Boo-hoo... you get what you pay for. If one is looking for a respectable degree that is guaranteed to transfer with no fuss, then take the courses at a real institution.

$7500 in student loans is really nothing. Most people have about 20 times that when they graduate. I'd count myself lucky for getting away so cheaply.

@ngth:

Be that as it may, the students were still misled and lied to. "We're not a big, reputable college" is not a defense.
I'm not sure they'll get far with the "couldn't find a job" angle, but the inability to transfer credits is a huge issue. It means that even if they did want to go to a bigger college, their credits would mean squat, which means years and thousands of dollars wasted.

I worked at a for-profit career training school, so I believe this woman. While my major role was as a presenter (I'd go into high schools in a 100-mile radius to give presentations and collect cards with student names and phone numbers), I also had to try to enroll students. One of our "sales tools" was career packets made up to relate to each of our programs. Each packet contained job outlook info from the BLS as well as other information. The problem with that is, the packets were pre-highlighted by our secretary, with the highlighted areas pointing out high salaries or cool job opportunities. We were to ONLY show potential students those sections. Never mind the non-highlighted sections that mentioned you need a bachelor's degree to have any hope of advancing to the highlighted pay scale. They prey on people who have few skills and low incomes. It's a total scam.

*snickers at sharhonda*

Pretty standard marketing promises that these places hawk on their potential students. Similar suit went against the Art Institute that I went to.

They really do have their admissions people sell you on these lines that are bogus and then later, they just say a combination of "Well who told you that? You can't prove we said that." and "That person no longer works here."

Sorry, you get what you pay for. You want your credits to transfer to a real collage, you better goto a real collage.

I'm not sure there are enough facts in the article to conclude they were "misled." There is no detail about what they did to mislead them, other than describe the schools historical job placement rate. The fact they previously placed 90% of their graduates is not a guarantee that they will place you; to think otherwise is simply ignorant.

As far as the transferability of the credits, that issue is clearly in dispute. The school claims they were told and the students claim they weren't. My suspicion is this means that there was a disclaimer somewhere in the documentation the students were given that stated the credits may not be transferable to other schools and the students are claiming they were "misled" because the admissions rep., etc. didn't take the time to slowly and carefully explain this point to them.

These kinds of schools are good examples of how people can be blinded by the promise of bigger and better things, causing them to fail to do any real due diligence.

hang on...
(1) $15-16/hr is not an amazing pay rate
(2) "job placement rates" is not what you should be looking at when you apply to a school
(3) "i can't find a job in the field that i want, but i'm working somewhere else, so i'm going to sue my school"
she's CURRENTLY WORKING. which is more than you can say for more than 15% of Americans right now (including myself)

The problem with the "You get what you pay for" argument is that often times these fake colleges cost MORE than a traditional college would, especially when you factor in the FAFSA federal grants and low interest loans you would be eligible for. And they almost always cost more than an associates from a community college would, where the credits would definitely transfer to other colleges.

@lemortede: I'll paste that in my college book.

The school has money for lawyers. Something tells me the op does not. However, the court of public opinion has already made up their minds...

What makes matters worse, as a hiring manager, I can tell you all the ITT Tech/Vatterrot College/Colorado Technical University grads go straight to the bottom. The ones we have brought in have been impressively unimpressive. I guess that's why.

But they do know the difference between a college and a collage. I'll give 'em that.

I noticed a TV commercial yesterday for one of these scam schools that had a post-production voice-over at the end that said something like "NO GUARANTEE OF EMPLOYMENT IS MADE OR IMPLIED". I guess a real attorney has figured that they better cover their butts as they may have some real liability.

@lemortede:

Yeah, I've had a lot of problems getting into collages recently. The admissions boards say I'm too three-dimensional.

@Esquire99: Well allow me educate you.

I have looked at some of these lawsuits at the class counsel level, and these numbers are almost always fraudulently misrepresented. There have been numerous eight-figure class actions in this country against schools for fraud, where the Dept. of Education revoked their ability to accept financial aid and many of the executives barely escaped criminal prosecution for what turned out to be a far-ranging quasi-criminal conspiracy to inflate placement and income data in order to fraudulently induce students into investing years of their lives and tens of thousands of dollars into these schools with little or nothing to show for it.

Now if you want to explain to me how a 18yo girl is going to engage in "due diligence" with respect to false data provided by the school based on survey responses that are in the exclusive custody and control of the school... go ahead.

@Luftvier: Bwaa ha ha ha!

@chatterboxwriting: That sounds eerily similar to the presentation that Disney did at my university for their advanced internship program. We were told that we'd have cool advanced internships and when we got there we were cashiers, food service, and custodial workers. They sold it as a Disney internship looking sooo great on your resume. No potential employer has ever cared.

"She owes $7,500 on student loans."

Hee hee hee...ha ha ha ha HAA HAA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

*rolls around on the ground with hysterical tears pouring down face, clutching stomach*

I went to a private college. I owe more than my house is worth. I'll be dead before I ever get it paid back. I WISH I only owed $7500. She'll be fine, but unless I hit the bestseller list, I'm screwed.

@lemortede: And which collage did you attend? Was it a real collage?

@Crazytree:
I don't necessarily disagree with you. If the numbers they are putting forth are false they deserve to be burned to the ground. However, this particular case (at least as explained in the linked article) doesn't seem to explicitly claim that the placement numbers were false, which is why I said I don't feel like the facts provide enough data to conclude the students were misled. If they are alleging the historical placement data is incorrect, that's one thing. It's an entirely different one if they are accepting that the data was correct, but arguing that the school still somehow screwed them by not getting them jobs.

@ngth: Also, based on the article, the suit claims that the promised education itself was not delivered. Namely they claim that the courses didn't actually teach them. E.g. "At the Arlington campus, an instructor stopped attending a course and was never replaced, the suit says. When students complained in September that classes lacked rigor, they were told that they would have to take them again at their expense, according to the suit."

If the school charges you tuition for a class and then fails to have an instructor for that class, then yes, you have grounds for a suit.

I work in a public school, teaching kids who are in their mid-teens and typically function academically around the first- or second-grade level. Many of them are in foster care or living with extended family after being removed from their parents' homes; my guess would be that about 30% of their current legal guardians are also literate around the fourth- or fifth-grade level. These are the kinds of students who don't grow up learning about different post-secondary options at home, who are unlikely to take advantage of career-related seminars offered by their high school, and whose learning disabilities and/or intellectual deficiencies make critical thinking (for example, evaluating different "colleges") difficult. I can easily see my students getting suckered into a scam like this in their future, and I think it's important to point out that the people who are going into programs like this probably aren't likely candidates for immediate entrance into a traditional, legitimate post-secondary program. They would probably need to upgrade their high school work, and the draw of a program promising immediate results and significantly less overall time in school would be pretty darn strong.

With any luck, medical billing and coding will not be strong fields for future employment. (Haha...there's no such thing as luck.)

@morganlh85: Ahh, not all the time. At my uni, there are problems with some community college transfer credits. Sometimes they are coming from a quarter system and they end up having to take classes over because the hours don't match. Other times the school puts out poorly prepared graduates and the university knows it. Not all supposedly "non profit" (I get a kick out of that statement) schools are good either.

The community college I went to and dropped out of, used the same kind of crazy stats.

You'd graduate and say you find a job at Walmart or Mc Donald's. You would be added to the job placement percentage.

They also hired anyone as a "professor".

@gStein: $15-16 breaks a person out of being a member of the working poor, my friend. That's amazing to plenty of people.

Of course, your mileage may vary depending on what part of the country you live in.

So, graduates from decent schools are barely able to find jobs, but these people are angry because Diploma-Mill College can't find them a career "in their desired field"? Is ANY graduate these days able to find a job in their desired field? Even getting an internship nowadays is hell, an actual good job is worse.

The credit transferring issue is horrible, however, and that needs to be fixed somehow. I can't believe they'd lie about that bit.

As ludicrous as I think these lawsuits are, there is still a little part of me that would like to see the big business that is college get knocked around a little bit. You know, the fools who suck in more tax dollars and tuition dollars each year, and whose game you have to play in order to be considered for many careers.

I'm not saying college has no place or purpose, but I think its budget and necessity could be curtailed without our missing a beat.

@Pink Puppet: i just find that an odd thing to brag about... "our graduates aren't broke!"

@gStein: Changing bed pans for $7 an hour is not equal to say $16 an hour for a paralegal (if that was the degree program).

I have an MBA from a top 20 school and I don't have a job. So....I guess I should sue.

@gStein: $15-$16/hr could be a very good pay rate for that kind of degree depending on your location and the cost of living in the area. For NYC, no it's not that much. For Tennessee or Texas, that's pretty decent.

@BabyFirefly: I am studying an applied, technical subject because when I looked up the employment figures on my own, I found that I would be employable. The chair of my department (not my graduate advisor) feels that I should study something that matches my undergrad liberal arts background. Problem is, is that there isn't a real job market right now for museum curators. BTW, I do love what I study. And I wish the chair would shut his mouth and mind his own business. It is between my advisor and myself.

When you look at getting a job in a desired field, ya need to make sure there are jobs (or there will be jobs) in that field. You can't study something like compartive lit and then complain and moan about working at Starbucks because that is the only job you can get.

Agreed 110% on the credit transfer thing.

It doesn't sound like Everest is an accredited college or university whose credits would be transferable. It sounds like a trade-type school which is fine if you want to practice one of those trades. Maybe they meant that their credits would transfer to another trade school.

We had one of these "colleges" in our office complex. I asked one of their students how their football team was going to do this year and got the blankest stare I've even seen from someone with a pulse.

@lemortede: So what about the graduates of traditional colleges and universities who are not employed. Who could not find a job when they graduated? Did they get what they paid for? Did they not go to a real college?

@Tankueray:

That's where they stick the unskilled. I've know people who have had pretty cool jobs. If you are good at dancing/singing you can be in the shows/parades. If you are technically skilled they have some behind the scenes jobs where you partner up with a pro to keep the attractions running; there is a lot of computer work involved with that.

@rpm773: The entire system is out of whack. Employers are requiring 4 year degrees for receptionists. Universities are churning out unprepared students as long as they have the cash in many cases. These two things degrade the entire concept of post-secondary education. Your also paying more (costs keep going up) while getting less.

Somehow other countries manage to provide post secondary options at a reasonable cost.

If she can prove they were claiming their credits were transferable and they are clearly not she may very well be able to pursue a claim on that count. But no court will prove that "just because we can claim we got other people jobs mean we will give you one." Because really, nothing works that way.

And really, adults need to learn what "accreditation" means. Seriously.

I wouldn't trust the real colleges either. I was at a meeting for dual credit high school kids and a rep for a college was touting their trade program. Claimed they had graduates making $80 an hour in Oklahoma as welders. Hmm, I should have skipped my 4 year degree 20+ years ago so I could weld for $160k a year!!!

I've been struggling to find a job after getting my MBA in Global Business last year (from an AACSB-accredited school too!). I've gone as far as offering $1,000 to friends to help me land a job. So far, there is no luck, even with the bonus.

@lemortede: i prefer to make collages rather than go to them.

There is no possible way schools can guarantee you employment. It is outside of their power to get you a job, unless they guarantee to employ you themselves. Besides, any guarantee would have to be in a contract to be enforceable, and so any supposed verbal guarantees from the admissions person or recruiter would not override the written contract if it had a standard merger clause in it.

Now the transferability of the credits, that is something that they can possibly win on, because the credits are either transferrable or not, and if they are not and the students were told that they were, it would be fraud.

And WTF is a degree in medical billing and coding? Do you really have to go to school for that?

@Jetgirly:
I second what you said.

@foxbat2500:

There is your problem, an MBA these days is a curse.

Remember, most of our best friends at Citi, BofA, AIG etc have an MBA.

do these people NOT pay attention to the news? NOBODY is getting work right now. This is up there with the top-tier law students being shocked that it's not a golden ticket anymore.

It's hard out there for EVERYONE people! Get used to it!

@bananaboat: gas/oil pipeline welders in cushing, oklahoma. It's about the right pay scale. There's less than 200 of them.

@HogwartsAlum:
I lucked out to have an employer that will pay for my tuition, but I have an old friend whose wife completed her masters in English, but couldn't find a job.

She couldn't afford her student loan payments, so she enrolled in another degree program to keep payments in deferment. She now has 2 masters degrees, 2 bachelors degrees, and 1 associates degree... all because she's trying to keep the deferment. The amount of money she now owes is ridiculous, and now she says no one will hire her because she's "overqualified". :P