According to a new report released by the American Principles Project (APP), 70% of the Department of Education’s penalty actions were targeted toward faith-based colleges and career schools under the Biden-Harris administration. Though 59 out of the 87 actions were placed on these institutions, the schools represent less than 10% of college students.
The administration wielded the Office of Enforcement, a subsidiary of the Office of Federal Student Aid that former President Obama created, to eliminate universities that did not align with its left-wing agenda, the report charges. President Joe Biden Revitalized the agency during his presidency.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durban made a clear statement of the agency’s aim to control, immobilize or remove nonpublic colleges.
“Reestablishing an aggressive enforcement office at the Department of Education is key to holding for-profit colleges accountable,” Durbin said in 2021. “For-profit colleges essentially ran the Department for four years under Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos …President Biden and Secretary Cardona are making clear that those days are over.”
After the disclosure of the Department of Education’s legal actions ensued by the Office of Enforcement, APP examined the report and found three tactics the office used to harm Christian and career schools, including the tactic to “impose massive penalties against leading institutions,” “harass schools operating in good faith with scrutinize-and-fine investigations,” and “cut off or threaten colleges and universities’ access to Title IV funding.”
APP recorded that the Office of Enforcement targeted excessive penalties or disqualified federal student aid within at least 12 Christian colleges and universities. In October 2023, Grand Canyon University, the largest Christian university in the U.S., was fined $37.7 million for allegedly not fully disclosing costs of its doctoral program on its website.
Over the last 10 years, more than a quarter of nearly 75 fines for federal violations were placed on Christian institutions. Christian schools received an average fine of $815,000 while public and private institutions received an average of $228,571.
The report also notes that evoking Title IV funding was a tactic used to financially disable nonpublic universities and career colleges.
The Department of Education revoked access or terminated Title IV funds from Christian colleges such as Wiley College, Maple Springs Baptist Bible College & Seminary, Mission University and King’s College.
APP Policy Director Jon Schweppe said further reform is needed to prevent future misuse of the Department of Education.
“As our report details, the Biden-Harris Department of Education has been engaged in a long-running scheme to punish Christian colleges that are ideologically opposed to the left’s agenda. The unfair targeting of these institutions has been egregious, and it needs to stop immediately,” Schweppe said in the news release attached to the APP report. “During his first term, President Donald Trump deprioritized the Enforcement Office, and his next administration should eliminate it. APP looks forward to working with the Trump-Vance administration and Republican leaders to end the Democrats’ yearslong campaign to control and eliminate faith-based universities once and for all.”
