DeSantis takes on Biden and the college cartel
Washington Examiner
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Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has done more than any other governor to take on the higher education establishment that has been captured by the Left. The Left isn’t happy about the progress DeSantis has made, so the Biden administration has empowered unelected bureaucrats to undo what DeSantis has accomplished.
DeSantis, however, is not about to let unelected bureaucrats ruin his higher education reforms. So this week, he sued President Joe Biden’s Education Department, alleging that the federal government’s entire higher education financing system is both unconstitutional and in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act. DeSantis has a strong case, he should win on both claims, and the nation will be much improved for it.
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The underlying issue is the seven accreditation agencies the Department of Education has empowered as gatekeepers for federal higher education financing. Simply stated, if your school does not get a seal of approval from one of these seven accreditors, students can’t use federal loans or grants to help pay for tuition.
None of the leaders of any of these agencies was elected by anybody. They are completely unaccountable. And, like the rest of academia, they have become wholly captured by far-left ideologues.
In theory, these accreditation agencies are supposed to make sure universities are delivering high-quality education to students. In reality, they are enforcers of the higher education cartel.
As the Texas Public Policy Foundation has noted, accreditors rarely take action against existing colleges for failures in academic programming or student outcomes. What the accreditation agencies are very good at is not approving accreditation for new higher education institutions and shutting down experiments in higher education that can bring down costs for students.
When Florida State University was considering naming a conservative to become its next president, FSU’s accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), sent a letter to the school threatening to pull its accreditation if it followed through. The University of North Carolina can commit decades worth of academic fraud, and its accreditor could care less, but FSU considers hiring one conservative, and all of a sudden, it’s the end of the world.
DeSantis then fought back, passing a new law requiring all Florida universities to change their accreditors whenever their accreditation is up for renewal. This would render SACSCOC powerless over FSU. But then Biden responded with new regulations mandating that all universities must stay with their current accreditor.
Now DeSantis has filed a lawsuit against the Education Department, alleging that not only is the new regulation tying universities to their current accreditors forever in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act, but that the entire accreditation system is a violation of the Constitution’s delegation doctrine, Spending Clause, and Appointments Clause.
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“In America, you need to be accountable to somebody,” DeSantis said last week at a press conference announcing the lawsuit. “And right now, they’re accountable to nobody.”
DeSantis is right. The current college accreditation agencies are accountable to no one. And yet they wield far too much power over our nation’s higher education system. DeSantis is right to take them on, and the country will be a better place once their gatekeeping role has ended.