Thread regarding Education Management Corporation layoffs

Our Ai (in Miami/ Miami International University) is a REAL University! We are SACS accredited. No ONE infraction was found during our audit. U of Miami, nor ANY SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY can claim that! WE TURN OUT GREAT students. WE have a kick assfaculty (I'm a professor there). We FLOAT the other schools that are doing poorly. WE are the money maker. So, F--- EDMC and their mishandling of everything. Close the sh-- schools (something they should've done ages ago), and leave ours the f--- alone!

Did you get let go.... aaaaawwww!

That's not surprising.

I'm down for some necrophilia.

@4jup - a few points:

1) My AiCA campus has a graduation rate of 32%

2) Many students, and probably most, enroll at community colleges without looking to complete a degree but simply to take a few classes to develop their skills and knowledge. Ai is structured specifically for students to pursue degrees; community colleges are designed for a range of student needs, and degree completion is only one of them.

3) Community college classes typically cost around $30 a credit. My Ai campus charges $518 per credit. There's a different level of institutional responsibility based on those different price points.

Check into https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/

This is a government site that students can use to research schools they wish to attend.

Take special note at community college grad rates. A vast majority of for profit schools that have the majority of the programs that compare to that of a community college, far pass the grad rates to that of community colleges. Why isn't this talked about?

Lets hope that community colleges are not held to the 90/10 rule.......we would be crushed

My mom's been dead for 9 years, so have fun with that.

I'm just here to get your moms number. She's got skills!!!

Hey, 3unj, I did, and used it obviously. Please reread my post. Also, I can only assume debt forgiveness is what you are after. You have hundreds of angry former EDMC employees with evidence and testimony as an audience on this site. Do you really think you are going to gain their sympathy by insulting them repeatedly?

A couple of things, some former students posting on this site suffer from the misapprehension that all EDMC employees knew about the fraud and were complicit in it. Not true. When you go in for an interview you are shown all the same materials and told all the same stories students are when they come in to tour, you aren't told, "Hey, these stats are fudged and our attrition rates are 25% and we're doing out best to get our hands on as much federal money as we can to make our CEO, the board members and Goldman Sachs as rich as possible, you in?" What you get internally is convincing propaganda, not facts, and it all sounds great, just like it did when you signed up. It's only over time that you figure it out and even then not everyone does, only those who go on line and do their research. Another thing, in my experience anyway, my degree from an EDMC school is not trash. I wasnt handed a degree. I worked every bit as hard as I did for my Bachelors Degree from a not for profit private university. I learned everything I needed to know to function successfully in my current profession from qualified instructors and was hired based on my training and nobody looked at my resume and scoffed. So let's call a spade a spade here.

You screwed up when you admitted that EDMC schools were predatory. By default, you've already lost the argument. If you want to argue for the schools, at least have common sense not to admit their biggest, glaring purpose for existing in the first place.

Moreover, why is it the students' responsibility to know that the school was perpetuating fraud by extracting and funneling federal education dollars? How can anyone know the job placement rates were inflated when it was presented as fact in the very marketing materials that the recruiters handed out and was plastered all over the websites? As an "educated" and honest person you're going to place blame on the students when you should have been forthcoming about what an arbitration agreement was and that it existed in the text of the contract? In short: the recruiters, the administration, and the entirety of EDMC should have been forthcoming and honest about their job placement rates, the truth about the rapport the school holds with employees (because they knew!), and the hidden legalese speak (arbitration) hidden in the paperwork. Students are owed the truth, and the school should have been informing and looking out for students -- even if it meant sitting them down and explaining in layman's terms what they were signing up for. Financial aid workers were not upfront about the true cost of education, what loan payments were in reality, nor (and this is the biggest one) that student loans did not have bankruptcy protections. But, if the school were in any way honest about their reputation they would not have had a "school", thus the entire facade was built upon fraud.

Sorry, the funneling of taxpayer monies was engineered in a way that benefited the school and their stockholders; not the education of the students. By withholding the truth, the employees of the school are complicit with that fraud.

Further, students were relying on the staff to assist them with making the right choice, as the education sector is your job! You're the ones collecting a paycheck to do your job. Students, who were more often than not people who lacked a support system and, in extreme cases, stability, doing their homework does not deflect blame nor excuse the poor leadership of the admission staff or administration that stood at the helm of the school.

Predatory by definition means seeking to exploit or suppress others, and that is exactly what EDMC did. Thank you for the open acknowledgement.

Please quit hating on each other. It solves zero problems. If you haven't walked a mile in someone else's shoes, and you don't have access to the contents of their hearts or their heads, then you have no basis to judge them. It wouldn't surprise me if some rich former EDMC executives weren't reading this and laughing at us all. Take all that angry energy and apply it to something constructive that supports your cause, like contacting elected officials and pushing your agenda or lighting a fire under some documentarians, but quit attacking one another.

Plant. Troll.

Tell yourself whatever you need to so you can sleep at night.

Every campus and department is different. In my department where I have taught for 17 years all of our faculty have masters or doctorates and we have long been known for excellent students who graduate into really good jobs ( and very well paying jobs) in the industry. 100's of them as designers, technical designers and pattern makers as well as fashion marketers for major brands in Los Angeles, NY and other locales in the U.S. I have a LinkedIn account with over 700 successful alumni to prove it. We market our department based on results and an alumni roster that reads like a who's who. We graduate success stories every quarter. I'm not a plant or a troll just another constructive contributor to my city as are all of my other hard working colleagues. As with any school system you can't paint the entire system with a broad brush. We all know that. Students who were not academically ready were given remedial classes to get ready. They have free tutoring available to them by qualified faculty as well as peers. Either is available at any point during the day. I have seen students who may not have been college ready, get ready by means of the resources available. I'm proud of where I work, who I work with and what we've achieved and contributed and those 700 students tell me they are grateful all the time. I am in contact daily with our departments alumni by virtue of being active on LinkedIn. We utilize the connections from alumni to help those graduating and it's working and no one can deny that. The facts are the facts. It's unfortunate that there were bad actors in different sectors over the years. The faculty here could work anywhere and they choose to work here in the vibrant amazing city. I'm dedicated to my students. I work hard because I love to see them thrive. I live for that. Those relationships I have with them were created out of my own efforts for no other purpose than for my own personal and professional fulfillment. We're all like that here. I'm not unique. I am aware this is not the case everywhere but I felt I needed to say that from where I sit at my school we have a lot to be proud of. Broad brushes never have painted very well and it's far too easy to use them. It requires no talent or discernment to use a broad brush and we all know that. I think we can agree there are exceptions in life everywhere you look.

Idiot if you knew anything then you would know that EDMC stopped their contribution match a few years ago. Also, I was adjunct faculty a few years then I became full time. So I would say for the past 3-4 yrs of me mostly saving to have my 18k is pretty nice. Also, the name calling is really not necessary in fact I would classify it as "trolling" and not even worthy of a response. I can't help it if you are student and made a dumb educational decision to get a degree from or "attempt to" from one of the EDMC affiliated schools. I always do my research from buying food, to insurance, to where I go to school. You can pass that "we were taken advantage of" and "I didn't know" for so long. Red flag should've been when you credits wouldn't transfer to another Ai much less another school i.e. community college!!! I mean after how many years were you gonna be a victim????

Let me get this straight, you have 18k in your 401k after SEVEN years of service? Hahahaha! That's hilarious Skank Bottom you really suck at allocating your resources. I've got 39k after just three years.

As President George W Bush famously commented: “There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.”

As a former employee who was RIFd its all good and thr comments about me made me laugh, I see the insults never end. I guess thats what happens when you are an unhappy employee or unhappy former student. I would love to linger but this blog serves me no use now as I move into my new job. Despite what darts have tried to be lodged at me by former employees or students I do hope you all take EDMC down but whether you do or dont means nothing to me as I have moved on with my 7 weeks severance pay and my 18k in 401k to my new job at my traditional research air space and land state university.

Catch me in the sunset with my Long Heels and Red Bottoms!!!!

I was an instructor, chief.

You're a lying piece of sh.it. If you left a decade ago when the matrix was in full swing you either sucked dick at your job or couldn't hack the recruiting game and got fired. Either way you must suck at life because at that point they were just stipend hunters and easy pickings.

So were you an employee or a student? The post indicates both.

Any reasonably long-term employee, regardless of position, is complicit in the fraud. Why? You cashed the paychecks.

I left my EDMC job nearly a decade ago when I stopped turning a blind eye to the problems, and realized most of my superiors were incompetent "drinkers of the Kool-Aid" for no other reason than they were unqualified to make it in real higher ed.

I'm still not proud to have worked there. Don't pretend you're any different. Getting RIF'd may sting, but at least there's one benefit: you got away with it.

I am sorry, but former financial aid personnel have admitted to rushing students through paperwork and misleading them about their loans. Which makes you either misinformed or a corporate apologist. It is also documented fact that the career statistics for graduates were inflated and fraudulent. Maybe there were teachers who cared, but to say that financial aid and admissions representatives didn't know what they were doing at the campus level is a blatant lie. Numbers are, and have been, the name of the game. After the lawsuits came to light any remaining employees were complicit in it. If you know where you work is a fraudulent debt factory and don't leave for a less dubious career, you shoulder blame.

I feel like you are the type of person who asks women what they were wearing when they got raped...

I am just one person as the other person accused of being two people. As for me going down to Career Services and get a job...well that office no longer exists and two I have a career position with a community college where I make 30% more than when I was with EDMC, I just signed the paperwork today!! So LIKE I SAID, I believe the students have a valid point EDMC is predatory and they should seek relief by whatever means they can. However, the students who were mostly academically incapable of performing at college level should also take some responsibility. To say they don't read contracts, information, etc. is just foolish and no what educated adults do. My point always has been that the corporate entity in in zeal to "get more students" etc were/are responsible and to broad brush all employees at the campus level as bad and evil is wrong.

So to end this thread, I am cashing out my severance and pulling out my 401K money and moving on...peaceful journey.

yep...... EVERYTHING is just fine.... when it's all about how your life went well.... therefore the school is GREAT and nothing needs to be corrected when the school is tanking.

You're the type of person I would never want to meet if your ego is THAT high. If anyone were to debate with you, YOU are always right. There is absolutely no room for discussion. And you need the degree, that totally validates how smarht ye are. You are putting value on a piece of paper like putting value onto money. It's just a material you twisted your mind into believing it has power. Get over it.

Thanks for the reminder you won't provide us the service that we paid for and still take our money anyways...

Look at the two letters. Does anyone else think "Red Bottoms" are two different people?

Ha!!! I am far from a corp EDMC plant if fact I hate EDMC for what they have done to the campud level employees both faculty and staff. From cutting the 401k, to raising the cost of insurance, to the "do more with less....and less". As I stated I want the students to take the complaints as far as they can but the anger is misplaced to hurl at the campus level employees. These people have families, partners, bills, etc. and to to broad brush them as evil is not correct. I know of students who owe massive school debt who by all accounts should not receive an official transcript yet accountant at school will print one because they care. Or the culinary dept head give food away to the students who are hungry or let them eat at school and take food home regularly.

So as I said to say that you arr young and don't understand so I can say the 20k I owe from my undergrad big state school age 18-22, and the 30k I owe for my MBA age 22-24, and the 35k I currently owe at age 36 should all be forgiven since it wasnt "fully explained" to me. But I did understand how to get a refund back!!!

Again, i state EDMC is predatory but at what point do you wake up and take some accountability for not doing your homework??? I say stick it to them may them pay but to say all EDMC employees are evil and out for blood then no I disagree. What makes it bad is that the corp culturr put pressure all the way to get more, do more, cook the books etc, and at the end you lay off people and the execs get a bonus while "Becky" who is a program chair gets the axe, 2 weeks pay, and a rinky dink severance for 7 yrs of service.

Here is the good news...Becky is free to go somewhere else get a job at a "good school" and move on...Bad news, let those summer, fall, starts not be good and therr will be addtl lay offs by Thanksgiving along with your turkey.

turns page

I think "Red Bottoms" could more persuasively have made that argument when EDMC was family owned and the Knutsons were nominally in charge. Once EDMC was taken over by Goldman Sachs, the firm became a conduit for government tax money. Anyone with a pulse was taken on as a student. The desperate and homeless were granted entry. I know of several cases in which the students did not have the mental capacity to fully understand the scope of the work and debt they'd taken on. Still others were there because they were homeless and wanted the student housing. I'd like to say these were exceptions but toward the end, they had more and more become the norm. These unfortunate students were given government loans and so, for the short term, it must have all seemed like a free ride. Naturally, standards had to fall to accommodate not just the aforementioned students but all students who should never have been allowed in. Yes, it's time for EDMC and all the for profits to finally be brushed aside. Their time has come and gone.

However, the residual anger, that sense of betrayal, will remain for a long, long time. I wouldn't expect "Red Bottoms" to understand because I suspect "Red Bottoms" is, in fact, a corporate shill sent as an apologist for the corporate interests that wrecked EDMC.

Saying I signed on the dotted line is a stupid and belligerent way of validating your argument. I wasn't fully informed on what I was signing, the right to arbitration I was signing away, or the full amount of debt I would be incurring. I was fed bogus job placement statistics and the promise of an industry job. Newsflash! Most 18 year olds have no idea about how loans work or what the consequences are. In summation, you are still responsible in your own ways as co-conspirators to EDMC, don't go justifying your bullshit. Happy 4th of July!

Sorry but not sorry. I hate that students were mishandled and they deserve to in some way be compensated. Likewise there are alot of good EDMC employees at the campus level who do great work with limited resources. Most of the students need to be remediated either in math or english and most should take gen ed classes at a community college. I submit again that students are ultimately responsible for the contract they signed.

Now for these trolls that are so unhappy go file a lawsuit, go tell Dept of Ed more "hidden secrets" in the meantime the world is turning, sun is shining, and life goes on. I suggest the students fight as long as they think its necessary, but interest on loans are still accruing folks. Its not a nice way to look at this I encourage those who are left keep looking, for those who are gone like me we will find better keep looking, as for students transfer out if you can if not stick it out and get your degree. If you want to further your education---read the fine print.

HAPPY RED WHITE & BOOM