According to a story in the New York Times, Betsy DeVos has pretty much shut down a special team in the Education Department that was investigating abuses by for-profit colleges.

Completely coincidentally, I'm sure, DeVos has hired many of the officials whose schools were under investigation.

Under the Obama administration, the team was looking into advertising, recruitment practices and job placement claims at several schools -- including DeVry Education Group.

Now Julian Schmoke, a former dean at DeVry, is the team’s new supervisor.

And so on.

The worst six months of my life was spent working at one of the largest for-profit "colleges." Any sleazy practice you can think of, they did. I didn't find out until they were shut down by the feds that they were already operating under a federal order to stop the practices. (They ignored the order.)

Here is what I learned, and I want to spread the word: Don't allow anyone you care about attend for-profit colleges. They lie about the value of their degrees (one of the reasons I did poorly was that I refused to lie), most employers won't hire you, and it will cost you a fortune for a worthless piece of paper. One of the reasons so many of them now offer four-year programs is because their crappy credits aren't transferable anywhere else.

They are scams.

At the very least, there is nothing you can get at a for-profit school that you can't get at your local community college -- cheaper, and much better quality. At worst, you will get substandard training that won't be good for much, and you'll be paying an inflated loan for a very long time.