As President Joe Biden hands out hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan cancellations as if it were Monopoly money, his education agenda is disturbingly handing out punishment to potentially millions of other students who either can’t afford or choose not to attend a “traditional” four-year college. It is a woefully underreported issue that has serious ramifications both for the future of higher education and America’s workforce.

Hundreds of institutions of higher education exist outside of the elite left-wing education establishment, and they have been in the crosshairs of radical Department of Education bureaucrats since the Obama administration. These career-oriented, online, and for-profit colleges serve hundreds of thousands of students each year, mostly adult learners, veterans, working parents, active military personnel, and minorities. Unfortunately, their dreams of achieving a college degree and more career opportunities are being crushed by an administration putting ideology above opportunity.

This agenda is being enacted through onerous new regulations, enforcement actions, and changes to various requirements for the disbursement of financial aid. Because career-oriented schools operate outside of the dictates of the liberal education establishment, the Education Department holds a vendetta against them, though they serve a vital function in training students with important trade skills desperately needed in our workforce. Moreover, career colleges offer flexibility, affordability, and real skills needed to be successful in the 21st century and are highly sought-after options.

The Left’s goal is no less than closing these schools down, which will result in fewer educational options, higher tuition prices, less innovation, fewer students earning a degree, and a less personalized educational experience.

Take, for example, the most recent rulemaking from the Education Department regarding “gainful employment.” The recently finalized regulations target career colleges by empowering bureaucrats to decide whether graduates within a certain program will earn a sufficient salary to repay their loans and make more than an adult in their state who did not attend college. The department admits that 1,700 programs serving nearly 700,000 students would fail either prong of the rule. Failing either of those tests in two consecutive years would result in a loss of federal financial aid and a strong likelihood of school closure.

Claiming they are trying to “protect” students, the Education Department somehow exempts from this rule traditional public and private four-year universities — where the vast majority of student debt is generated. Degrees in liberal arts or performing arts that offer salaries at the bottom of the pay scale are apparently no concern at all.

The regulation is clearly bad news for students, schools, and employers who rely on a pipeline of skilled graduates entering the workforce. That’s why we are leading a dozen center-right organizations in a coalition letter urging Congress to take action and reverse this regulation through a Congressional Review Act resolution.

Rumblings suggest this pushback is in the works, and not a moment too soon. House Education and Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) even noted that the rule subverts “the constitutional authority vested in Congress,” which she said “is nothing new.”

“It adds to a long line of flawed, and in some cases illegal decision-making that is all too familiar in the Biden administration,” she added.

Her committee has done a stellar job of holding the Department of Education accountable, and shepherding a CRA through the House would add to her already impressive oversight record.

But Congress must act quickly. Nontraditional schools and the students they serve are already feeling the effects of the Biden administration’s campaign against them. Just last month, Grand Canyon University, the largest Christian school in the United States, revealed it is being fined a whopping $37.7 million amid accusations that it misled students about the cost of doctoral programs.

According to Fox News, GCU and the Education Department go way back and are currently embroiled in a legal battle over the department’s refusal to acknowledge the school as a nonprofit organization. GCU has sued the department twice, with the second appeal still pending. In the meantime, the department is retaliating through a tried-and-true tactic: forcible closure.

It seems the only schools safe from the Education Department’s persecution are the ones racking up the most debt: government-funded and for-profit four-year schools. President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona are deliberately failing students, and it’s up to Congress to stand up and protect them.

Gerard Scimeca is an attorney and chairman of CASE, Consumer Action for a Strong Economy, a free market-oriented consumer advocacy organization he co-founded.