Texas Leads the way against For Profit Trade schools.

The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) announced last week (last week of July 2011) that it was revoking the license of a major for-profit school chain to operate in the state. The commission took this action against ATI Enterprises after concluding that the company had engaged in a systematic effort to mislead students and regulators about its record in placing graduates into jobs.

“Schools that misrepresent employment information about their programs potentially exploit vulnerable individuals with false hopes for job-placement after completing the program,” Tom Pauken, the commission’s chairman, said in a news release announcing the decision. “TWC’s role is to ensure that students who make a decision to attend a career school receive reliable information so they can make an educated choice.”

ED note: Exactly.

Since before 1980, The for profit trade schools have been using Job Placement as a major recruiting tool. It is what got a lot of us defaulters into trouble during the late 1980's, which lead to the 1992 Student loan reforms being passed. These were the first of their kind since the program started. While some of the changes did effect the schools, they did not go far enough, and nothing was done to help the students who were victimized by the falsified claims of placement, which was a Critical item in making the decision to apply for that particular school.

I know in my place, what I was told during recruitment, and what turned out to be reality, were 2 different things. But at the time we had bankruptcy protection, so I was not worried too much. What I did not expect, nor planned for, was congress systematically removing bankruptcy protections, WHILE I WAS STILL IN SCHOOL. Had I known they could do that, I never would have signed up for the school.

Still, the fact is, we have over 30 years of historical evidence of schools using placement as a major recruiting tool, and many over the years got into trouble because of how they did it. They got sued in court by State or Federal, only when enough students complained. But for every one that got sued, at least 5 more were doing the same thing.

The government needs to continue to crack down. The Good State of Texas has shown us what to do. Now I hope the Federal Government takes notice, and follows the example.