Student Loans, Another trade school sued for false job placement reports.

This one is closer to home. Clips from the article, used without permission.

http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/08/cooley_law_school_target_of_fe.html

Cooley Law School target of federal lawsuit claiming it cooks its books when it comes to employment claims

GRAND RAPIDS – Either law school students are the victims of an elaborate scheme to bilk them out of $100,000 for tuition and leave them with dim job prospects or they are self-entitled elitists who think they are guaranteed a job because they have a juris doctorate.

Four graduates of Thomas M. Cooley Law School have brought a federal lawsuit against their alma mater, claiming the school misrepresented its post-graduation employment statistics to attract students.

New York law firm Kurzon Strauss filed the suit this week in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan in Grand Rapids, claiming Cooley counts part-time jobs -- or employment other than working full-time as lawyer -- in its job statistics.

The suit accuses Cooley of using “Enron-style” accounting techniques that would “leave most for-profit companies facing the long barrel of a government investigation.”

Kurzon Strauss attorney and University of Michigan Law School graduate David Anziska said while Cooley claims that 75 to 80 percent of graduates get jobs within nine months of graduation, his firm believes that number is less than 30 percent.

“The dirty little secret is that this is a common practice among law schools,” said Anziska, who adds that a nearly identical suit has been filed against the New York Law School.

Anziska describes Cooley and NY Law School as law degree factories and the real problem is with the way that law schools report their employment and salary information as a matter of course.

Ed note: no, its not just law schools, who have this problem, MOST if not ALL the trade schools do. It is their biggest recruitment tool.

The federal suit asks for $250 million in damages including the reimbursement of students' tuition and other damages and it also demands that the named schools have their employment data checked by independent audit.

Cooley has about 1,000 graduates a year and about 4,000 students enrolled, with campuses in Lansing, Ann Arbor, Auburn Hills and Grand Rapids and plans to open a fifth in Tampa Bay, Florida.