Posted by Jillian Estes on Jan 20, 2010 in Media Coverage
Hi all,
The Denver Post published a front page, in-depth report this Sunday looking at for-profit colleges and how many are cashing in, while leaving students deep in debt and dissatisfied. Click here to read the Denver Post story.
A former Westwood Admissions Rep was interviewed for the story and tells how they lured students to enroll with high-pressure sales pitches. Also interviewed, were three former Westwood students who’ve also shared their complaints with the James Hoyer Law firm.
The article is filled with statistics that show just how the schools are profiting off of students who say they often don’t get what the pay for. The report also provides a public service to help educate students, parents and citizens that more questions must be asked when considering whether to attend these schools. Be sure to check it out and let the paper know what you think.
You can also read another story the Denver Post ran Monday, which looks at how for-profit schools may soon face tighter regulations.
Thanks, as always, for checking in. More updates coming very soon.
Posted by Jillian Estes on Nov 24, 2009 in Media Coverage
Newsweek.com, one of the country’s leading sources of news coverage, featured a story about the high-interest loans leveraged on unsuspecting students by colleges like Westwood.
The class action suit was featured, along with the story of Tyrone Bailey, a Westwood graduate who was unable to use his degree to get job in his field and is now saddled with thousands of dollars of debt for a largely worthless degree.
“Graduation day should have been a happy one for Tyrone Bailey. The first in his family of three children to earn anything beyond a high-school diploma, Bailey, 24, received a bachelor’s in criminal studies from Westwood College in Torrance, Calif., two years ago. But even while the day’s pomp and circumstance played out, his thoughts turned quickly to the tough job market and the $20,000 in loans he borrowed directly from his alma mater that were set to accrue a whopping 18 percent interest rate.”
“Bailey says that process wasn’t strong enough, and he says the interest-rate reduction doesn’t cut it, either. “Here I am stuck with [$20,000] of debt and a degree that’s useless,” says Bailey, who is now working a near-minimum wage job at the Long Beach sanitation department while he works toward a master’s degree online via the University of Phoenix. He says he couldn’t get a job that would pay his loans, so he entered a new degree program in order to defer loan payments. According to Bailey, no traditional school was willing to accept his Westwood credits. That’s common practice—most traditional nonprofit schools rarely accept transfer credits from for-profit institutions because of differences in the accreditation process. “I’m asking for my loans to be forgiven and for them to pay for education at a traditional school; I still want an education so I can start a career.”"
The article also features a former employee of Westwood College who exposes the truth behind the deception. Ms. Morris said what so many former employees have told us so far – that Westwood knew exactly what it was doing when it lured students into the high-interest loans for massive amounts of debt.
“But the school wasn’t always so empathetic, according to Inez Morris, who was student-aid director at a Westwood campus near Atlanta for a year before being fired in 2006. She told NEWSWEEK that aid officers were instructed not to explain the full cost of a Westwood degree nor the terms of the loans. “I don’t think [students] understood the interest rates, I don’t think they understood that it was not a federal loan, or they didn’t understand what they were signing,” says Morris, who is working with the plaintiffs’ lawyers in the class-action suit against Westwood. Often, she says, the loans were originated to close balances for students who had dropped out but had not paid for the time they spent at the school. She also adds that students discovered they had high-interest loans only when notified by a letter after leaving school.”
Check out the article and post your comments letting them know what you think about these loans, what you were told, and what it has meant to your life since leaving Westwood. Your voices are being heard, so it’s important to keep speaking up where ever possible!
For the second time in six months, Colorado-based Westwood College has been hit with a class action lawsuit.
The college has physical campuses in both Dallas and Fort Worth, but it’s their online offerings that have the school in hot water.
Jillian Estes is a Florida-based attorney whose firm filed the newest suit Monday. “Our biggest concerns with Westwood college are the deceptive practices used to lure students into their school. The way they bring students in by promising them everything, but delivering them not nearly what they were promised.”
It seems like every few days there’s a new investigative exposé about something else at Westwood College. This time the spotlight is on Westwood College Online in Texas. The Texas Workforce Commission, a state government agency which oversees career schools, recently informed Westwood College they are operating an online school program in violation of Texas state law. According to the law, students are entitled to a refund of their tuition, because the school was operating illegally. KHOU reporter, Lee McGuire, examines this issue.
We’re on top of it. The James Hoyer Firm filed a class action suit on behalf of Westwood Online students in Texas to seek restitution for you. We’ll also be updating you on the status of that case as it moves forward.
Posted by Jillian Estes on Nov 10, 2009 in Media Coverage
Hello Everyone,
Thought you would like to see another investigation into practices at Westwood College. In this report, CBS4 in Denver exposes some of the same things so many of you have complained to us about. The station even went undercover showing that the school misled students about the school’s loan program and the ability to transfer credits.
Posted by Jillian Estes on Oct 16, 2009 in Media Coverage
Hi All,
There still isn’t much to report on the status of the case as we’re still waiting on the Preliminary Hearing, which is set for October 26th. But, in the mean time, I thought I would share an article with you all that does a great job of discussing our case and many of the allegations that we’ve brought in the suit. I posted the link on our Documents Page, but you can also access the article here: Diploma Mills and Debt Peonage: A Neo-Liberal Arts Education, by Danny Weil. Danny provides a comprehensive background of the developments of diploma mills and for-profit colleges, a thorough analysis of our case, and a brief discussion of how the current educational stimulus plan may effect these schools.
More updates on the case as soon as they’re available.
Posted by Jillian Estes on Oct 12, 2009 in Media Coverage
Hope you all had a great weekend. We thought we’d share this new skit with you from Saturday Night Live, since it might just seem familiar to you guys! The logo is based off of the University of Phoenix, and we think the name and colors are a pretty thinly-veiled reference to Westwood College. Westwood…Westfield…you decide!
We know this isn’t a laughing matter for many of you, but we hope you can find some humor in an otherwise dark situation. It’s also a great sign that the deceptive practices of schools like Westwood are getting national attention. That means all of your efforts in telling your stories are working, so keep going!
