OPINION:
After four years under the Biden administration’s discriminatory higher education agenda, which went to great lengths to snuff out student choice, President Trump and his advisers, congressional Republicans and courtroom juries are restoring commonsense balance to the regulatory system.
This spring, the Center for Excellence in Higher Education won an unprecedented False Claims Act lawsuit after a jury unanimously rejected claims that the career college operator misled students. The decision marks a historic blow to the Obama-Biden era regulatory facade, which sought to drive proprietary schools out of business.
However, the center’s now decade-old legal battle and the fight it represents to restore parity to the federal rule books are far from settled, even as the Trump administration brings to an end the lawfare tactics that forced the college system to close its doors on students and employees four years ago. Its countersuit, which seeks damages against the Department of Education for the forced closure of its schools, remains in limbo.
Mr. Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon have taken bold action to reverse their predecessors’ reckless and illegal policies. Although not the Trump administration’s doing, justice is owed to the Center for Excellence in Higher Education. I expect they will reach a settlement, especially in light of the Utah court’s ruling, that is fair to taxpayers and the former school’s operators.
For well over a decade, the Obama and Biden administrations badgered career colleges. These institutions provide alternative, cost-effective paths to a postsecondary degree. They are attractive options, particularly to Gen Z students, who are flocking away from conventional universities, rejecting woke indoctrination and desiring nonideological education. Consequently, in the past five years, career colleges have experienced the strongest enrollment growth of any type of school.
This shifting dynamic threatened leftist bureaucrats’ failing model of higher education, so they weaponized the regulatory system to put career colleges at a disadvantage. Under the Obama and Biden regimes, regulators perfected a playbook to drive proprietary schools out of business: Fabricate outrageous allegations against the schools, ensnare them in costly litigation, withhold federal funding and forgive supposedly defrauded students’ loans once the schools finally caved.
Most important, they developed biased regulations that applied only to career colleges, which many woke conventional universities would not pass if applied uniformly.
“My office will continue to do everything in our power to help these vulnerable students obtain all available relief, as they work to achieve their academic and professional goals,” Kamala Harris, then California’s attorney general, boasted when this newfound strategy forced one career college to shutter.
However, unlike other schools that quietly succumbed to the administrations’ campaign, the Center for Excellence in Higher Education dared to defend its good reputation, and rightfully so. Under Messrs. Obama and Biden, the Department of Education operated under a presumption of guilt. In the center’s case, the schools lost a Colorado court decision. It was overturned a year later, but the damage had been done. The Center for Excellence in Higher Education was bankrupt and closed before a three-judge panel reversed the original decision, thus achieving the Biden team’s true objective.
Mr. Trump and Ms. McMahon pledged to restore control to students and their families over their education. They already have begun to deliver on that promise.
The Utah jury’s unmistakable decision this year is yet another indication that Americans stand with them. Voters want our colleges to prepare young people for success, no matter the type of school, not to push political agendas.
The Trump administration has an opportunity to bring the Center for Excellence in Higher Education saga to a close and send a clear message that it is committed to ending an era of regulatory abuse. For the sake of our higher education system, I trust Mr. Trump and Ms. McMahon will reach a fair agreement and continue to refocus the Department of Education on dismantling their predecessors’ misguided regulatory crusade.
• Gerard Scimeca is the chairman of Consumer Action for a Strong Economy and CollegeFreedomProject.org.
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