Virginia College, a for-profit institution with campuses in 11 mostly Southern states, is defending itself against a lawsuit asserting that it misled students about the value of their degrees and violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by strategically taking aim at female and minority students in its advertising.
The lawsuit was filed by the Mississippi Center for Justice on behalf of seven students who attended the college’s location in Jackson, Miss. The center’s lawyers describe the lawsuit as one of the first to accuse a college of unfairly directing its advertising toward women and members of minority groups, which would also violate the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the lawyers said.
“The targeting of a predatory product to a racial minority is a form of intentional discrimination,” said Courtney Choi, a legal fellow at the center. “These students can’t pay back their student loans because they weren’t adequately trained to get jobs in their field.”
A Virginia College official said the lawsuit’s assertions were baseless.
The seven students were enrolled in the college’s medical-assistant program. All are women; five are black and two are white.
Virginia College allegedly sought to enroll African-American students by featuring people of that race in its advertising and engaging them to work on its admissions staff, according to the complaint. The document also alleges that the college purchased advertisements in Jackson’s African-American newspapers and on buses that disproportionately served residents of that race.
The advertising promised a better life, but the plaintiffs say they were left sorely disappointed. Though the college certified the students to work as phlebotomists and electrocardiogram technicians, the institution failed to give them the hands-on experience that they would need to land jobs in the fields, and did not meet the requirements of the agency that certified the program, according to the complaint.
The National Healthcareer Association, which certified the college’s program, stipulates that students must complete 30 blood draws and 10 finger sticks on live human patients, but the plaintiffs did not do anywhere near that amount, said Whitney A. Barkley, a staff lawyer at the center. And although the college’s program is accredited nationally, it lacks the regional accreditation that students need to get a job in Jackson or transfer the credits to another college, Ms. Barkley added.
“Virginia College not only did not live up to the expectations for hiring,” she said, “but they actually didn’t meet their own standards.”
Worthless Degrees?
Virginia College has completed a preliminary investigation into the lawsuit’s claims and found no basis for them, said Jason W. Mann, vice president for marketing at the college’s parent company, the Education Corporation of America.
“We are confident that our medical-assistant program qualifies our Jackson graduates to sit for all certifications necessary to work in the field,” he wrote in an e-mail to The Chronicle.
But after they graduated, the plaintiffs were unable to find jobs in the field and were mired in debt, Ms. Barkley said. The college charged the students $13,000 to $20,000 each for their degrees, and they have not been able to make the minimum monthly payments on their student loans, according to the complaint.
Nearly 86 percent of Virginia College’s revenue came from federal student aid in the 2011 fiscal year, Mr. Mann said.
One plaintiff, Dianna Bond, 45, borrowed $15,000 to finance a degree she now feels is worthless. As part of her phlebotomy training, she did just two finger sticks—one on a dummy—and no blood draws. After completing the medical-assistant program, in 2010, she transferred to a local community college, where she says she had to retake all of the courses she took at Virginia College because her credits were not recognized.
Ms. Bond learned about Virginia College when she saw a commercial for it featuring a woman who looked a lot like her: an African-American mother.
“She was saying it changed her life,” Ms. Bond said. “I thought, well, if she’s a mother who can go back to school and make a better life for her kids, maybe I can, too.”
Ms. Barkley said she hoped the lawsuit would spur lawmakers to heighten regulation of the for-profit-college sector so future students are protected.
In September 2011, Virginia College was among the first institutions in that sector to sign the Foundation for Educational Success’s Standards of Responsible Conduct and Transparency, which calls for for-profit colleges to provide clear and accurate information about program costs and graduates’ employment rates as well as a trial period of at least 21 days for new undergraduate students, among other provisions.
A trial date has yet to be set in the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court in Jackson. A copy of the complaint is available on the Mississippi center’s Web site.