The secret weapon Conservatives are using to take down public universities in America. Conservatives are arming up for their war on public universities, trying to de-fund them, destroy them, and replace them with for-profit colleges. Think it’s impossible? They did the same thing during the Reagan years with our national system of non-profit hospitals, which have nearly all now been replaced with for-profit hospitals, which is a large part of why our healthcare costs are soaring and hospital executives are suddenly multimillionaires. So the war is on to destroy our state colleges and promote more for-profit colleges. And their primary weapon of choice ISN’T budget cuts to education or tax breaks to for-profit universities. No – their primary weapon of choice is frames.