Bad news about the worth of a for-profit higher education continues to pile up. The latest involves DeVry University, one of those schools that advertise heavily on the New York City subways and elsewhere. DeVry University and its parent company will pay $2.25 million to students who didn’t get what the school promised them, thanks to a lawsuit and settlement with New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman.
This settlement comes at a time when the Trump administration may relax vigilance on the for-profit higher education business that rakes in $32 billion a year from taxpayers in student grants and loans. The Obama administration, with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and state officials like Schneiderman, have pursued the false claims of many of these schools that often leave students with worthless degrees and deeply in debt.
Before his inauguration, Donald Trump settled a $25 million dollar lawsuit for Trump University, which made false promises and cost students thousands of dollars.
Trump’s Education Secretary nominee, Betsy DeVos, has a history of supporting for-profit schools and refused at her Senate confirmation hearing to say whether she would crackdown on abuses by these operations.
Back to DeVry, which runs 55 schools across the country and an online program from its Illinois headquarters. The lawsuit says, it falsely advertised that 90 percent of its graduates get good paying jobs in their fields of study and claimed higher rates of placement and higher salaries than other colleges and universities.
As a result the settlement DeVry will have change its pitch to prospectives and pay $500,000 in penalties in addition to restitution to graduates.
Can you get a refund from DeVry University?
If you didn’t get a job within six months in the field in which you studied at DeVry you may qualify for reimbursement.
The New York Attorney General’s lawsuit helps only New York residents. But the Federal Trade Commission also sued DeVry and that case may help others around the country. We’ll keep you updated on that.
Here’s who qualifies, in New York, for restitution from DeVry.
- Graduates of associates and bachelor’s degree programs at DeVry campuses in New York who started school in July 2008 and September 2015
- New York residents who graduated from DeVry online associates or bachelor’s programs and began studying in July 2008 and September 2015.
Again, you should get the forms in the mail and make sure you fill out the portion that asks about your employment up to six months after graduation.
