In December 2016, DeVry reached a $100 million settlement with the FTC in a deceptive advertising lawsuit. As part of the proposed agreement, DeVry has agreed that it will not run advertisements that misrepresent the job placement rates of graduates or make any promises of how much money graduates should expect to receive when they enter the workforce. But what are the promises that got DeVry in trouble in the first place? 90% Employment Rate The primary claim that DeVry aggressively asserted was that 90% of DeVry graduates find employment within six months of graduation. This statistic appeared on their website, in Spanish and English television ads, on YouTube, in brochures, and in print advertisement. If you’ve watched any television since 2010, you may have seen ads like the one (cited by the FTC in its’ lawsuit) entitled “Graduation Present”, in which a hard working mother narrates that when she gets her business degree from DeVry,…Read More
“College graduation is supposed to be synonymous with opportunity and prosperity and not a detour into a modern-day debtor’s prison.” – California Treasurer John Chiang College Is Expensive And Risky College is expensive, that is an undeniable, indisputable fact. To make things worse, student loans can be completely unaffordable and can have long term, crippling effects on your credit. In fact, it is estimated that students in America owe nearly $1.5 trillion in student debt. The average amount of debt carried by a graduate nationwide is about $28,000 dollars. In California, it is estimated that over half of college graduates carry some student debt. This session, California has seen a legislative push to make college more affordable and more accessible to prospective students. These include proposals to lower or freeze tuition, for free community college for a year, student loan transparency, and lower textbook costs. In addition, State Senator Ben Allen and Treasurer John Chiang…Read More
Corinthian College was once a massive for-profit college chain with more than 100,000 students across more than 100 campuses nation-wide. In California, Corinthian ran Everest College, Heald, and WyoTech. Most of the college’s revenues came from federal funding and between 2010 and 2016, its students took out about $3.5 billion in federal student loans. Corinthian and its practices courted controversy, as more than 100 federal lawsuits and 21 state attorney generals investigations all targeted the college’s recruiting techniques, false and misleading advertising, high tuition, and lack of job prospects following graduation. In 2014, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a lawsuit claiming that Corinthian had engaged in unlawful predatory lending. In its announcement, the CFPB alleged that: “Corinthian lured tens of thousands of students to take out private loans to cover expensive tuition costs by advertising bogus job prospects and career services. Corinthian then used illegal debt collection tactics to strong-arm students into paying back…Read More
