For all of its efforts to forgive student loans over the past three years, the Biden administration has made precious little effort to address the runaway college tuition costs that are at the core of the student loan and college affordability crisis.

But that hasn’t stopped officials in the Justice Department and the Education Department from saying that they are doing everything they can to lower college costs and take on predatory institutions.

The administration has recently pointed to its work on antitrust enforcement as proof that it is addressing the problem of out-of-control tuition costs and holding institutions accountable for anticompetitive behaviors.

Doha Mekki, a deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s antitrust division, recently said in an interview with Politico that the administration was addressing college affordability and that “antitrust enforcement plays a really important role in making sure that education, however you define it, is both available to all Americans and affordable for Americans.”

And in a recent speech, Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter singled out antitrust enforcement in higher education as a point of emphasis for the Biden DOJ.

“When colleges and universities were price fixing financial aid, the antitrust division stepped in to file a brief explaining why it was wrong,” he said. “Today, colleges and universities have settled those claims and are giving back money to harmed college students. This conduct was especially egregious amid the student loan crisis that is stifling young people from starting families and buying homes.”

Kanter was referring to a brief that the DOJ filed in Carbone v. Brown University after a group of elite colleges were accused of colluding together to fix financial aid awards for students through a partnership known as the 568 Presidents Group. The case was settled, and the colleges did not admit to any wrongdoing. 

But while Kanter is correct that the scheme was “especially egregious” due to its impact on young people who want to buy homes and start families, the department’s brief is a token act compared to the extensive price gouging that the federal government and higher education have cooperated on. And in tangible enforcement actions, the department has targeted outside actors in the higher education ecosystem rather than the colleges themselves. 

The DOJ made headlines in January by signing on to a lawsuit that challenged the NCAA’s ability to restrict student athlete transfers. Other enforcement actions in recent years included an antitrust lawsuit against the National Association for College Admission Counseling that was filed during former President Donald Trump’s administration in 2019. The institutions themselves, however, have been free from any scrutiny.

Elite higher education in the United States is effectively a monopoly. The eight Ivy League colleges enjoy a status that is unequaled in the national psyche. A graduate from Harvard University or Yale University is immediately seen as more accomplished and capable than an attendee of another institution simply because of the brand. 

Knowing the brand power that they boast nationwide, and even internationally, the Ivy League colleges are among the most expensive private universities in the nation. Of the eight schools, five will charge students more than $90,000 in tuition for the 2024-2025 school year. No school charges less than $82,000.

The outrageous costs are not limited to the most elite schools, however. Since 2000, the average tuition at a private university has increased by $10,000, even when the numbers are adjusted for inflation. Public school tuition has also nearly doubled, increasing by more than $4,000. All the while, federal and state funding for higher education has soared.

The power of the higher education monopoly to saddle generations of students with crippling debt has grown as federal spending on higher education has increased. Rather than hold this monopoly accountable, the federal government, including the Biden administration, has instead encouraged higher education institutions to enrich themselves off of the backs of the taxpayers while creating an enormous debtor class. The monopoly has become one with the government that is supposed to keep it in check.

The Biden administration has done nothing to address this and, indeed, has taken steps that are guaranteed to worsen the college tuition crisis while protecting the endless stream of money that feeds the higher education leviathan.

The first and most egregious policy was the widespread student loan forgiveness that simply transferred wealth from those who did not take on student loan debt or paid it off to those who did take it on and have not paid it off. And while the widespread loan forgiveness scheme was struck down by the Supreme Court last year, the Department of Education has used other means to cancel more than $160 billion in student loans. 

But for all the times that the administration has correctly identified universities as a culprit for the millions of people with crippling student loan debt, it has shown no interest in holding institutions accountable for their continued tuition hikes. In fact, the colleges that have faced the full wrath of the law have been the schools that have kept costs down the most.

In October of last year, the Biden Department of Education levied a $37 million fine against Grand Canyon University for purportedly misrepresenting the cost of its doctoral programs. Ironically, Grand Canyon University, one of the largest and most successful Christian universities in the nation, has not raised its tuition in more than a decade. The institution charges $16,500 in annual tuition, a far cry from the $92,288 price tag for attending the University of Pennsylvania.

The Department of Education and the Department of Justice could investigate many institutions for antitrust violations and misrepresentations to the millions of students who have been crushed by student loan debt. Yet no elite or legacy nonprofit college has faced nearly as much scrutiny as former for-profit schools such as Grand Canyon.

And as the administration has trumpeted its crusade against student loan debt, not once has it blamed or scrutinized the hundreds of public and private nonprofit universities, many of which boast enormous billion-dollar endowments, that have played an outsize role in trapping an entire generation of students under high-interest student loans. 

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

No Democratic politician that wants to “tax the rich” or corporations has even suggested that university endowments (some larger than the market value of major companies) face the same taxation they claim to want for Wall Street. 

The Biden Department of Justice may trot out its officials to make the case that filing a few briefs here and there is evidence that the federal government is committed to holding higher education accountable for anticompetitive and exploitative practices. But this administration is only committed to one thing: ensuring that the legacy institutions of higher education continue to profit off of the taxpayer and a generation of students who see a college education as a necessary bridge to a successful career.