin American people Latino, or does the term apply to anyone whose language derived from Latin?...

July 8, 2011

3.

Ask a Scholar: What Is Structural-Functionalism, Conflict Theory and Symbolic Interactionism?

Professor Jonathan Imber clarifies concepts of sociologocal theory....