<p>It is hard to judge the value of a for profit vocational school and the students attending that. I think there is a value for the vocational schools and many ppl graduated from them did get good jobs. Granted, there are some ppl fall on the premises of the advertisement, but to call the advertisement totally at fault and is the basis of this lawsuit is frivolous.</p>
<p>I know many successful people, my wife included, who went to the vocational schools and excel from them. The best example of it is my cousin, who barely finished HS, flunked out of college and CC, thereafter went on to vocational school and became a millionare in his own right. His live dream is cars and everything related to it, he has no desire to study english, math, history or anything else acadamic. He likes racing, speed and auto related. Upon his being kicked out of the CC, he went to pump gas for stations next to his parents, who he lived with. After accumulation of a small savings, he went to the BMW school to learn auto mechanics and eventually bought the station he worked for and exceled from there. He retired at age of 45 with 5 Porches in his garage on 2 acres of land, while we were still struggling on our house payments. </p>
<p>Did he took out a loan for the school? yes. Did he paid it back? yes. Was it expensive? yes. Was it hard? I bet you.</p>
<p>Artloversplus - I have NO Problem with vocational schools. I think they are an AWESOME option for many, many people. An honest school to prepare for an honest trade. Great. Most vocational schools package themselves as vocational schools. The consumer makes the choice if the cost is worth it to them. No problem. This is not the case here. Really. This school packages and sells itself as a “college”. A “business college”. It has shady accreditation. For the uninformed, it “appears” like any 4 year college. It’s not. It is a for profit school set up to collect loans taken out by people who don’t know better. The college gets the money, the student gets the debt and not much more. Buyer beware, yes, but at some point someone has to stand up as say “whoa, you are a thief”. This is what the lawsuit is saying. Is this woman stupid? Yes. However, she is up against an entire corporation set up to separate her from her money. It’s not right. It’s wrong. Hence, the lawsuit.</p>
<p>Hopefully the questions I was asked are quoted with this response… (edit because they weren’t) - the questions were the nature of my business and how I would “rank” gpa on a scale of 1-10:</p>
<p>Communications and publishing. We continue to have a minimum bachelor’s requirement, but do not weigh gpa in our hiring process. We’re seeking creative, independent, even unorthodox thinkers. We prefer risk-takers. It’s been our experience that classroom performance (i.e. gpa) isn’t a valid predictor of the characteristics we’re seeking. I hope this answers your question, however I do not think the questions relate to the topic of the thread.</p>
<p>Also, this sue-happy woman has probably sealed her own employment fate. Most employers wouldn’t touch this kind of person with a ten foot pole, lest they become the next to be sued and find themselves inadvertently in the media spotlight.</p>
<p>I did not mean to insult anybody. However, I myself finished my education all thru MBA while working full time (that made my education free since various employers paid for it). And, believe it or not, having almost 3 decades of experience, I was asked my GPA on my last interview. My answer was that I did not remember, but I remember graduating magna cum laude from UG, so they could estimate from there and they were impressed. This was one little positive check, my 30 years of experience was the main reason why I was hired. But if I did not have 30 years of experience? Why would they take somebody with 2.7 and say No to somebody with 4.0? Maybe 27 years ago the situation was different. It is very competitive now. There is no reason in a world to put so much effort going to school and having opportunity cost associated with it (in case of “free” education, it is still not exactly free, you are missing other stuff in your life while going to school) and do poorly. As I said, I worked full time, had family, raised kid thru HS and other obstacles just like everybody else, not a genius or very talented, nothing to brag about. On top of it, I did not even need a new job, I was working as a professional in a field already. I went to school because my tuition was covered. Only later I have discovered that having MBA and impressive GPA in addition to experience would mean more job opportunities for me.</p>
Exactly. It’s actually pretty good at what it does do and it’s a shame that it oversells itself as a college. </p>
<p>Packmom, a 2.7 from an engineering program is not at all an equivalent to one from a for-profit “college”. Luckily engineering firms know that. :)</p>
<p>Maybe because one person graduated from The University of Chicago (known for rabid grade deflation back then) and the other graduated from Devry (sorry to Devry graduates, just using an example).</p>
<p>Now this is a BC law student wants his money back… BC law school is not a trade school now. But the nature of the accusation is the same: false advertising.</p>
<p>See Post 13. There were a number of threads about this case. </p>
<p>Regarding the “the smarmy attorneys taking these ridiculous cases” you’ll find that one of the older threads included a link to the actual petition for “tutision.” </p>
<p>Taking advantage of somebody sounds like one physical attack another taking $$ out of their pockets and forcing them to sit in classroom. Nothing like this is happenning, just like nobody is forced to smoke and even young kids know that smoking is not good, otherwise they would not hide it when they do, they would smoke in open. The fact is nobody, except for government that forcing us to pay taxes under thread of putting us in jail, nobody forcing us to do anything. We are not forced to take mortgages that we cannot afford to pay back, we are not forced to eat junk food and we are not forced to pay for college education and sit in classes either. By the same token, we are not forced to not have high GPA while paying for college. ALL of the above is our own choice. Everybody is selling their product, including universities. How much time we spend shopping for the car vs. researching the college? Sometime we are much more careful buying the car. Then we pay for our mistake, learn and move on. However, some of us get stuck in filing law suites making everybody else paying increased price for the product. Very disturbing picture, kind of upside down.</p>
<p>I hope she wins something, even if it’s a small amount. Higher education, like all bushiness, needs to be held accountable for the grossly inaccurate cost vs.value they deliver. High cost schools are supremely guilty in perpetuating this charade. They do so because it economically benefits those involved in inferring those false promises.</p>
<p>I am surprised by the number of posters who are not looking a little deeper at this case–really? How about mortgage companies giving loans to people they knew couldn’t afford them. The “slacker” borrowers should have known better? Well, yah…but they didn’t! So who pays now? The banks that gave them the loans (the school that put the student in debt), I don’t think so–it’s you and me, the taxpayers. </p>
<p>I can’t believe how many of you are ok with a college that lacks ethics (and the ability to provide a good education for the $$) loaning money to “suckers”. Try to read between the lines on this one.</p>
<p>I hope BOTH cases stand in the court and being awarded gracefully…</p>
<p>If so, I will call my friend, who has been a lawyer for over 30 years and recently being laid off to change his practice defending students suing colleges/schools. And I have clients for him. For starters about 20 students from Cornell Law class of '09 who have not find any job after one year… Another group from Berkeley Law, class of '10 who have yet a clue what hit them in the face. And none of them have a 2.7 GPA, Never mind graduates from trade schools!</p>
<p>I wonder if Cornell Law and Berkeley Law were advertising down in the ghetto for students promising them a better life and then a loan to help them get it.</p>
<p>Think of all of the makers of products we could sue! Take high end clothing or cosmetics, for a start. $200 jeans?!! :eek:</p>
<p>Most of us deal with the items that we perceive have a disconnect between value and price by not believing the hype and not purchasing the product. Higher education and $200 jeans have a lot in common…</p>
<p>A couple I know were married in 1929. Talk about a bad time to start a family! They went on to live a very comfortable life. Things are tough now, but will get better (we are NOT Japan). I wish all 2009-2010 graduates well.</p>