WALL STREET JOURNAL: Scapegoating For-Profit Colleges: Obama tees up another private industry for punishment. “No wonder the U.S. economy isn’t creating jobs when anyone who makes money and creates more jobs immediately becomes a political target.”
UPDATE: Reader Josh Strodtbeck writes:
Josh Strodtbeck
to punditshow details 10:26 AM (13 minutes ago)
Although my sympathies lie with for-profit education, the availability of cheap credit to students is largely responsible for inflating the education bubble. The restrictions on federal aid to private colleges are a nice first step; rather than calling for the floodgates to remain open, the WSJ ought to be calling for the restrictions to be extended to public universities as well. Ideally, the federally backed student loan program would be ended entirely. As in the housing market, subsidizing risky borrowers creates distorting incentives and misallocations of capital. Who says we need everyone in America to have a straight-to-Starbuck’s college degree? If we needed them, they’d pay for themselves.
Indeed.