WASHINGTON — As speculation continued over how a Trump administration might treat for-profit colleges in the coming years, supporters and critics of the institutions sparred Wednesday over whether the institutions got a bum rap under the Obama administration.
Eric Juhlin, CEO of the Center for Excellence in Higher Education — a Utah-based chain of for-profit colleges that was recently denied nonprofit status by the U.S. Department of Education — said there will be a smaller footprint for for-profit colleges thanks to the “extortion game.”
“There is no for-profit that hasn’t had an investigation or lawsuit action,” Juhlin said, lamenting what he characterized as a “coordinated attack” that the Obama administration led against the for-profit sector through the Education Department, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and state attorneys general in recent years.
“I think that will be part of the legacy,” Juhlin said.
He said the Obama administration discovered that it could wield power over for-profits by threatening them with litigation and raising concerns about whether they were misrepresenting their outcomes.
“The allegations alone are so damaging that those institutions will oftentimes pay whatever is necessary to resolve that, move it forward just to get it out of the press,” Juhlin said. “That strategy will linger” and remain part of the administration’s legacy.
Neal McCluskey, director of Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom, said that, while history books may say the Obama administration’s efforts to crack down on for-profits were meant to “protect students,” there was an “unfair focus” on for-profits and “somewhat of a demonization to the exclusion of looking at all sectors.”
