Thread regarding DeVry Inc. layoffs

so why are bringing back a student from 2011 to stand in front of congress? why can't a current student be asked, and not some student from 8 years back that has more repeated courses than a first year liberal arts student. OK ERIC !!!

Why don't you tell the Sub Committee to request your transcripts !!! PS...Math is very important for your future!!!

So what percentage of students is it, then? Show some data or else it’s just more speculation from isolated examples. Like getting one poor graduate and demonizing the whole system.

With greater interaction and information comes greater responsibility. It would be one thing if this was unpredictable, i.e. one or two students at a 20,000+ student flagship university that never talk to anyone, but when a significant percentage of your students engage in the grifting behavior, engage with you on a near daily basis, you are enabling it by not doing anything about it. Pointing the finger the other way stating "there's nothing we can do" is an all too convenient excuse. It's like handing out matches and gasoline then acting surprised when some start a forest fire. Doing nothing is not an option if you care about how the school is perceived.

Yep, student grifters, and you’ll find them everywhere, including community colleges so exalted for their saintly nonprofit status.

How is someone supposed to see if a student signs the promissory note, fills out all the pertinent information to get a loan, gets the loan and gets the money? Explain that? Are people supposed to be mind readers? Some of the liability falls on the student. This situation is like if a bank just issued you a check for a loan you filled out the paperwork and signed all the documents but you claim you didn’t want the money but accepted the money and cashed the check anyways. Try managing that over a broad spectrum of consumers. It’s easy to criticize the institution and say...you should have caught this or known that....but in the real world, if someone fills out and agrees to something then takes it, it’s kinda hard to cry wolf when then payment is due. Gotta side against the person who accepted the money but claims they didn’t want it. The righteous question still stands, if the didn’t want the money, why didn’t he send it back?

@Stop the lies, if DeVry workers are seeing these incidents, why aren't they reporting them? How do students get these loans?

"My question is once you get that first disbursement, how come he didn’t send the money back?"

correct...no associate program cost 57,500..but every BA program can reach that amount

but, if student withdraws and fails over ......over ....over again. 57,500 for an associates can be realistic

The veterans are entitled to whatever benefits the government gets. I think the point here is, there is no associates program that costs 57,500 in loans. None! 0 zilch nada! The point is, he was taking out loans above what the pell grant and his VA benefits covered. My question is once you get that first disbursement, how come he didn’t send the money back? The lender and the school notifies you each time, in writing and via email the loans have disbursed. Any reasonable consumer would have known and done something about it if that is what they did not want. He sure probably got the large checks. Cashed those but didn’t get the letters from his lender that federal loans got disbursed? Cmon! Let’s tell the truth here. The committee didn’t ask him those questions or they didn’t seek the truth. It’s always blame the school but never the person who cashed the check. I thank him for his service but this instance, because the lender and the school notified them in writing that money is being disbursed. I call BS on his part.

Last year, I broke down the true amount of benefit and loans a VA studnet get by the last date of school...

BAH

2500 (est ave) 30,000 year

4 year if lucky 120,000

................

Federal loans

57,500

If the student is grad, he can go all the way to 132,500.00.

4 years of sub/unsub

....................

Federal Pell Grant

Let say if Efc score is 0

3300 *4 =13,200.00

So a an undergrad can walk out from devry with...190,000.00 or a grad student with 260,000.00

And this is for 1 student!!! And in not including what the VA pays in tution/fees!!!

This so called “Eric” is employed. Please do not be ignorant and speak on things you don’t know about. You don’t know the specifics. Find something better to do with your time instead of speaking things that aren’t true. Oh ya, did you serve? Just sounds as though you are bitter that you aren’t receiving the benefits that every Vet deserves.

Y5HJN3C-2gbh sounds like your typical Devrybot. Complaining about people's cars prices, assuming he knew what was going on monetarily, forgetting the letter S and using don't improperly. Oh don't forget !!!!!

Yes, the school encourages this behavior. They will open a campus class for VA students so that they will get extra cash, even if they know that the student did no work at all in previous classes. There are many students that register but never show up. Sometimes they will post one blank post per week for the entire session just to stay registered for the class. They never respond to any kind of communication. They have no interest in the course or their program. They just want the cash.

@Y5HJN3C-2gbh—-

Excellent point! No where in the testimony did he state how much money he got back from aid that was not used to just pay for tuition and fees. If he didn’t want loans, how come he didn’t send that money if he got any back to his lender? Did he call the school once his refund checks came in and state, hey I told you I didn’t want loans?! Seriously doubt it. But it’s the schools fault for that?! He was living off his aid money and now is bitter he has to pay it back. I wonder if he even contacted career services to help him get a job in his field. Probably not, but then blames the school. What if he has poor interviewing skills? What if he farts in an interview or what if he stutters or shows up in shorts and a T-shirt for an interview, how is the school liable for that?

The truth is complex and not nearly as dazzling as painting people as "grifters" in a broad stroke of the brush. I left a couple of years ago, when faculty were forced to teach 40+ students, endure extraordinary commutes for 5 or even fewer students on-site.

I saw in my time (nearly a decade) a school actually trying to be an educational experience with good faculty committed to teaching to their best abilities. Beginning in 2012 with declining enrollments, the school shifted to meeting the business requirement of profits, and lost sight of faculty and students.

As more and more students were shoved down fewer and fewer faculty throats; as the DeVry culture became increasingly predatory--both institutionally and among students; as students with low or no skills were expected to be "persisted," many of them riding their grants and loans as a financial plan; as more and more "service" was heaped upon dwindling faculty numbers; the school eroded into a degree mill.

Higher education everywhere faces these issues, by the way; they are not unique to DeVry. However, they are egregious and pronounced at DeVry and among the for-profit sector schools in ways that are still more subtle in traditional schools.

As for remaining faculty: I understand why they stay--some are in their 50s or 60s, they have kids, mortgages, bills. They cannot afford lofty and noble principles. It's a job. And if they can do some few students some little good, they feed their souls those morsels.

Get off your high horse there, Cammy. I taught my classes well, my students learned and many of them got industry jobs. I spent 20 years helping students understand concepts and gave them the tools to succeed if they had the motivation. I am sorry if the same was not true for everyone. When I started the place had 6+ hours onsite for a technical class for 15 weeks. Even 6 hours a week for a technical class for 8 weeks is the equivalent of a standard 15 week class, which meets for three hours. Honestly, truthfully, in my neck of the woods, we did well by students for a long time.

I left a few years ago because of the constant lowering of standards and push by management for throughput and “making the numbers”. It took me four years to make it happen because of the bad reputation the place had gained in the meantime. Our students typically had associate’s degrees from community colleges and may have been better than typical. Every vet that I met was hard-working and honest...and they were some of my favorite students. Shame on you to attack them as a group. I appreciate their service to our country...and you should too. They put their lives on the line to give you the freedom to sit around on the Internet and complain about DeVry. Should the place be shut down now because of what it’s become now? Yes, absolutely. But it was once okay.

Lots of people rationalizing DeVry's criminal behavior. How many people at DeVry are grifters? Or better yet, from the President of DeVry down, who is not a grifter? I know there have been some people with ethics, but I imagine most have left.

Based on the latest comment, 2gbh sounds like he’s possibly an Admissions rep or SSA and made some good points. An entitled former military borrower makes a money grab every which way, then wants a do-over (or to not pay back the supplemental borrowings when the funtime web design degree bears little fruit). The thing I don’t know enough about here is whether or not we’re in some way encouraging these military students to go after that extra “free” money so they can throw themselves a party for a few years. Shame on these students, as they’re grifters. What I’d like to know is if we’re actively enabling them through our processes.

i'm sick and tried of this sh--! VA student don't need to take out loans, they use GI Benefit to pay for tuition, fee and so on. Did this VA student really say...."why He really took out loans for"! He it is.....

1. Most VA don't want work and use Federal Funding to support their life!!! (unemployed pirates)

2. The use being in the military as an excuse for everything!!!

3. Have you seen most of these students cars??? lets say they are worth $40 - $50 thousand (must be nice)

4. Students and only the students signs MPN's and Loan Entrance Counseling and review ALL loan requirements prior to saying "YES, I want Loan Funding". ( Other schools, such as State Schools - don't even go in to the detail, as much as DVU does)

5. Some of these VA student's have a CRAZY amount of funding given to them: (example: $2500 BAH+875 sub loan+1500 unsub loan+1500+ pell grant + all lets say they work 3,000 = 9375.00 a month!!!!

This "Eric" is just another example of a unemployed VA vet, that was on the front lines.....but when you come back to the real world, he can't even handle it!!!! Eric show the sub committee your BANK statements!!!

The school is not forcing anyone to sign a loan!!! We don't get NOTHING out of it, but guess what.....you do!!!

Just another VA student, not taking responsibility of there actions as a STUDENT!!!!

1pov, I think you articulated a key insight regarding the broader higher ed landscape comprised of public, private and for-profit schools: “For-profit schools simply unmasked education. They lifted the veil to reveal the hollow corpse.”

1ixd I agree: education is an industry, and it is tainted by the business paradigm, whether a traditional or a for-profit school. For-profit schools simply unmasked education. They lifted the veil to reveal the hollow corpse. Yet, those who seek an education purely for the noble desire to learn are more likely to be satisfied in a traditional-school environment. For-profit education forecloses the option.

I tell folks to run screaming from higher education careers. Only get a research doctorate if you need it for a specific job (research chemist, big pharma loves those) and not because you dream of being a college professor. Unless your dream is being underpaid by multiple employers, not having health insurance, and exploited with boatloads of students in each class as you try to patch together enough classes to meet minimum wage while being told exactly what it is that you are supposed to know and “teach”. You are just a prototype of the grading software that will ultimately replace you.

Get that doctorate for personal achievement if you want it. There are so many watered-down three-year options that are even mostly online in some cases. A real research doctorate should be a five-plus year soul-crushing nightmare. It is designed to break you. The so-called career path in higher education that follows is so saturated with poorly paying, highly competitive positions that it would break anyone. I thought that society was supposed to reward its smartest people more, but economically, we are the dumb ones. We are trying Don Quixote’s chasing windmills. Get a masters in we’ll-paying career field and stop there unless you are a glutton for punishment. The higher education “cliff” of enrollment in scheduled for 2026...about six years before there are even fewer jobs left. The only real jobs left in higher ed are either token full-timers required for education, adjuncts, or the regular staff and admins who can get better pay elsewhere and more career advancement. Want to be a Provost? Have at it. Hone your administration skills. But why not just be a manager in industry instead?

Show me nearly any college or university, whether public, private, or for-profit, and I’ve no doubt we won’t have to look too far to find an aggrieved student with an honest story of injustice to tell. I’ve known some personally at public universities, if you can imagine that. There are many unfortunate cases within higher ed in this country, and plenty of aspects of our overall system of universities that ought to be scrutinized and overhauled for the benefit of students. I was recently asked by two people, very directly, what I thought about pursuing a career in higher education. I pointed them to several pieces discussing the contemporary challenges of this career path, to put it politely. This business environment just ain’t what it used to be. Then again, neither is retail, or law, or...

hkx...fair point...so I guess parity will have been achieved when we discover admissions officers at our shop took dough to grease the skids so a student could come here? Frankly, would that it were so, because it would suggest something so special about us that people would be willing to risk jail time.

Meanwhile, in other news, so-called elite colleges such as Yale and Georgetown have been implicated in widespread bribery, fraud, fake test scores and trumped-up athletic profiles, once again displaying the naïveté of the false dichotomy that nonprofit schools are good and for-profit schools are bad.

https://rebootcamp.militarytimes.com/education/news/2019/03/13/this-for-profit-college-left-one-veteran-with-101000-in-debt-and-a-sketchy-degree-testimony/