Are For-Profit Colleges Being Treated Fairly by the GAO?

In The American Spectator, Mark Hyman is looking at the assault on for-profit colleges and finds the evidence them by the GAO to be lacking:

The GAO delivered the report to the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee during an August 2010 hearing. The report formulated the basis of critical testimony that leveled very serious charges regarding career college recruiting practices.

I found numerous inconsistencies in the GAO report and had countless questions regarding assertions made in the report. I believed some of the claims in the GAO report raised serious questions about the agency's methodology and its interpretation of conversations between college officials and undercover GAO operatives.

I put several questions to the GAO. The agency appeared to fully answer some of questions and offered only vague responses to others. In a matter of weeks after I submitted my questions the GAO quietly released a revised version of the original report. After being questioned over the revisions a GAO spokesman stated, "Ultimately nothing has changed with the overall message of the report, and nothing has changed with any of our findings."

Nothing could be further from the truth. The revised findings significantly changed the report. In addition, they were significant enough to call into question either the competence or the integrity of the GAO.

You have to read the entire piece to get a full grasp of all of the inconsistencies.