I was just alerted to this gem of a tantrum / press release issued two weeks ago by the for-profit college trade association APSCU, whose strategy of aggressive, expensive lobbying and litigation has utterly failed, and which now has lost much of its funding.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington DC rejected the for-profit college trade group's challenge to the Obama Administration's gainful employment rule, a regulation that holds career training programs accountable for consistently leaving students with overwhelming debt.

The Republican ex-congressman who now works as the chief lobbyist for the troubled for-profit college industry has ushered in the new year with an email asking for-profit college owners to finance a legal brief aimed at limiting the legal risk of companies in fraud cases.

The rule, which went into effect on July 1 of this year, is designed to reveal programs that carry high levels of student debt while yielding relatively subpar job credentials.

Some of the largest for-profit college companies -- including, last month, DeVry and Kaplan -- have recently left the industry's main trade group. Funded to boost its industry's fortunes, APSCU may instead have contributed to dragging the industry down. Now APSCU itself may be a sinking ship.

The big for-profit colleges were back in court in Washington again this morning, arguing to a federal judge that the Obama Administration did not have the power to subject them to even the most minimal standards of accountability for leaving their students with overwhelming debt.