Writing on the CCAP blog, Andrew Gillen argues that the GAO’s recent study on for-profit higher ed seems to be a witch hunt. The trouble is not that the for-profits never try to squeeze money out of students and taxpayers in exchange for courses with scant educational content, but that the GAO is making it seem as if only the for-profit sector does that. There is plenty of educational fraud going on in the non-profit sector, too. Zeroing in on the for-profit sector obscures the root of the problem, namely third-party funding. That’s why for-profit and non-profit colleges alike are able to lure in weak students and pretend to educate them — taxpayers are covering much of the expense.