The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism has a just-released story about a for-profit college in Wisconsin. Reporter Kate Golden, in For-profit college accused of operating illegally in Wisconsin, describes the school’s shady practices.
Now that she knows Westwood College was never authorized to operate in Wisconsin, Janesville resident Melissa Willes wants her $25,000 back.
“The biggest mistake of my life was attending college,” said Willes, 23, one of at least 200 Wisconsin students who have taken online classes through Westwood.
The major for-profit college, based in Denver, is coming under intensified federal scrutiny since a recent government report documented improper recruiting practices within the nation’s fast-growing for-profit college sector.
Willes said a Westwood recruiter told her the $75,000 online bachelor’s degree in interior design she was considering wasn’t approved yet in Wisconsin, but assured her it would be by the end of her three-year program.
Willes never finished the degree after maxing out her borrowing limit for federal student loans. Westwood credits generally aren’t transferable to other schools, the college acknowledges.
On July 7, Willes sued Westwood in Rock County Circuit Court, and on Aug. 6 Westwood moved the case to U.S. District Court in Madison. Willes charged that the college was operating without the required state approval, which is designed to ensure educational quality and protect students from fraud. She has asked the court to certify her suit as a class action.
In her lawsuit, Willes claimed that misleading marketing tactics by Westwood enticed her to enroll in a substandard program and take on excessive tuition debt in pursuit of a “largely useless” degree.
The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism’s story is powerful for several reasons. First, it’s rich with detail about, Westwood’s practices.
Second, it distinguishes Westwood from other for-profit colleges. (Westwood is different, completely, from a private, accredited college; many private schools, like Marquette University, are nothing like Westwood, in quality or integrity. This story’s not about any private school, but a certain kind of private school.)
Third, it makes clear that these schools sometimes dupe students, and milk taxpayers, as “taxpayer-funded student loans are their bread and butter.” A weaker story would have said that this was a matter of a for-profit college cheating people, or an exploitable student loan program. It’s both.
About those resources, among others, the story has a link to Melissa Willes’s original complaint, a General Accounting Office report on colleges like Westwood, and a GAO undercover video that lets readers see what recruiters for these colleges are willing to tell people (just about anything!) to get them to apply for a federal loan.
Here’s that GAO video:
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=argKE6FdtM8.
Consider, finally, the tagline of the Wisconsin Center: “Protect the Vulnerable, Expose Wrongdoing, Seek Solutions.” Fine ideals. That’s true at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, and there are other good newspapers across the state that have similar ideals, however expressed.
What happened that so many have turned away from these ideals, so very American, in favor of a slavish and fawning support of every official within sight? That’s a story — a multi-part series — all its own, I’m afraid.