As we predicted last month, the Federal Trade Commission today announced it had dropped the case it had been pursuing against for-profit college operation Grand Canyon Education. Obviously proud of their action, the three Republican appointees — masquerading as the full FTC after Donald Trump illegal fired the two Democratic appointees — announced their decision late on a Friday in August.

According to this lite MAGA version of the FTC, chaired by Andrew N. Ferguson, the case “suffered losses in two motions to dismiss.” The fake commission continued, “These losses are compounded by recent events: Grand Canyon secured a victory over the Department of Education in a related matter before the Ninth Circuit, the Department of Education rescinded a massive fine levied on related grounds; and the Internal Revenue Service confirmed that Grand Canyon University is properly claiming 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation designation.”

Thus, according to the Commission

In its reduced form, this case presents consumers very little upside relative to the cost of pursuing it to completion, especially given the developments chronicled above. We view it as imprudent to continue expending Commission resources on a lost cause. Because we have a duty to maximize consumers’ return on their tax-dollars investment, we have decided against pursuing this matter any further.

In reality, none of the developments described above undermined the extensive evidence amassed by the FTC that Grand Canyon had systematically deceived students about the costs of a degree at the school. The issues described by the fake FTC for the most part went to (1) whether the Commission, which normally has jurisdiction over only for-profit entities like Grand Canyon Education and people like its CEO Brian Mueller, could also sue a non-profit entity, like Grand Canyon University, that is tightly connected to a for-profit business; and (2) whether the Department of Education used the proper criteria to decide whether Grand Canyon University should be properly classified as a for-profit or non-profit school.  

The Department of Education’s own decision to cancel a $37 million fine against GCU, premised on essentially the same deceptive GCU conduct cited by the FTC complaint, was issued without announcement, and, after it was noticed, the Department’s only rationale was repetition of Grand Canyon’s false and absurd claim that the Department had persecuted the school for its Christian orientation. 

Like the Department of Education, the FTC commissioners did not actually comment on the strength of the evidence that FTC had deceived numerous students (by the way, many of them Christians). Their excuses were lame, and they should be ashamed.