Secretary Cardona’s political bias is an attack on college choice

OPINION:

It isn’t hard to find examples of government incompetence, especially from the Department of Education (DoEd). Their ongoing fumbling of the rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), as one example, is a reminder that government just doesn’t work properly for average people. And now, the New York Times is reporting FAFSA will be delayed yet again, again jeopardizing student’s access to federal grants, work-study programs, and loans.

Incompetence, however, is far from the worst attribute of the Biden-Harris DoEd. For four years they have waged a savage ideological attack against non-traditional and career-oriented colleges, using their power over the student loan process to bring these schools to heel. If not reversed, the effect on college choice and our nation’s work force will be devastating.

My organization dove into the administration’s bias in our newest report, titled “Cardona Bias.” We discovered the Department of Education uses three tactics to target career colleges while pushing the Biden-Harris free-college agenda.

Recent selective enforcement actions reveal how a biased Student Financial Aid Office of Enforcement exists almost exclusively to prosecute unconventional schools while the administration pursues an extreme “settle-and-sue” strategy to carry out unchecked student loan bailouts.

The Biden-Harris administration has routinely used the DoED to advance its political bias against career colleges schools that offer flexible schedules and are popular among working parents, veterans, and minorities.

The Wall Street Journal dubbed Generation Z the “Toolbelt Generation,” and rightly so. An unmistakable trend has taken hold in higher education with more students turning their backs on the traditional four-ear diploma and toward colleges that provide skilled training for in-demand, high-paid jobs. Last year, enrollment in vocational schools rose 16%, with students studying construction trades up 23% over the past five years. At the same time, Gallup found Americans’ confidence in higher education has fallen to 36%, a sharp decline from just a few years ago.

Now, add the Biden-Harris administration’s failed education policies that not only limit choice for all students, but heavily coddle traditional four-year institutions stocked with far-left professors and administrators.

Rather than focus on their federally mandated job and ensure young Americans can afford or reasonably finance a place on campus, the DoED has doubled down on its assault against career colleges using harassment, litigation, and illegal loan forgiveness to advance their left-wing agenda of punishing and shuttering higher education options that don’t align with their woke ideology.

Let’s flash back to 2023 when the North District of California approved one of the first student loan bailouts with Sweet v. Cardona, essentially granting executive agencies the equivalent power as legislators. Biden’s DoED immediately maneuvered to cancel billions in student loans through this “sue-and-settle” agreement while handing down an assumption of guilt to more than 150 schools with career colleges disproportionately affected.

Legal scholars are ringing alarm bells on the Biden-Harris crusade against career colleges. In an amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court for the Ninth Circuit, twenty state attorneys general argued that the “executive branch does not have unlimited policymaking power, nor an unlimited bank account to forgive student loan debt.”

A few months later the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Biden-Harris $400 billion plan to cancel student loans for millions of Americans. While the massive student loan bailout agenda waits on appeals, the Department has moved onto other methods. A recent report from the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) revealed how one office in the Department of Education The Student Financial Aid Office of Enforcement exists almost exclusively to prosecute career colleges and universities.

It’s simple how these folks operate: identify a career college, presume their guilt, and run them out of business with just the stroke of a pen.

According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), of the thirteen colleges against which the enforcement office brought penalties, ten were non-traditional schools. The most common penalty imposed ended a college’s access to federal student aid programs a death sentence. And they’re expanding their operations to target Christian schools, slapping a historic $37.7 million dollar fine on Grand Canyon University earlier this year.

It’s time for Congress to demand answers from this administration and end these dangerous tactics by defunding the enforcement office, stepping up oversight at the DoED, and fixing FASFA. If left unchecked, the Department of Education will continue to wield unchecked executive authority at the peril of students across our nation.

• Gerard Scimeca is Chairman of Consumer Action for a Strong Economy.