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Stacey Vanek-Smith: Conservative TV and radio personality Glenn Beck has created something of a cottage industry. Now, he wants to be an educator. Beck is launching an online “university” today. Mitchell Hartman explains.

Glenn Beck So you have the hammer and the sickle, you have the artwork to Mussolini, here in New York . . .

Mitchell Hartman: That’s Glenn Beck on Fox News giving a lesson on communist motifs hidden in New York landmarks. Beck won’t deliver the lectures in his new online university. He’s left that to a conservative activist, a business consultant, and a constitutional scholar.

To enroll in classes like Faith and Hope 101, you sign up for premium content on Beck’s website at $625 a month. And that term “university” . . . it’s kind of a stretch.

Donald Heller: Well, I think that Mr. Beck can call it whatever he wants.

Donald Heller directs the Center for the Study of Higher Education at Penn State:

Heller: There are certainly consumer laws with respect to if he claims he wants to offer degrees or credit or anything like that, but there’s certainly nothing preventing him from calling it a university if he so chooses.

Education officials in New York recently slammed Donald Trump for using the word “university” for his online classes. They promised to teach the art of billion-dollar deal-making. So he changed the name to the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative.

I’m Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.