Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, has been a vocal advocate for for-profit colleges, pushing back on regulations on the sector.
Hegseth emerged as a strong supporter of for-profit colleges during the first Trump administration. Speaking at a Career Education Colleges and Universities event in 2019, Hegseth promised the lobbying group that he would push Trump to fight legislation to close a loophole in the 90-10 rule, which says that no more than 90 percent of a for-profit institution’s revenue can come from federal aid. The loophole, which was closed in 2022, held that veterans’ benefits—including GI Bill stipends—didn’t count as federal aid, allowing for-profit colleges to enroll more students using federal loans, ProPublica reported.
“The fact that profit is made only makes these schools better,” Hegseth said in a 2019 speech.
Beyond the multiple speeches Hegseth delivered for CECU and related organizations, he also wrote opinion pieces for Fox News and The Hill, arguing that “left-wing extremists” had miscast proprietary institutions as “predatory for-profit colleges” and that the Democratic Party and “many veteran groups now primarily support a leftist, anti-choice higher education agenda.”
While it is unclear what Hegseth’s support for the sector would mean if he is confirmed to the DOD role, many in the for-profit college world expect a second Trump administration to roll back Biden-era policies that targeted proprietary institutions, likely ushering in a less stringent regulatory environment.
President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Hegseth, a Fox News host, came as a surprise to many. While a vocal Trump supporter and veteran, Hegseth does not have the type of experience that past leaders of the Department of Defense have had, his critics have noted.
