GAO Investigation Reveals Deceptive Practices

According to a Chronicle of Higher Education report, http://tinyurl.com/2aqjuns, a forthcoming Government Accountability Office report reveals that an undercover investigation of for-profit colleges has revealed widespread improprieties in how prospective students are treated in the recruiting and financial aid process.

Such deceptive practices are, sadly, no surprise, but it is encouraging that public attention is being brought to these activities by the report and a hearing scheduled in the U.S. Senate.

If you wish to share concerns about deceptive practices at a school in which you have enrolled or worked, contact The Googasian Firm,P.C., www.googasian.com, to discuss.

Belford High School lawsuit noted

The Belford High School lawsuit filed by The Googasian Firm against the owners and operators of an internet "accredited high school diploma" scam that has allegedly defrauded thousands of United States citizens out of millions of dollars has been noted by two blogs devoted to coverage of diploma mills and degree fraud: http://tinyurl.com/28ykg3w and http://tinyurl.com/29q9euo.   If you have concerns about Belford High School, share them by visiting http://www.belfordlawsuit.com/.

LA Times: Boom in For-Profits May Be Bust For Taxpayers

The Los Angeles Times looks at many of the problems associated with for-profit colleges, http://tinyurl.com/34bxj85. If you have a concern about a for-profit college taking advantage of it students, share it with The Googasian Firm, which investigates and pursues claims against for-profit schools engaged in deceptive practices. E-mail us at contact@googasian.com.

Frontline special on For-Profit Education

A Frontline documentary on for-profit education airs on PBS on Tuesday night. The program, "College Inc.", features educational entrepreneur Michael Clifford, who owns Grand Canyon University, among others. According to a post in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the documentary includes an interview with a former admissions officer from Ashford University who discusses the expectation that "enrollment advisers" (i.e., sales reps) make 150 calls per day to prospective students and "close on at least 12 students a month."

U of Phoenix: Flow of Federal Financial Aid to For-Profit School Will Continue

The for-profit University of Phoenix -- the United States' largest university, with an astounding 400,000 students -- will continue to enjoy a massive flow of federal financial aid due to recertification from the U.S. Department of Education until 2012. In the wake of concerns about for-profit school, U Phoenix had been on a month-to-month arrangement with the government, according to an Arizona newspaper article, http://tinyurl.com/y8l7cde. How much money do the owners of this for-profit school receive from American taxpayers in the form of financial aid: $3.2 billion, according to the article. No wonder that U Phoenix has resources to heavily promote itself on the internet, airwaves, and billboards across the country. In a full-page ad in yesterday's New York Times, the president of Phoenix suggested that critics of the school are driven by "fear of change." According to the president, "We are a different kind of university with a different kind of student and different kind of faculty." The ad does not indicate that Phoenix is a for-profit entity that makes money for shareholders.

For-Profit Education Is A Huge, Growing Business

A good article in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education -- entitled, "For-Profit Colleges, Growing Fast, Say They Are Key to Obama's Degree Goals" -- focuses on the major and growing role that for-profit education is playing in the United States.

The story makes clear that, notwithstanding "skepticism by some consumers and policy makers," this sector of our post-secondary education system will be a major player in the drive to have the United States attain the world's highest-number of college graduates by 2020.

The stats from the Chronicle story illustrate how college degrees increasingly come from for-profit schools that are in the business of selling education (and degrees) to people, sometimes to the detriment of the students themselves who encounter troubles with transferability of credits, heavy debt burdens, and limited job opportunities. As noted by the Chronicle, "Academic rigor at for-profit colleges. . . has been a concern, and a recent government report found that, on average, students who attend proprietary institutions have higher default rates on student loans than students at nonprofit colleges. The report, by the Government Accountability Office, also uncovered instances in which officials at some for-profit colleges helped students pass basic-skills tests or obtain invalid high-school diplomas so they could be eligible for federal aid."

Some of the Chronicle facts demonstrating the growth of for-profit schools in the United States:

• "For-profit institutions. . . are now awarding degrees at a faster clip than their nonprofit counterparts. Between the 1996-7 and 2006-7 academic years, the number of associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees awarded by private, for-profit institutions rose at a faster rate than the number of those degrees conferred by public and private nonprofit colleges, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
• "The number of associate degrees conferred by for-profit institutions more than doubled during that 10-year span, to almost 118,000. For public institutions, the number increased by 22 percent, to 567,000, during the same period. At private, nonprofit colleges the number of associate degrees decreased by almost 11 percent, to 44,000. Associate degrees awarded by for-profit institutions made up 16 percent of all associate degrees awarded in 2006-7, up from 10 percent in 1996-7."
• "The sector's revenue is projected to increase by about 10 percent annually, to $41.7-billion in 2014, according to a study this year by BMO Capital Markets. "

The Chronicle also notes that the biggest for-profit school of them all -- The University of Phoenix -- is "growing at a rapid clip." "In October, the institution announced that it had increased its enrollment by 22 percent over last year, bringing its total number of degree-seeking students to 443,000."

So more people attend The University of Phoenix these days than live in Cleveand, Raleigh or Miami.

Trade Schools Present Opportunities For Retraining -- And Risks Of Huge Debt Burdens

A recent article in the Sacramento Bee -- http://tinyurl.com/d8hraz -- fairly considers key issues facing adults who are thinking of enrolling in any of the many trade schools promoting themselves in this harsh economy. These trade schools often appear to offer a faster path to a better-paying career than what may be available at community colleges and at colleges and universities. Enrollment at these schools is booming, as workers seek to retrain to compete for scarce jobs. But as the Sac Bee points out, the quality of these schools varies sharply, and many charge tuition substantially greater than what public colleges cost. "At a lot of these schools, the recruiters will emphasize financial aid," one official tells the Bee. "The problem is the aid is loans and students will graduate with a lot of debt." And at least one student knows from experience what the official is talking about: "I thought I was making my life better, and all it did was turn me upside down in debt."