Showing posts with label Education Management Corporation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education Management Corporation. Show all posts

Friday, March 8, 2019

"Robbery at its finest": Western State Law School May Close in Mid-Semester

Western State College of Law, a nonprofit law school located in California, may shut down soon. If it does, Above the Law reporter Staci Zaretsky observed, it will be the first time an ABA-accredited law school closes its doors in mid-semester.

What's going on? Well, its complicated. Western State is part of Argosy University, which is a nonprofit institution owned by Dream Center Education Holdings, a nonprofit Christian group. Dream Center bought Argosy from Education Management Corporation (EMC), a for-profit entity. EMC, once the second largest for-profit-college operator in the United States, sold out after it ran into trouble over its recruiting tactics.

Dream Center discovered that its purchase was not as profitable as it anticipated. As reported by Stacy Cowley and Erica L. Green of the New York Times, Dream Center expected to make a $30 million profit in the first year. Instead, it suffered a $38 million loss.

Dream Center could not pay all its bills, and a creditor put it into receivership in January. A federal judge in Ohio appointed a receiver, and the receiver wants to sell at least some of Dream Center's holdings.

Then, late last month, the Department of Education announced that it would yank all federal student-aid money from Dream Center, which will strangle all of its educational institutions.  DOE took this action due in part to the fact that Dream Center had not disbursed student aid money to students in a timely manner. According to DOE's letter of February 27, Dream Center failed to distribute more than $16 million in student stipends to Argosy University students, including law students at Western State College of Law. Meanwhile, the DOE letter said, Argosy continued paying its staff and vendors.

Naturally, the announcement that Western State might close in mid-semester, threw students into a panic."[W]e as students are suffering the never-ending consequences physically, emotionally mentally, and spiritually," said Kim Davoodi, a third-year last student. "This is robbery at its finest."

Without question, the precipitous closing of a law school is a disaster for students. But Davoodi may be misinformed about when this alleged robbery occurred. Western State, a third-tier law school, is shockingly expensive. Accord to Law School Transparency, which reports on law schools' costs and outcomes, it will cost an entering first-year student $282,000 to get a law degree from Western State.

Thus, almost all Western State students must borrow prodigious amounts of money to finance their studies. In fact, by Law School Transparency's calculations, a Western State graduate would have to make monthly payment of $3,329 for ten years to pay off this debt. (Of course some students receive tuition discounts, which reduces the amount of student loans they would need.)

Obviously, Western State law graduates must find very good jobs in order to service their student loans. But a law school graduate must pass the state bar exam to become a practicing attorney; and Western State's bar pass rates are abysmal.

How abysmal? Only 51 percent of Western State's first-time takers passed the California bar exam in the summer of 2018. And Western State's bar pass rate is going down. The school's bar pass rate declined by 5 percent from the previous year.

So if a robbery occurred (metaphorically speaking), it took place on the day Western State law students took out their first student loans. It is recklessly irresponsible for a law school to charge students outrageously priced tuition, when only about half of their graduates pass the state bar exam the first time they take it.

A few days ago Western State's Dean Allen K. Easley sent students an email alerting them that the law school was "finalizing plans" to stay open for at least two more weeks. Dean Easley also told student that Argosy's receiver was in "active discussions with a potential suitor interested in acquiring the law school."

Perhaps an investor will buy Western State and keep the law school open awhile longer. But speculation about a buyer for Western State reminds me of a scene from True Grit. Rooster Cogburn (played by Jeff Bridges) and Mattie (played by Hailee Steinfeld) come across a corpse hanging from a rope tied to a tall tree. Cogburn orders Mattie to cut the cadaver down, which she does; and then he slings the carcass on the back of a horse.

Why was he keeping the corpse, Mattie asked. If my recollection of the scene is correct,  Cogburn replied: "A dead body might be worth something."



Sunday, February 14, 2016

Dear distressed student loan debtors: You should vote for Bernie Sanders because Hillary won't do anything for you unless Goldman Sachs approves

Dear distressed student-loan debtor:

You are not alone. There are about 20 million of you all across America--people in default, in delinquency, in forbearance and deferment plans, or making income-based payments that stretch out over 20 or 25 years.  You need help, and you deserve help.

You will not find help from Congress. The for-profit college industry owns Congress.

You will not find help from the U.S. Department of Education, which makes soothing noises, but has done very little to help overburdened student-loan debtors.

And you will not find help from most of the presidential candidates. Hillary Clinton's so-called student-loan reform plan is basically a scheme to funnel more money to the higher education industry with only token efforts to keep tuition costs down.

But Bernie Sanders' proposal for a free college education at a public institution offers real change. If his plan is enacted and people could get a college education for free, the for-profit industry would shut down and the private nonprofits would be forced to cut their tuition.

I know Bernie's run for the presidency is a long shot. And even if he is elected, his very sensible plan to offer free postsecondary education would never be approved by Congress, which is beholden to the for-profits and the elite private schools that benefit from the status quo.

But if--by some miracle--Bernie is elected President--he could do a lot for distressed student-loan borrowers even without help from Congress.  Here are some things Bernie could do, and I think would do:

1) Direct the Department of Education to adopt regulations prohibiting the for-profit colleges from forcing students to sign "covenants not to sue" as a condition of enrollment.
2) Order the Department of Justice to cooperate with state attorney generals who are suing the for-profit colleges under state consumer-protection laws.
3) Issue an executive order stopping the Internal Revenue Service from garnishing elderly student-loan defaulters' Social Security checks.
4) Direct government attorneys and the DOE's collection agencies to stop opposing bankruptcy relief for deserving student-loan debtors.

Certainly, I don't think Bernie would allow the Department of Education to oppose bankruptcy relief for a quadriplegic debtor whose expenses exceeded his salary, as the Department did recently in Myhre v. U.S. Department of Education.

I don't think President Sanders would permit the government to oppose a bankruptcy discharge for a 40-year old man who is living on $1200 a month and is so broke he has to ride a bicycle to work, as DOE did in the Abney case.

And surely, Bernie's DOE would order debtor collectors like Educational Credit Management Corporation to stop harassing elderly women living on less than $800 a month as ECMC did in the Roth case.

Nor would a Bernie presidency force millions of overwhelmed debtors into long-term repayment plans, as the Obama administration--cheered on by the New York Times and such elite college presidents as Vassar's Catherine Hill--is doing now.

So if you are swamped by your student-loan debt, you better register to vote, and you better vote for Bernie in your state's primary. And you need to find out whether your state has an open primary or whether you have to be a registered Democrat to vote for Bernie.  If you have to be a Democrat to vote in the Democratic primary, change your registeration. That's what I did.

In short, do what you have to do to vote for Bernie Sanders, because Bernie is your only hope of student-debt relief in the political arena.

And remember this: Hillary Clinton has her hands in Goldman Sachs' pocket, and Goldman Sachs has an ownership interest in a company that operates several for-profit institutions--Argosy University, Brown Mackie College and South University.

References

Stephanie Saul. For-Profit College Operator EDMC Will Forgive Student Loans. New York Times, November 16, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/us/for-profit-college-operator-edmc-will-forgive-student-loans.html?_r=0

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Time To Stop the Sob Stories About Student Loan Debt, Jeffrey Dorfman Said in a Forbes Article. But Dorfman Failed To Analyze Key Signs of Crisis.

Jeffrey Dorfman wrote an online essay for Forbes this week entitled "Time To Stop the Sob Stories About Student Loan Debt."  Basically, Dorfman argued that there is no student-loan crisis, pointing out that most students have only modest student-loan debt loads, usually smaller than a typical car loan.

Mr. Dorfman is right to point out that the number of people who have borrowed extravagantly to
attend college is relatively small. "In fact," Dorfman wrote, "only four percent of households headed by people between 20 and 40 years old have student loan debt of over $36,000 per person and two-thirds of those have a graduate degree to show for that debt."

But I think Mr. Dorman's article overlooked some key data that are very troubling. First, as Mr. Dorfman pointed out, the three-year student-loan default rate is 14.7 percent, and that number is disturbing by itself.  Student-loan default rates have doubled in just six years.

Moreover, the Department of Education's official student-loan default rate only measures people who default in the first three years of the repayment period.  Many people default on their loans after three years. And the student-loan default rate for people who attended for-profit colleges is more than 20 percent.  That's right--one out of five people who attended for-profit colleges during DOE's latest measurement period defaulted within the first three years of repayment!

And, as Senator Tom Harkin's Senate Committee report pointed out, the for-profit colleges are encouraging their former students to get economic hardship deferments that temporarily excuse debtors from making loan payments.  This strategy helps the for-profits keep their institutional default rates down.

But in reality, many people who obtained economic hardship deferments will never pay back their loans, and their loan balances get larger as interest accrues during the time they are not making loan payments.

In my opinion, the student-loan default rate for people who attended for-profit colleges is probably 40 percent when measured over the lifetime of the loan repayment period, and that should alarm everybody--even Mr. Dorfman.

And Mr. Dorfman did not comment on recent reports that more and more people in their late 20s and early 30s are living with their parents and that more than 40 percent of college graduates hold jobs that don't require college degrees. Nor did he comment on recent efforts by the Obama administration to lure student-loan debtors into long-term income-based repayment plans that will require debtors to pay on their loans for 25 years.  Isn't that a sign that the student-loan program is in trouble?

Finally, although Mr. Dorfman is correct to say that most people with student loans have modest loan balances, even $10,000 is very hard to pay off if you are holding a minimum-wage job.  Many of the people who borrowed money to attend for-profit colleges are from low-income families. If those people dropped out of a for-profit college without getting a degree (and a large percentage of people fall into this category), paying off even a small loan may be impossible.

 The Brookings Institution, which Mr. Dorfman cited, has been downplaying the student-loan crisis even as it advocates for long-term repayment plans.  But the crisis is real.

A lot of people who live in Mr. Dorman's world are making money off the federal student loan program or the private student loan industry. Sallie Mae is making money off of student loans, the banks are making money off of private student loans, the loan servicing companies are making money chasing down student-loan debtors who are in default,and colleges and universities are making money as they raise their tuition every year. Goldman Sachs owns an interest in Education Management Corporation, the entity behind several for-profit colleges, and the Washington Post Company has a stake in Kaplan University.

But millions of Americans are suffering under unsustainable student-loan debt, and the crisis grows larger every day. Mr. Dorfman is living in a fantasy world if he thinks otherwise.


References

Dorfman, Jeffrey. Time To Stop the Sob Stories About Student Loan Debt. Forbes, September 18, 2014. Accessible at http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/09/18/time-to-stop-the-sob-stories-about-student-loan-debt/

Ashlee Kieler. For-Profit Colleges: Good For Investors. . . Not-So-Good For Students. Consumerist, April 24, 2014. Accessible at: http://consumerist.com/2014/04/24/your-college-education-might-be-a-better-investment-for-goldman-sachs-than-it-is-for-you/









Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Colorado Attorney General fines Argosy University $3.3 million for deceptive marketing practices: Why don't the Feds move more aggressively against abuses in for-profit college industry?

Earlier this week, the Colorado Attorney's Office announced that Argosy University Denver will pay $3.3 million in fines and restitution for engaging in misleading marketing practices. Argosy is a for-profit university owned by Education Management Corporation.

"Our investigation revealed a pattern of Argosy recklessly launching doctoral degree programs without substantiating or supporting that they led to the advertised outcomes,"a Colorado deputy attorney general said in a written statement. "That is illegal under Colorado law and why we are holding Argosy accountable."

According to a story in the Denver Post, the Colorado Attorney General's Office claimed that Argosy led students to believe that the university was seeking accreditation for a doctorate of education in counseling psychology, was was not true. Quoting from the Denver Post:
Although students were told they would be eligible to become licensed psychologists, the program's curriculum and requirements were deficient and left them unlikely to be licensed in Colorado. One program failure was a lack of adequate internships in the state, the attorney general's office said in a statement.
Congratulations to the Colorado Attorney General's Office for taking aggressive action against Argosy. But what happens to Argosy students who took out student loans to pay for programs that failed to meet students' expectations?

The Colorado Attorney General's Office announced that $2.7 million of the fine would be returned to students to help them pay off their student loans.  Bravo!

But let's ask ourselves this question. Why is it left to state attorney general's offices to monitor the for-profit colleges, most of which depend on federal student aid money to operate?  Why isn't the Obama administration moving aggressively to stamp out abuses in this industry?

Students themselves usually can't sue their for-profit college for misrepresentation because the colleges force students to sign litigation waivers as a condition of enrollment. Thus, we are left with a catch-as-one-can patchwork of regulation of an industry that has a history of deceptive recruiting practices.

Too busy to take aggressive action against for-profits?
President Obama has said repeatedly that he is concerned about the plight of college students who are suffering from high levels of student-loan indebtedness.  He should unleash Eric Holder and his ivy league attorneys to tackle the abuses in the for-profit college industry, which has the highest level of student-loan defaults and has been caught repeatedly in deceptive marketing practices.

But perhaps Eric Holder's office  has other priorities--like suing the state of Louisiana to stop disadvantaged kids from getting into better schools.

References

Anthony Cotton. Argosy University Denver fined $3.3 million for deceptive practices. Denver Post, December 5, 2013. Accessible at: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_24663345/argosy-university-denver-fined-3-3-million-deceptive

L. Wayne Hicks. Argosy University fo pay $3.3M to settle Colorado lawsuit. Denver Business Journal, December 5, 2013.  Accessible at: http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2013/12/05/argosy-university-pays-colorado-33m.html?page=all

Michelle Millhollon. Jindal rebukes Fed voucher stance. The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, August 25, 2013, p. IB.