During the Obama years, it appeared that the federal government was going to start cracking down on the for-profit “higher education” industry, which typically gets horrible results and loads students with debt. (As I have reported in the past, former officials of the Obama Department of Education bought control of one of the nation’s largest for-profit college chains.)

But with the election victory of Donald Trump, sponsor of the fraudulent Trump University, the stock prices of for-profit education corporations went through the roof. Why would anyone expect a man who profited as founder of Trump University to crack down on others doing the same?

The New York Times reports:

Since Election Day, for-profit college companies have been on a hot streak. DeVry Education Group’s stock has leapt more than 40 percent. Strayer’s jumped 35 percent and Grand Canyon Education’s more than 28 percent.

You do not need an M.B.A. to figure out why. Top officials in Washington who spearheaded a relentless crackdown on the multibillion-dollar industry have been replaced by others who have profited from it.

President Trump ran the now-defunct Trump University, which wound up besieged by lawsuits from former students and New York’s attorney general, who called the operation a fraud. Within days of the election, Mr. Trump, without admitting any wrongdoing, agreed to a $25 million settlement.

Betsy DeVos, the newly installed secretary of education, is an ardent campaigner for privately run schools and has investments in for-profit educational ventures.

Please notice the use of the present tense “has.” Betsy DeVos did not divest her holdings in for-profit entities that are in direct conflict with her duties as Secretary of Education. Apparently in the Trump regime, ethics laws have been suspended for everyone, at least at the cabinet level.

While Ms. DeVos’s nomination attracted a flood of attention, most was focused on the K-through-12 system and the use of taxpayer-funded vouchers for private, online and religious schools. Higher education was barely mentioned during her confirmation hearings.

Yet colleges and universities are the institutions most directly influenced by the federal government, while public schools remain largely in the hands of states and localities. So it is in higher education that the new administration’s power is likely to be felt most keenly and quickly.

Under the Obama administration, the Education Department discouraged students from attending for-profit colleges, arguing recently that the data showed “community colleges offer a better deal than comparable programs at for-profit colleges with higher price tags.”

The for-profit sector has about 8 percent of those enrolled in higher education, according to the Education Department, but it has 15 percent of subsidized student loans.

While some career training schools delivered as promised, critics argued that too many burdened veterans, minorities and low-income strivers with unmanageable tuition debt without equipping them with jobs and skills that would enable them to pay it off.

After years of growing complaints and lawsuits, the agency moved aggressively to end abusive practices that ranged from deceptive advertising to fraud and cost students and taxpayers billions of dollars.

Two mammoth chains collapsed — Corinthian Colleges in 2015, and ITT Technical Institute in 2016 — leaving thousands of students stranded without degrees and in debt. Overall enrollment in for-profit institutions declined from 2.4 million in 2010 to 1.6 million in 2015 as hundreds of campuses closed. And as the largest provider of student loans, the federal government was left to bail out the defrauded.

Please open the article and check out the links.