Minority business leaders speak up in favor of for-profit colleges

In last month's State of the Union Address, President Obama called for a greater focus on education and a new "Sputnik moment" for our nation.

But his Department of Education continues its war on for-profit colleges. However, more people are fighting back, including minority business leaders such as Mario H. Lopez, the president of the Hispanic Leadership Fund, who writes in the Daily Caller:

Private sector colleges and universities play a vital role in today’s economy because they provide the specialized training and skills that employers are increasingly looking for in their workers.

Javier Palomarez, who leads the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, says:

America's employers, including Hispanic Business Enterprises, depend on career colleges to train and prepare skilled workers to fill open positions throughout the economy. Each year, our businesses offer gainful employment to hundreds of thousands of career school graduates in dozens of demanding professions from nurses and health care aides, to computer technicians and chefs, from legal assistants and teachers to security and accounting professionals

What about African-Americans? Well, Harry C. Alford, the president and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce scolds the DofE on NPR.org:

With that as background, we must examine the Department of Education's headlong rush to effectively remove career-oriented colleges from the quiver of educational arrows available to minority students. The new "Gainful Employment Rule" uses a formula that would disproportionately harm low-income students because their student load-to-income ratio or their rate of repaying loans would not meet the federal bureaucrats' threshold.

Students deserve a choice. The gainful employment rule, which will cut off student loan funding to schools who graduate too many students who end up burdened with college debt they can't pay back. While there are some bad actors among for-profit schools, they should be punished, not the entire industry. The Gainful Employment Rule does not apply to not-for-profit schools, which is not surprising--many member of the Obama administration, including the president himself, once worked for these colleges. Also, many of these schools are at least partially unionized--and labor is a protected White House caste as we all know.

Related posts:

Soros, liberal groups aiding Obama's war on career colleges
Dept. of Ed. arranging one-sided "conversation" about for-profit colleges
Issa investigating allegations that GAO destroyed evidence from sloppy for-profit college investigation
Short-seller talked to Education Department about "gainful employment" rule
Washington Post Co. CEO: Proposed Dept of Ed rules on for-profit schools will harm low income students
Vet and student speaks up for career colleges
Campus Progress reports on career college issue--while fighting for-profit schools
War on for-profit colleges' Jayson Blair exposed by Gawker
Sun-Times: Feds shouldn't punish career colleges
Don't punish career colleges
Issa's oversight committee to look at GAO report on career colleges
Tom Harkin attacks career colleges
GAO revises its negative report about for-profit schools
The Department of Education's war on career colleges
Idiotic edu-crats attacking for-profit colleges

Technorati tags: news college government college education Obama Barack Obama african american hispanic