CHARLESTON – A Charleston attorney has settled a class-action college closing case in Indiana for $3.1 million.
The case, which was filed in federal court in Indianapolis, was against Educational Management Corporation doing business as Harrison College. In the complaint, lead plaintiff Dayshia Edwards and other students accused the for-profit private college of fraud, breach of contract and misrepresentation.
In September 2018, Harrison announced the immediate closure of 11 campuses in Indiana and Ohio affecting about 2,100 students. The school cited declining enrollment and financial concerns as factors for the closure.
Webb
Charleston attorney Rusty Webb previously has worked on similar cases following the closures of Mountain State University, Salem University’s nursing program and West Virginia Business College in Wheeling. He said he’s also working on a few other similar cases involving for-profit colleges in Northern Virginia and New York City.
“These are all private for-profit colleges,” Webb told The West Virginia Record. “Some might call them marginal colleges or schools. They’re the ones who either can’t stay accredited with these marginal accreditation agencies or their marginal accreditation agencies are shut down by the federal government.”
In addition to the damages, the defendants were required to forgive all student loans, arrange for the retention of student record and make available an administrative resource for 90 days to assist students with transcript corrections, confirmation of attendance, career placement, college applications and other functions.
For example, the U.S. Department of Education recently terminated federal recognition of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) as a national accrediting agency.
The same thing happened when President Obama was in office, but the move was reversed when President Trump was in office to give these schools accreditation back. Now, under President Biden, many of these for-profit private schools that hadn’t already done so are going out of business for good.
“What happens is the Department of Education lets them teach out as many students as they can who currently are in college if the school meets certain criteria,” Webb said, noting the requirements include posting a bond and the inability to enroll new students. “These schools can’t operate like that, so they’re going under. And, they’re all turning on each other as well.
“There always have been shenanigans with these colleges. The fact is they’re profit-motivated and not education-motivated. This work is satisfying for me because, as I tell these students, I short of losing your life or the life of a loved one, I can’t imagine anything worse happening to an 18- or 19-year-old than having their education pulled out from under their feet.”
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana case number 1:18-cv-03170