[patdennis]

There are serious problems with the for-profit university model (like the University Of Phoenix) as outlined in this article.

I think it's worth pointing out that these businesses are aware that they may have a problem, and have stepped up their political giving massively to protect their interests. Mostly, to Republican candidates, and especially to Mitt Romney. [1]

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/us/politics/mitt-romney-of...

[yummyfajitas]

Similarly, the non-profit education sector donates heavily to Democrats.

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=W04

Also, purely coincidentally, non-profits are exempt from the "gainful employment" rule and all the other new rules being levied against competitors to the non-profit education sector.

Weird. It's almost as if the politicians don't care much when their cronies rip students off, only when other guys do it.

[patdennis]

The chart you linked to doesn't refer to giving from educational institutions themselves. The chart is tracking contributions from individual employees[1] of those institutions. Seems to me that simply represents the fact that professors tend to be Democrats.

On the other hand, with for profit colleges, institutions themselves [2] are contributing directly to superpacs and other political groups. It's a totally different metric.

[1] from your link: "Since school districts, colleges and universities are generally prohibited from forming political action committees, political contributions from the education industry generally come from the individuals associated with the field."

[2] The Apollo Group, which owns the University of Phoenix, contributed $75,000 last month to Restore Our Future, a super PAC run by former Romney aides. The pro-Romney super PAC is one of the biggest players in the GOP's long-running nomination fight, pumping more than $38 million into commercials, direct mail and automated phone calls that promote Romney and attack his GOP rivals. http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-03-26/romne...

[yummyfajitas]

One chart measures which party gains if more money flows to the non-profit sector. The other chart measures which party gains if more money flows to the for-profit sector.

You can nitpick the details of exactly what entities the money flows through, but the politicians aren't.

[patdennis]

It is a valid difference, and politicians are aware of it.

Organic giving from individuals who work in the educational sector doesn't come hand in hand with organized, well financed political pressure in the same way that a lobbying effort/targeted giving coming directly from a specific industry does.

[yummyfajitas]

Yes, clearly the non-profit sector is far less influential than the for-profit one, in spite of donating vastly more money. Education as a whole donated $6.3M to Obama, the for-profit sector donated $145k to John Kline and $107k to Romney [1].

Clearly the for-profit sector is vastly more influential.

This influence is proven by the fact that the politicians are making special rules for the non-profit sector and explicitly exempting the for-profits from them.

Oh wait, my mistake - I live in the real world, where $6.3M > $145k, and politicians target for-profits for special rules and throw more money at non-profits.

[1] Unfortunately OpenSecrets doesn't explicitly break the non-profit sector out of education as a whole.

[LockeWatts]

Yes, clearly the non-profit sector is far less influential than the for-profit one, in spite of donating vastly more money. Education as a whole donated $6.3M to Obama, the for-profit sector donated $145k to John Kline and $107k to Romney [1].

This argument doesn't make any sense. He just spelled this out for you, but I'll try it again.

Individual donations from non-profit education employees are not lobbying on the part of an industry. They're citizens playing an active role in politics.

Corporations in the for-profit education business are lobbying in an attempt to further increase their profit margins despite providing a product that is comparatively worthless.

Oh wait, my mistake - I live in the real world, where $6.3M > $145k, and politicians target for-profits for special rules and throw more money at non-profits.

Just as they should. For profit schools are student farms, churning them out and providing predatory loans to their uneducated students.

Nobody gives a degree from a for-profit school any kind of respect, it carries no more prestige than a high school degree. That makes their product worthless. They're attempting to legislate around their failings, not improve their product to a competitive level with the non-profit education system.

Seeing as the non-profit schools are supposed to be public institutions created to better the country, it's appropriate for them to receive federal funding.

[protomyth]

Please look up the lobbying organizations for Head Start and some of the higher education institutions which also have lobbying organizations for individual federal programs that benefit the public universities. My giving was rather less than organic.

[JoshTriplett]

> Organic giving from individuals who work in the educational sector doesn't come hand in hand with organized, well financed political pressure

As long as you don't count union lobbying as "organic giving from individuals".

[cantankerous]

Equating a slew of left-leaning individuals, each presumably acting on their own, with for-profit institutions seems rather disingenuous to me.

[SiVal]

I'm at Stanford, and if you think that Stanford doesn't use every bit of its institutional influence to promote liberal political power, you have rocks in your head. This university, like its peers, works tirelessly with media such as the NY Times to promote their candidates. They aren't allowed to donate institutional money directly to a candidate, which politicians need to buy media ads to get their message out. Instead, Stanford only employs those who support the institutional liberal political agenda (calling this policy "celebrating diversity"), then those people go to their partners in the media as "Stanford professor so-and-so" with "news" about what they've just "discovered" that has implications for how you should vote: "Stanford professor finds that [conservatives are mentally ill, people who vote for conservatives are bad, Republican claims are wrong, Obama is awesome, businesses need more regulation by liberals with elite degrees and no business experience...."]

Conservatives have to donate money to buy ads. Stanford gets to post its political campaign messages directly as "news."

Meanwhile back on campus, every effort is made to indoctrinate thousands of students and send them out as an army of "individuals" to do heroic things in the service of those who people at Stanford are expected to support. I had to break off my work a few weeks ago and go to another building when the second floor was taken over by a law professor who was leading a pep rally for Obamacare called a "discussion of the issues."

The notion that universities such as these just have some left-leaning individuals acting privately while the institution itself remains resolutely neutral politically "seems rather disingenuous to me."

[cantankerous]

Yeah, I don't believe any of that is true...especially in the way you phrased it. Maybe there could be some bias, but systematically? Absolutely? No way. I don't buy it.

[eli_gottlieb]

Stanford might be culturally liberal, but genuine leftist sentiment would be stabbing itself in the gut. Who would go to Stanford if UC Berkeley were tuition-free again?

[LockeWatts]

That's the only way to make the argument, though, which seems to speak to the validity in and of itself.

[slurgfest]

Wait: are you saying that non-profit education is ripping students off and making lots of money? edit: with the help of connivance from the Democrats? Because that seems to be what you are implying...

[yequalsx]

Perhaps there are reasons for this that have nothing to do with money. Many for-profits have very shady marketing and admissions policies. Almost all of them have very low academic standards. Mostly their money revenue comes from student loans that have very little chance of ever being paid off. Public institutions aren't quite at this stage of immoral behavior. This is why, I presume, that the for-profits are being targeted. Teachers who fail students at for-profits tend to get fired. Their incentives to just pass anyone. Working at a community college I do get nudges to increase the pass rate but I know I'm not getting fired for failing students who don't know enough to pass.

[yummyfajitas]

Many for-profits have very shady marketing and admissions policies. Almost all of them have very low academic standards.

Some non-profits have similar problems. Why exempt them from the rules? If these are real problems, why not pass laws against them and let the chips fall where they may?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/feature/colle...

Your argument is analogous to this one: "blacks are more likely to rob people, so lets exempt whites from laws against robbery."

[yequalsx]

I wasn't giving an argument. I was giving an explanation on how such a law could be made without it being the product of pressure fom some lobbying.