If Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) runs for president in 2028, expect her campaign to be an all-out war on men. Speaking in Michigan with Abdul el Sayed last week, Ocasio-Cortez falsely accused Republicans of wanting to keep women out of college, just weeks after she lied about Cornell University’s response to sexual assault allegations at a fraternity party. Women make up 60% of Democratic Party primary voters, and Ocasio-Cortez wants them good and scared when they head to the ballot box.
“I want to be very clear that what the Trump administration is doing,” Ocasio-Cortez said, “is attacking women’s ability to get an education. They don’t want women to go to college.”
This would be big news if true, considering that women make up 60% of all college students and earn 63% of all master’s degrees. Nearly every university in America would go bankrupt if women were suddenly kicked out.
So what is Ocasio-Cortez talking about?
In July, the Education Department issued a regulation requiring undergraduate programs receiving federal direct loans to show that their graduates’ median earnings, measured four years after completion, exceed those of workers with only a high school diploma. Graduate programs face a corresponding benchmark based on workers with bachelor’s degrees, with an accommodation allowing comparisons within the same field of study. Programs must hit this mark in two out of three consecutive years. Programs that do not hit the mark are not eligible for federal student loans.
This is a common-sense rule based on the principle that taxpayers should not be subsidizing degrees that don’t make students better off, and students shouldn’t go into debt for degrees that don’t increase their earning potential. The Obama administration issued a similar regulation in 2011, but it only applied to for-profit schools. The new Trump regulation applies to all schools.
According to the Education Department’s own data, 3,200 programs enrolling approximately 690,000 students are projected to fail the earnings test under the new regulation. For-profit schools would be especially hard hit, with 35% of existing programs not qualifying, compared to just 3.7% of programs at nonprofit institutions. The undergraduate certificate programs hardest hit would be cosmetology, culinary services, and literature.
Cosmetology, culinary services, and literature certificate programs are overwhelmingly female. But shutting down for-profit schools that don’t make graduates more employable and leave them in debt is not the “attack” on women going to college that Ocasio-Cortez makes it out to be. In fact, when we are talking about traditional bachelor’s degrees, just 1.2% of programs nationally would be affected, with religious studies, graphic communications, and theater arts topping the list. Our country will do just fine with fewer government-subsidized theater arts majors.
Defending women from the invented evils of the patriarchy is becoming Ocasio-Cortez’s go-to political play. Two weeks ago, she falsely claimed seven men “drugged and gang raped” a woman after luring her into a fraternity house and got away with it. “I want to be clear that the culture of rape, sexual assault, and pedophilia is protected in elite institutions across the United States, and including Cornell University,” Ocasio-Cortez claimed. “It has got to stop.”
PARENTS DON’T WANT THE CHILDCARE DEMOCRATS ARE SELLING
As depraved as what went on in that fraternity house was, the men did not lure anyone anywhere, and they have not been charged with rape. They were punished by Cornell for their lurid behavior that night, with penalties including two expulsions, one ban from campus, and two suspensions. College women are safer now from sexual assault than they were 20 years ago, according to the best crime data available, but you would never guess that from Ocasio-Cortez’s rhetoric.
Women deserve better than politicians who turn every policy dispute into evidence of a conspiracy against them. Protecting students from worthless degrees is responsible governance. Exploiting their fears for political gain is not. Ocasio-Cortez should offer women an honest argument instead of treating their anxiety as her path to power.