The Government Accounting Office released its report today, GAO Report For Profit Colleges (pdf), highlighting a number of abuses by for-profit trade schools. The GAO engaged in undercover testing to ferret out the fraud and abuse in for-profit admissions and lending. Pretty scary stuff.
The GAO Report notes that approximately 2,000 for-profit colleges received federal funds of $24 billion in the 2008-2009 school year. At all 15 of the for-profit schools surveyed by GAO, admissions representatives made deceptive and questionable statements about graduation, employment and financial aid.
I’ve been laboring in a trade school class action against Career Education Corp. and Western Culinary Institute, which is now known as Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Portland. I’m not particularly surprised by the GAO findings. Maybe the GAO report will spur Congress to take a hard look at these issues. That would be a good thing because we have sentenced a generation of kids to a lifetime of debt.
My view is that the current crisis stems from a nasty mix of deregulation and privatization. Give for-profit schools nearly boundless access to federal money. At the same time, do not regulate their conduct. Those were the first steps to sentencing a generation to a lifetime of debt.
Question: Will we be able to fix this thing, or are we just content to continue fiddling while Rome burns?
erick taylor says
hey i went to apex technical school in new york city. i withdrew after only completing 25% of my course and i still have outstanding student loan and alot of fine print over my head. trying to find recourse about this situation
erick taylor says
hey i went to apex technical school in new york city. i withdrew after only completing 25% of my course and i still have outstanding student loan and alot of fine print over my head. trying to find recourse about this situation
David Sugerman says
I suggest you confer with a consumer rights attorney licensed in NY. If you need suggestions on consumer rights attorneys, I would suggest that you check out the National Association of Consumer Advocates (NACA) www.naca.net for more information. Full disclosure: I am a proud member of NACA.
Stephanie Valcourt says
I went to Medvance in Fl, Palm Spring for a Lab Technician program, that school was so bad it does not have any machine to do any test results for the program requirement and finally I quit, that school charged $19 000 for nothing. Can I sue the school for that because it was not capable to give me my diploma even if I was done. The accreditation was in process during that time. Do I have a case against the school... Reply ASAP... Thanks.
David Sugerman says
I am not licensed in your state and am unfamiliar with the laws that might apply, so I can't advise you. I also do not provide legal advice in a public forum. I suggest you look for a lawyer in Fla who handles consumer fraud cases who has experience with for-profit trade school cases. You can try the National Association of Consumer Advocates, http://www.naca.net for attorneys who handle consumer fraud cases in Florida.
David Sugerman
lila roberts says
I attended Arizona college in Mesa, AZ. They have taken my finacial aid money that they entered wrong into the fasfa website and won't give me refund. When I finally realized the mistake they acted as if they were unaware. I'm not the only student they have done this too. They also terminated me from my extern program because I have asthma..Do not attend this school.
Comments for this post are closed.