Freedom Line Blog

After the United States Supreme Court ruling this past June finally and rightfully overturning “Chevron Deference,” one might hope that federal agencies and the bureaucrats who populate them in Washington, D.C. would recognize and respect the new limitations on their previous excesses.

The ruling struck a major blow against administrative state overreach.  And while the Court’s decision specifically dealt with agencies’ rulemaking process and the ability to interpret statutes however they like, hopefully it and similar previous rulings will start imposing desperately needed guardrails to prevent rouge agency action.

The Unites States Department of Education (DOE) offers a textbook example of that sort of rogue behavior.   Many cogently contend that the DOE shouldn’t even exist, and that federal education dollars should instead go directly to the states, letting them handle education policy at the more effective local level.

Of course, if we accomplished that, bureaucrats in the DOE ranks wouldn’t be able to use their lofty titles to attack universities of their choosing at whim.

More specifically, we at CFIF told you a few months ago about an attempted money grab by DOE at the University of Arizona.  in that instance, the DOE moved to shift tens of millions of dollars in student debt from thousands of students instead onto the U of A following its acquisition of a for-profit online university.  That offers just the latest example of the ongoing efforts by federal regulators to target more market-driven education models.

To date, DOE has failed to provide any clarity or guidance in their scheme to U of A, despite that fact that it could cost Arizona taxpayers millions at a time when Vice President Kamala Harris desperately wants to avoid stirring up opposition among voters in this critical swing state.

Unfortunately, the DOE’s malfeasance shouldn’t be surprising.  It stems from DOE’s stubborn and unfounded aversion toward any market-oriented education outside of bureaucratic control.  How dare U of A experiment with an innovative form of education delivery, they believe.    That’s shameful of them, and ultimately damages student populations that the DOE exists to help.

In that vein, our friends at the Heritage Foundation released a report earlier this year detailing DOE’s two-decade war with for-profit higher education, even in cases where those schools were partners with nonprofit institutions.  “Rather than singling out the for-profit sector, which is meeting the needs of non-traditional students in particular, the department should hold all sectors to the same standards instead of expressing the anti-market biases,” the Heritage report found.

Sadly, U of A appears to be just the latest victim of DOE’s perverse witch hunt.  That triggers the looming question: Who’s next?  If the DOE can do this to the largest university in such a politically and economically important state like Arizona, what other state universities in less-pivotal swing states might they target next to try to recoup their student loan “forgiveness?”

Hopefully, pressure from the courts, elected officials and the public results in some restoration of sanity at the end of the day, and that DOE decides to put the interests of Arizona students and taxpayers first.

Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior of federal administrative agencies, whose vast armies of overpaid bureaucrats remain unaccountable for their excesses.

Among the most familiar examples of that bureaucratic abuse is the Department of Education (DOE).  Recall, for instance, the United States Supreme Court’s humiliating rebuke last year of the Biden DOE’s effort to shift hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt from the people who actually owed them onto the backs of American taxpayers.

Even now, despite that rebuke, the Biden DOE launched an alternative scheme last month in an end-around effort to achieve that same result.

Well, the Biden DOE is now attempting to shift tens of millions of dollars of student debt held by thousands of students onto the University of Arizona after the fact following U of A’s acquisition of the for-profit online university that it originally targeted.  In other words, the Biden DOE is compounding its habit of forgiving student debt by shifting the cost ex post facto onto the backs of Arizona taxpayers.

Not exactly the best way to flatter citizens of a swing state whose votes it desperately seeks amid sinking electoral prospects.

Here’s the background.

Amid a rapidly evolving educational environment, in August of 2020 the U of A announced its intent to acquire private online Ashford University in an attempt to extend its global reach, a pursuit shared by numerous other traditional universities.  The new entity was named the University of Arizona Global Campus (UAGC).

Well, years prior to the acquisition California and federal bureaucrats had accused Ashford of “deceptive” tactics, and last year the Biden DOE announced that it would discharge $72 million dollars in debt held by 2,300 of Ashford’s former students.

Lo and behold, this month the Biden DOE announced that it would seek to extract that amount from the U of A, which obviously had nothing to do with the conduct alleged by the DOE and California.

It all adds yet another questionable element to the Biden administration’s ongoing effort to boost its popularity among younger voters by shifting college student debt to anyone and everyone other than the legal borrowers themselves.  Whether that will please taxpayers in the swing state of Arizona might have been a consideration that escaped the Biden folks.