This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Is Kaplan any different from Goldman Sachs scamming investors, or Prudential Insurance ripping off dead war vets' beneficiaries and getting away with it? Apparently not. In this case, poor and minority students are most hurt, "suffer(ing) garnishment of their wages or (huge) monthly payments beyond their means, while others faced attachment by way of liens on their properties, if they had any." Many won't ever recover from Kaplan's disreputable practices. Yet apparently they continue unabated.
The company uses government Title IV funds "for student loans to pay for tuition." They account for "90% of their revenues," employing "unethical if not illegal methods" of scamming students for profit. Tens of millions of dollars are involved and perhaps thousands of students.
"SurgTech was one of CHI/Kaplan's most profitable programs." Mostly minority female students were enrolled, using Title IV funds. However, Kaplan "signed up more (of them) than their program could serve and continued" enrolling more.
"To cover up the enrollment fraud," CHI/Kaplan "warehous(ed) students - basically telling them to go home....until their externships came up," though Kaplan kept it hidden from authorities to keep Title IV funds coming.
The company "vanished" students from its rolls, listing them as "drops" to shield themselves from liability "without damming the revenue stream and the fiduciary responsibility of the corporation to its shareholders and investors."
Unknown to those enrolled, they were lied to, put in a program Kaplan knew they couldn't complete. "Even top management" knew about the scam from the start. Yet they over-enrolled in day and evening courses, even without promised externships. Up to 90% of students "had no legal or financial resources at all. (They) were desperate and were attending what they thought was a bona fide college" to improve their lives. Instead of being educated, they became trapped "in a quicksand of debt."
After the Department of Education began examining Kaplan's practices, "SurgeTech's program curiously disappeared from CHI/Kaplan's degree offerings" in late 2008. At the time, state agencies "were threatening to withdraw accreditation."
From what's know so far, "Kaplan knowingly, over a ten year period, misled by omission, prospective students, their accrediting body, and the US Dept. of Ed, causing the government to approve tens of millions of dollars of Title IV student loans for a program" enrollees couldn't finish. The entire scheme was fraudulent.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
1
