Senate HELP Committee Takes on Fraudulent Recruiting Practices

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (or HELP) held a full committee hearing on questionable recruiting practices within for-profit colleges and universities. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) sent undercover “prospective students” into 15 different institutions across the country. These 15 institutions were not picked because there were rumors of fraudulent activity, however, they did receive a lot of federal dollars through the Pell Grant program. The GAO armed their “prospective students” in with hidden cameras and sent them in to talk to recruiters, admission officers, and financial aid officers about the possibility of enrollment. Their results were shocking, and slightly reminiscent of the ACORN scandal. While there were some of what the GAO would call “good practices” taped by the students, every single one of the universities engaged in some sort of fraudulent or questionable activity in regard to recruiting. There was everything from misrepresentations of the cost of the program, to the misrepresentation of the time it takes to graduate, to the misrepresentation of job availability after graduation and even recruiters prompting the complete falsification of FAFSA forms for federal grants. One recruiter suggested the student claim three non-existent dependents or at least lie about the $250,000 the student had in the bank and another recruiter hinted that a federal grant is not like a car payment where there are consequences for not paying it back. In a couple of cases, recruiters tried to make students sign admission papers before they were even allowed to talk to a financial aid officer. One admission counselor even ripped up a student’s application, charging that he “was not yet ready for this type of commitment” because she didn't want him to go back to talk to the financial aid officer.

The GAO concluded that these cases of fraud could be more widespread within the IHL community because all 15 of the randomly selected institutions, even though this was not a statistical sample, proved to be engaging in some form of questionable activity. This all seemed very shocking and odd to me, having never run across anything like this at Mississippi State University, a public institution. Senators from both sides of the aisle were equally upset that federal dollars are being sent to these for-profit universities that would deceive students into a multi-thousand-dollar commitment within a billion-dollar, for-profit industry. I highly suggest you check out the podcast on the HELP committee website, and at least sit through the first witness from the GAO. It is very important that every college student is aware of the accreditation level of the college/university in which he/she is going to enroll and how much their education is going to cost them and even what type of job market they can look forward to once they graduate.