A free market: a bureaucrat’s danger

“The wisdom of allowing anybody, person or organization, to establish a postsecondary educational institution in the Commonwealth without regulation by any agency of the government is questionable and even dangerous,” warned Mr. Alvaro Santos, the acting President of the Northern Marianas College.

And he is absolutely right. It is dangerous. It is dangerous to the education bureaucRATS (subliminal message intended) at the Northern Marianas College. It is dangerous to Mr. Santos himself.

Without a doubt, free market competition in the post-secondary education arena is dangerous to an entrenched NMC monopoly. The BureaucRATS and DemocRATS at the Northern Marianas College do not want to compete with the highly productive private sector. They don’t want to compete with good Christian colleges.

Mr. Santos–who, incidentally, left a rather remarkable and lasting legacy at the former Marianas Visitors Bureau, where he was once the absolutely invaluable and indispensable Deputy Director to Anicia Tomokane (just ask Norman Berg)–is now telling us that he is afraid to freely compete for student dollars. He and his bureaucRATic ilk clearly do not want to empower CNMI college students with consumer choice. Instead, they want to force NMC upon our students–to force it as the only available local college option, no objections brooked.

This is precisely why Mr. Santos is so terrified of opening up the doors to competing academic institutions. Although he claims otherwise, he is very likely not so much concerned with the quality of our college students’ education. He is probably just afraid of losing his secure government job.

The education monopolists claim that private local colleges would be dangerous because they are not accredited. Very well, the question then is: What’s to prevent these schools from gaining accreditation after we open the doors and allow them to freely compete against the NMC?

Furthermore, why not let the students decide for themselves on whether or not they need a certain college accreditation? Presumably, if I am merely interested in learning the Chinese language for personal use, I may not care about the official accreditation.

Mr. Santos claims that allowing private CNMI colleges to flourish may be dangerous to our interests? But would it be any more dangerous than employing and thereby allowing an NMC instructor to sexually harass young female students? Is it more dangerous than forcing the CNMI taxpayer to foot the bill for a $350,000 sexual harassment lawsuit–than keeping the instructor on the staff?

To paraphrase Mr. Santos, I, for one, say that the wisdom of allowing anybody, person (Mr. Santos) or organization (NMC), to establish a postsecondary educational monopoly in the Commonwealth without free market competition of any kind is highly questionable and even dangerous.