It is common knowledge in the United States of America that public policy aggravates and intensifies economic inequality. Alternatively, it is also widely recognized that the "American Dream" has evolved from a goal to achieve into a standard of living. It is modernly expected to work hard throughout your life, save money, and attempt to succeed in any way that you can. For decades, many individuals in the United States of America chose to attend college as a means to create opportunities for success through their degrees- enough so that America became a frontrunner in the world ranks of higher education. However, throughout the last few decades, America has lost its lead. Legislation that had allowed many of the individuals to attend college …show more content…
This exact problem manifests itself in the interminable debate over the growth of the private-for-profit higher education industry, in which these institutes have fortresses built on the foundation of government trust, the profits from federal funding, and the ability to fail to provide opportunities for their students to succeed without defaulting on their student loans. These problems have roots in the federal government, and were born from the inability to maintain legislation to be able to stand both the test of time and against strong outside circumstances. Public policy facilitated the growth of the private-for-profit higher education industry by falling prey to two of the most obstructing political issues: polarization and plutocracy. Polarization is the political terminology for when members of Congress often vote almost exclusively alongside the party that they identify as, and plutocracy is "the responsiveness of the political system primarily to the concerns of wealthy powerful interests" (Mettler 5). These two factors were overcome by President Obama during his efforts to reform the student loan system, but drastically failed to curb the growth of the private-for-profit …show more content…
Once again, the foundations of failure manifested themselves in the form of polarization and plutocracy. The core element that separates President Obama's success with the student loan system and the Congress's failure to staunch the growth of the for-profit higher education system is polarization. The Obama Administration found a method to circumvent the obstacle by introducing the reforms through means that required less of a majority, and evaded the negative aspects of polarization. The reason why for-profit institutes were not successfully reformed is that these institutions have discovered a technique that allows polarization to work to their benefit. The colleges have won the support of the entire fiscally conservative Republican Party. For-profits use the same polarization that causes gridlock in reforming the system to purposefully cause gridlock for that precise purpose. "To be a Republican in Congress came to mean supporting the for-profit colleges unquestioningly and opposing any efforts to tie their access to aid their performance" (Mettler 177). Gridlock became a weapon against liberals and reformers, and successfully restricted any legislation that would have negatively affected the institutions. By fanning the flames of strict polarization, the for-profits created a safety net around their