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Tehanu
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Joined: 12 Apr 2006
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Location: Seceded from the Ford Nation
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 Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 3:08 am Post subject: Private college ripped students off |
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This one place, Bestech College, shut down abruptly last October. No tuition refunds, I gather. To add insult to injury, the Toronto Star says that the president left and got a job at, of all places, the Ontario Ministry of Colleges, Training and Universities. Which she has since left after the story surfaced when a former student talked about the college to the Hamilton Spectator.
Anyone know of someone who's been burned by one of these places? They tend to be extremely expensive, provide questionable levels of education, and my impression is that the spend a whack of their money on bad TV ads.
Sadly, I don't think this it all that uncommon. See, folks? This is what can happen when you don't keep education public.
| Quote: | ... In a special report, [Ontario Ombudsman Andre] Marin said Bestech Academy, a small private career college that offered gas technician training in Stoney Creek and St. Catharines, "was allowed to line its pockets with public funds while flouting the law". Marin used this case as an example of the ministry of training, colleges and universities failure to effectively police Ontario's 425 private career colleges - a booming industry that is seeing an influx of laid off workers in need of retraining.
Not only did the college operate and advertise itself as a "registered" institution, ministry officials repeatedly told Bestech it must apply for registration but Bestech never did and the ministry never laid a charge against them.
... Calling it a complete "lack of enforcement" Marin pointed out that the ministry actually even subsidized the tuition of seven students, spending upwards of $60,000 to send the mature students for retraining at Bestech. The government has the enforcement power to act swiftly to police career colleges but they fail to do so, said Marin. "The tools are there," he said. "This is a classic case of government mismanagement." |
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Cartman
Beyond cuddly
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 8641
Location: OMG! They killed Jason Kenney!
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| Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 4:16 am Post subject: |
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Wanna start up a college Tehanu?  Hypermegatech U? |
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Tehanu
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Joined: 12 Apr 2006
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Location: Seceded from the Ford Nation
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| Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 4:19 am Post subject: |
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I've wanted to for a long time, Cartman. I'd love to start up our own college or university. It would be amazing. We'd show 'em!
And we wouldn't just be teaching people how to be gas techs either, I'll bet. |
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Raos
volatilis vir
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 5472
Location: Petropolis
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| Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 8:02 am Post subject: |
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That's a shame, had it been Bestech Future Shop College and offered Microsoft Introductory Computer Sciences, they might have stayed open.
Time: Can Corporate Funding Save Endangered College Classes?
| Quote: | The nation's economic crisis is forcing schools to take unprecedented steps to survive: laying off teachers, cutting bus services, eliminating summer classes. But more drastic measures may not be far off. Could the next step in saving American education be Introduction to Nutrition, Sponsored by McDonald's or PricewaterhouseCoopers' Financial Accounting 101?
[. . .]
Many schools, of course, have long used corporate partnerships to finance buildings and other facilities. From Fargo, N.D., to Worchester, Mass., banks and other companies have bought the naming rights to public libraries and high school football fields. The University of Wisconsin at Madison offers doctors and other health-care professionals an online continuing-education course on menstrual disorders that is funded by the pharmaceutical giant Bayer. While the class's title doesn't carry Bayer's name, the company's drugs are mentioned in the course, and the school fully acknowledges the arrangement in course materials.
One school that has been especially aggressive in corporate sponsorships is Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, N.C. Shortly after taking over as Piedmont's president in the early 1990s, Tony Zeiss faced a budget crisis. "You either figure out how to generate alternative revenue streams, or complain," he recalls thinking. "We decided to become entrepreneurial." He sold the naming rights to laboratories, buildings and eventually four of the school's six campuses. Then he sold the naming rights to individual classes. But it became less time consuming and more profitable to solicit sponsorships for entire academic programs. One result: the Christa A. Overcash Associate Degree Nursing Program. The program works mainly off the interest from the former nurse's initial $500,000 investment. Sponsors "don't get that involved" in shaping the curriculum, says Zeiss, because "we have our own accrediting standards." In recent months, Zeiss has announced other joint ventures with local companies. The results: Introduction to Motorsports Pit Crews, Pit Crew U and the Cox Schepp Construction Academy. |
But they don't get that involved, so it's all fine and dandy.  |
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Tehanu
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Joined: 12 Apr 2006
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Location: Seceded from the Ford Nation
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| Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2009 12:43 pm Post subject: |
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George Brown is a public college in Toronto ... but two students are suing it, saying that their International Business Management course didn't promise what it offered. Hmm.
| Quote: | Two days after the provincial ombudsman lambasted the government for failing to protect college students, another group of students has alleged their college left them unqualified in their field and on the hook for enormous debt.
Two former students, who took the International Business Management program at Toronto's George Brown College, claim it didn't confer three important industry designations it had promised.
"I left a full-time job and went back to school because I wanted better opportunities," said Katrina Ramdath yesterday. "I found later the three certificates that are essential if you want jobs in international trade ... were not there."
She alleges the college advertised them but didn't have agreements in place to offer the three certificates.
Ramdath and Zsolt Kovessy, another student, launched a lawsuit against the college last year and are seeking $10 million in damages. |
Toronto Star |
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Raos
volatilis vir
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 5472
Location: Petropolis
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| Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 10:19 pm Post subject: |
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Students derailed by private university | Quote: | Two university students are crying foul after the University Canada West, a private post-secondary institution, shut down its degree programs in Victoria just days after they paid for classes.
"There was never any hint about this school closing," said Josey Reynolds, 18. "Nobody's helping us or saying anything to us. They are not answering my phone calls. I have no idea what is going on with my money."
"To me, its just totally unethical to sign up people for a two-year degree and not follow through," said Ricki Petersen, 25.
University Canada West (UCW), one of the first private, for-profit schools to get university accreditation in British Columbia, opened its main campus in Victoria in 2005 to much fanfare. UCW promoted its small classes, lower entrance requirements and fast-track degrees — and charged a premium for tuition. |
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Senor Magoo
He's got a big one
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 8700
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| Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 2:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Ramdath and Zsolt Kovessy, another student, launched a lawsuit against the college last year and are seeking $10 million in damages. |
Gee, only ten million? For all that pain and suffering, and of course the ten million that they lost out of pocket?
Must be Americans. Only Americans could possibly feel entitled to a couple of lifetime's worth of wages over this.
| Quote: | | "There was never any hint about this school closing," |
It doesn't seem that the school is closing so much as that this particular program is being phased out. And to be fair, these students have the option to transfer to another campus, or to finish their studies online, but those options don't appeal to them.
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Raos
volatilis vir
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 5472
Location: Petropolis
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| Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 10:09 pm Post subject: |
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| It shouldn't have to appeal to them, that isn't the program they enrolled in. Unexpectedly having to move to another city is a pretty big hurdle, and I might be a bit suspect of the quality that an online program from a place like this is going to provide (although on that note I'm sure the in-person product wasn't quite what the sales pitch sounded like either), so wouldn't the responsible option have been to stop taking new students (or at least announce that you're no longer going to be doing business before you take money from everybody)? |
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Tehanu
More or less, more or less
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 17644
Location: Seceded from the Ford Nation
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| Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 10:32 pm Post subject: |
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| A fast-tracked two-year degree? Sounds fishy to me. Pretty good example of why it's important to keep post-secondary education public. |
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Vundo Draxon
Leftist-rightie and rightist-leftie
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 1712
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| Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 11:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Tehanu wrote: | | A fast-tracked two-year degree? Sounds fishy to me. Pretty good example of why it's important to keep post-secondary education public. |
Well, it would sure be nice if public institutions could find an effective way to provide an alternative to the enforced summer "break" from May-August. It works beautifully for some people, but for others it would be more effective to take the "break" during other months or not at all. I know there are logistical hurdles here, but I think a lot of them exist because of the assumption that hardly anybody would ever want to do academic study in May. Perhaps more would if the options for that didn't suck as a rule...
So yeah, I can see the appeal in what the private university was trying to offer even though I'd probably not have gone for it because of the general fishyness of the institution and program. |
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fork
Utensil
Joined: 26 Apr 2006
Posts: 1283
Location: Left . . . of the plate
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 3:04 am Post subject: |
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Magoo, I think you might be mixing up two separate cases. The first, posted by Tehanu back in 09, is the $10 million lawsuit at George Brown in TO. It's now proceeding as a class action, and the allegation by (now) 119 students is they didn't get the designation promised. The 2 original complainants could be American, but Tehanu's link did say one worked at the Royal Bank before returning to school, and my link says 78 of the 119 were international students, mostly from China or India.
Regardless of where they acquired their litigiousness, I say good on them for asking for 10 million. Even when it was just the two of them, unless the school was handing out designations to everyone but these two, we can conclude that everyone taking the course didn't get the designation promised, and that's no small thing - quitting your job, or moving overseas, or otherwise rearranging your life to take this course, paying all that money, and coming away with nothing (as far as future employers are concerned). Can this sort of thing happen accidentally, where school officials think they can offer a designation, but there's some bureaucratic tangle or criteria that's unfulfilled, and it turns out they can't? If that's what happened, then I think the ten million is out of line as an award. If it's deliberate, then I support a big, no a huge, penalty, for fraud on this scale.
Anyway, isn't it SOP, when suing, to ask for the moon? Doesn't mean you'll get it, but why wouldn't you ask for it?
| Quote: | | It doesn't seem that the school is closing so much as that this particular program is being phased out. |
Raos' s more recent post was about a private university in Victoria, and the article says that it's closing its degree programs (plural) and closing the campus. I agree with Raos's subsequent post, and would add that the students were told that their credits were fully transferable, and that's a lie. Seriously, what school would look at the lower entrance requirements of UCW and believe the students were capable of completing their degree requirements in half the time?
From the link:
| Quote: | | When asked why Eminata didn't allow current students to finish their programs before ending them, Trainor said, "We are always enrolling students. It would be irresponsible to drag out a process once we knew the decision was going to be made." |
| Quote: | . . .the last day to drop classes without financial penalty was Feb. 7.
The next day, UCW announced by email that the Victoria degree programs were being wound down for business reasons . . . |
So if it's irresponsible to drag out the process, then we're supposed to believe they didn't wait on the announcement (drag out the process) until all the money was in, and that the timing was coincidental? UCW should have two options: allow students to finish their programs at the Victoria campus, or return the students' money, all of it, including the fall tuition.
| Vundo Draxon wrote: | | Well, it would sure be nice if public institutions could find an effective way to provide an alternative to the enforced summer "break" from May-August. It works beautifully for some people, but for others it would be more effective to take the "break" during other months or not at all. |
I know someone that did an animation program at NBCC Miramichi, and they went until the end of June. I bet the end of April works better for those who are dependent on summer income (the majority?). The summer job pickings would be pretty slim since the university students are all settled comfortably in their jobs, and you're competing with high schoolers for what's left. Besides, that's not an enforced break, since you can take courses during the summer. |
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TS.
Delicious schadenfreude
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 14585
Location: Toronto, ON
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 3:39 am Post subject: |
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| Vundo Draxon wrote: | | Tehanu wrote: | | A fast-tracked two-year degree? Sounds fishy to me. Pretty good example of why it's important to keep post-secondary education public. |
Well, it would sure be nice if public institutions could find an effective way to provide an alternative to the enforced summer "break" from May-August. It works beautifully for some people, but for others it would be more effective to take the "break" during other months or not at all. I know there are logistical hurdles here, but I think a lot of them exist because of the assumption that hardly anybody would ever want to do academic study in May. Perhaps more would if the options for that didn't suck as a rule...
So yeah, I can see the appeal in what the private university was trying to offer even though I'd probably not have gone for it because of the general fishyness of the institution and program. |
When I was there, Trent University offered a selection of summer semester courses. All of them were compressed so that each course took half of the summer semester. That meant that you could get through a full academic year worth of courses in a summer if you were prepared to work like a dog. Dal Law offers the ability to do the three year LL.B./J.D. in two and a half (which isn't much, but it's something). Lots of public post-secondary institutions are trying to be flexible.
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Vundo Draxon
Leftist-rightie and rightist-leftie
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
Posts: 1712
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 4:26 am Post subject: |
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| fork wrote: |
I know someone that did an animation program at NBCC Miramichi, and they went until the end of June. I bet the end of April works better for those who are dependent on summer income (the majority?). The summer job pickings would be pretty slim since the university students are all settled comfortably in their jobs, and you're competing with high schoolers for what's left. Besides, that's not an enforced break, since you can take courses during the summer. |
People who can depend on being able to save significant amounts in that four months obviously had better summer jobs than I did when going for my first degree. I was every bit as dependent on my combination of student loans and parental support in September as I was in April. Later on I started taking all the summer courses I could, but the selection was extremely limited for me. I'm glad to hear from TS. that Trent is pretty good about this, I hope they keep it up and more public universities follow suit. |
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fork
Utensil
Joined: 26 Apr 2006
Posts: 1283
Location: Left . . . of the plate
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 12:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Vundo Draxon wrote: | | People who can depend on being able to save significant amounts in that four months obviously had better summer jobs than I did when going for my first degree. I was every bit as dependent on my combination of student loans and parental support in September as I was in April. |
Why do the savings have to be significant? My summer jobs were at or near minimum wage, but I was still less in the hole when I finished than I would have been had I not taken breaks to work. Am I dating myself here? Maybe it's a function of time (late 80s, early 90s) and place (Calgary). I'm sure that in more recent years, and in more expensive cities than Calgary was then (I got out just as costs started to escalate there), minimum wage would barely cover basic living expenses, and one might as well go to school continuously, but would that be true for students everywhere today, that minimum wage would barely cover costs and you'd come out with zero savings?
I should add, too, that from a mental perspective, I like the breaks and changes, when studying is done in spurts, relieved by (usually) mindless jobs. Less grueling that way, and I return more fresh and motivated. |
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Senor Magoo
He's got a big one
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 8700
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 1:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | It shouldn't have to appeal to them, that isn't the program they enrolled in. |
Academically it is, it's just delivered online.
| Quote: | | Anyway, isn't it SOP, when suing, to ask for the moon? Doesn't mean you'll get it, but why wouldn't you ask for it? |
It does seem to be the norm, however I suspect there's inflation in place. Tort law didn't always entertain multimillion dollar lawsuits for relatively trivial things.
The only reason I might think to not ask for ridiculuous amounts, even on the premise of "what's the harm in trying?" would be that perhaps some judges look at the case in front of them, and the proposed remedy of one hundred bazillion dollars, and decide that the case is about a money grab, not justice. I can't see how that wouldn't affect some judges' perception of the plaintiff.
Anyway, aren't suits like this generally all about your actual out of pocket costs, including remedies, and lost opportunity? As opposed to big "pain and suffering" payouts, or punitive damages? Or to put it another way, am I to understand that the ONLY way to make this situation right would have a price tag of TEN MILLION? I have to doubt that.
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fork
Utensil
Joined: 26 Apr 2006
Posts: 1283
Location: Left . . . of the plate
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 4:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Senor Magoo wrote: | | The only reason I might think to not ask for ridiculuous amounts, even on the premise of "what's the harm in trying?" would be that perhaps some judges look at the case in front of them, and the proposed remedy of one hundred bazillion dollars, and decide that the case is about a money grab, not justice. I can't see how that wouldn't affect some judges' perception of the plaintiff. |
If the usual thing is to ask for a hundred bazillion dollars, and a judge thinks it's a money grab for one plaintiff and not the rest that ask for a hundred bazillion dollars, then the judge's perception of the plaintiff is being affected by something other than the amount they're asking.
| Senor Magoo wrote: | | Anyway, aren't suits like this generally all about your actual out of pocket costs, including remedies, and lost opportunity? As opposed to big "pain and suffering" payouts, or punitive damages? Or to put it another way, am I to understand that the ONLY way to make this situation right would have a price tag of TEN MILLION? |
Absolutely, yes. Like in the McDonalds Coffee Lawsuit:
| Quote: | | During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebecks. This history documented McDonalds' knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard. |
We can get some indication of what McDonalds thought was adequate recompense by the pre-trial offers (from Wikipedia):
| Quote: | | Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald's for $20,000 to cover her actual and anticipated expenses. Her past medical expenses were $10,500; her anticipated future medical expenses were approximately $2,500; and her loss of income was approximately $5,000 for a total of approximately $18,000.[14] Instead, the company offered only $800. When McDonald's refused to raise its offer, Liebeck retained Texas attorney Reed Morgan. Morgan filed suit in New Mexico District Court accusing McDonald's of "gross negligence" for selling coffee that was "unreasonably dangerous" and "defectively manufactured". McDonald's refused Morgan's offer to settle for $90,000.[5] Morgan offered to settle for $300,000, and a mediator suggested $225,000 just before trial, but McDonald's refused these final pre-trial attempts to settle. |
So yeah, without punitive damages, McDonalds would have kept deciding to burn people with their coffee and offer them eight hundred bucks or whatever for their trouble. But I think we've had this conversation before about tort reform, haven't we, and I know you don't agree. You should be more tough on crime  .
Edit: Here it is. It was the other McDonald's case. I had linked to this Common Dreams article on tort reform.
Last edited by fork on Tue Apr 05, 2011 4:25 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Senor Magoo
He's got a big one
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 8700
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | If the usual thing is to ask for a hundred bazillion dollars, and a judge thinks it's a money grab for one plaintiff and not the rest that ask for a hundred bazillion dollars, then the judge's perception of the plaintiff is being affected by something other than the amount they're asking.
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Like the case itself? And specifically, whether it really merits such a giant payout?
As a side note, I've seen the occasional lawsuit in the news that goes in the other direction, and asks for much more proportional damages (eg: in the five figures instead of seven or eight).
As another side note, remember that lawyer who committed professional suicide when he very tenaciously sued a dry cleaner whose sign said "satisfaction guaranteed" and sued for $54 million dollars, or roughly 540 years worth of his salary at the time? [I just did a quick google on the guy; he lost his judicial appointment, and all avenues of appeal have been exhausted. Couldn't have happened to a nicer prick!]
| Quote: | | We can get some indication of what McDonalds thought was adequate recompense by the pre-trial offers (from Wikipedia): |
But that case quite reasonably does involve pain and suffering.
If the case were about someone whose coffee spilled on the floor, forcing them to have to wait in line for another, I would have expected a judgement of actual costs alone.
Not that I don't have any sympathy for these students, but it's not like they lost an eye. Good lord.
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Raos
volatilis vir
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 5472
Location: Petropolis
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Senor Magoo wrote: | | Academically it is, it's just delivered online. |
...really? The proposed degree outcome might be the same, but that's still not the same program of study, and there's no guarantee, or even assume (though I'd say there's some likely indicators to the contrary), that it'll be equivalent to what they signed up for.
| Senor Magoo wrote: | | Anyway, aren't suits like this generally all about your actual out of pocket costs, including remedies, and lost opportunity? As opposed to big "pain and suffering" payouts, or punitive damages? Or to put it another way, am I to understand that the ONLY way to make this situation right would have a price tag of TEN MILLION? I have to doubt that. |
Asside from the defense of tort and punitive damages, is $10M really that out of line with direct damages? TS brought up that it's a class action with 119, 78 of which are international students. For 119 people, that $10M averages a little over $84k. That doesn't sound like so much to me, considering the cost of remedying the situation. How much is tuition to a new school to get the proper designations going to be? Living expenses while there (including the 78 that'll probably have to move to another country again)? Lost wages while having to go back to school and not entering the workforce when they thought they would after their first run through a program, and delaying career development? |
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fork
Utensil
Joined: 26 Apr 2006
Posts: 1283
Location: Left . . . of the plate
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 4:40 pm Post subject: |
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| Raos wrote: | | For 119 people, that $10M averages a little over $84k. |
It was ten million when it was just the two of them. I don't know if the amount requested was adjusted to ask for $5 million per person, or if they're all sharing the $10 million. Or maybe what happens is that each person gets direct damages, and the punitive damage amount is split. |
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Rufus Polson
Purple Library Guy
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 3483
Location: SFU and/or the college of Riddlemastery at Caithnard
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| Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 5:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Vundo Draxon wrote: | | Tehanu wrote: | | A fast-tracked two-year degree? Sounds fishy to me. Pretty good example of why it's important to keep post-secondary education public. |
Well, it would sure be nice if public institutions could find an effective way to provide an alternative to the enforced summer "break" from May-August. |
At SFU we have trimester system. There's Fall, Spring and Summer semester. So you can take your pick--skip any one of them, take courses in just one semester, go straight through the whole year, whatever. There are even a few courses offered in short intense bursts in the first half of summer or the last half. There are also a lot of courses offered in the evening.
SFU does a lot of things wrong, but I don't think inflexibility of schedule is one of them. I'm not clear that scheduling is an issue of public vs private. |
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