For-profit colleges eat students for lunch

by David Safier

Here we go again: another chain of for-profit colleges in trouble. This time it's Career Education Corp.'s California Culinary Academy in San Francisco:

Under a pending $40 million settlement in state court, Career Education has agreed to offer rebates of up to $20,000 to 8,500 students who attended the academy between 2003 and 2008.

The 26 year old woman mentioned in the story enrolled in a 7 month program and ended up borrowing $30,000 to cover costs. The best job she found as a result was as an $8 an hour bakery worker.

Career Education Corp. runs a string of 16 Cordon Bleu cooking schools. Two others are being sued, one in Pasadena and another in Portland (Personal note: I had a few ex-students attend the Portland school, but I have no idea how things worked out for them). The company issued one of those non-apology apologies: We didn't do anything wrong, but we won't do it again.

Schaumburg, Ill.-based Career Education denies its recruiting and marketing practices are illegal, but its schools recently changed their policies to "ensure that students understand that we are not promising any specific job outcomes or salaries," said spokesman Mark Spencer.

ALEC CONNECTION NOTE: As I pointed out Friday, AZ Senator Nancy Barto (R, LD-7), who was named an ALEC Legislator of the Year at the recent conference in New Orleans, sponsored an ALEC model resolution expressing outrage that the Obama administration would target these fine for-profit colleges with regulations to stop them from ripping off their students.