[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.

[yummyfajitas]

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

I'm confused. The "gainful employment" rule seems to target low quality schools. If, as you assert, non-profits are of higher quality, why exempt them from the "gainful employment" rule? After all, the rule won't affect them (if you are right).

The answer is, of course, that if you are wrong and some non-profits are also low quality, the employees of those schools will have less money to donate to Democrats.

But I'm sure no politician anywhere cares about that.

[LockeWatts]

First, let me point out rather amusingly that you did not respond to any of my points on the nature of campaign contributions. I'd ask again for you to do so.

As for your questions.

I'm confused. The "gainful employment" rule seems to target low quality schools.

Incorrect. Your false assertion here completely derails the remainder of your post, making it irrelevant. If you would like a correct explanation of the gainful employment rule, let me know.

[anamax]

> 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.

Yeah right.

Interestingly enough, no one makes that distinction when it comes to oil company executives.

> For profit schools are student farms, churning them out and providing predatory loans to their uneducated students.

You seem to think that everyone at a non-profit works for free. They don't. They benefit from the money that comes in.

The only difference between non-profits and for-profits is whether the investors get any direct dividends. There's no difference wrt the employees.

And, non-profits do figure out ways to indirectly compensate their donors.

For example, they arrange for and vigorously defend various tax breaks.

In fact, they lobby for high tax rates to make deductible donations more attractive. Gee thanks - I'm paying for your donation.

[anamax]

> 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.

Shouldn't we ask whether they actually do better the country at some point? And, suppose that other institutions also "better the country", shouldn't they get money too?

> That makes their product worthless.

Really? Where do you think that your auto mechanic learned his trade? How about the plumber? And so on.

The for-profits tend to serve people that the non-profits have largely abandoned. Why don't those people count?

[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.

[SiVal]

You don't believe that any of what I said is true because you know for a fact that American universities have no systematic liberal bias? "No way"? No possibility they do?

Okay, then, your credibility can be judged by other readers on that basis: no way there's any systematic liberal bias at a place like Stanford.

I claim that these universities are powerful, overwhelmingly liberal-leaning, highly-politicized internally, highly-influential externally, and that their internal politics heavily impacts the nature of their significant external political influence. The corporate comptroller at Harvard does not have to write a check to an individual politician for Harvard to exert its political influence. Harvard has plenty of ways to influence people that don't require paying for political ads. The politician may even be writing checks to Harvard, hoping to get his son admitted.

And readers can judge the credibility of that claim, too.

[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.