Rutgers, lawsuits, and buyer’s remorse

Reprinted from internal source

Rutgers University Graduate Business School has committed “total fraud” through a fake employment project designed to improve its ratings, according to two recent lawsuits. The lawsuits have sparked controversy over the value and value of higher education.

The federal lawsuit, one class action and the other a whistleblower lawsuit, claims that the New Jersey Business School cheated to get top ratings with publications like US News and World Report.

According to the complaint, the school has set up a bogus employment agency and offered fake jobs to the graduates. The university used the 400,000 endowment money to pay the employment agency a “kickback”, the lawsuits said, then boasted on its website that “86.10 percent of full-time programs employ graduates.”

The suit tells a different story.

“In 2018, in the first year of the scheme, Rutgers was suddenly run, among other things, at the No. 1 business school in the northeastern United States.

“Rutgers violated the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act by engaging in an unwanted commercial practice.”

Rutgers will not answer questions from InsideSources, but has issued a statement.

“However, we can say without hesitation that we take seriously our responsibility to accurately report data and other information to ranking and reporting agencies. The Rutgers Business School adheres strictly to the MBA Career Services and Employer Alliance guidelines for submission of MBA statistics, as well as to the appropriate guidelines for submission of graduate statistics, ”the university said.

Matthew A. Luther, a partner at MacMomber, MacMomber and Luber’s firm in Marlton, New Jersey, said Rutgers planned to burn his image. “They used a temporary agency to create jobs for the specific purpose of getting a high rating,” Luber said.

Luber said the second lawsuit against Rutger was filed against Rutger’s human resources manager, Deidre White, who objected to the project and was punished.

“The retaliation was so long and so severe that the plaintiff’s health deteriorated physically,” the lawsuit states. “But there is another compelling reason for the defendants’ behavior.”

Higher education is “the big business and the formula for making compliments and profits is simple – paying more students for higher education means more profits, higher salaries and more compliments for administrators.”

In its 2022 rating, US News & World Report ranked Rutgers Graduate Business School 45th in the country. “Rutgers Business School students gain real-world experience through internships, counseling, counseling and case-study competitions,” the magazine said.

Full-time tuition at Rutgers Graduate Business School is “28,397 per year (in the state); full-time: $ 49,298 per year (outside the state); part-time: $ 1,184 per credit (in the state); part-time: $ 2,054 (outside the state) “According to Rutgers.

Luber claims that many institutions justify higher education with “fraudulent information about postgraduate employment opportunities, employment rates and salaries. And, he believes, fraudulent ratings are widespread:” This is not a problem unique to Rutgers. We think it’s systematic. “

He is not alone. Advocates for alternative education, such as apprenticeship programs, career colleges and tech schools, say there is a built-in bias for promoting four-year colleges and state schools rather than just looking at data.

“We just want to be fair,” said Jason Altmeyer, president and CEO of Virginia-based Career Education Colleges and Universities, which represents profitable career colleges. He noted that their completion rate – the percentage of students who receive their degree or certification – is higher than the average community college. And yet the Biden administration is considering rules to limit the funding available to Career College students.

Critics of President Barack Obama’s champion “everyone should go to college” approach point to the “varsity blues” scandal, where at least 53 people have been charged in a bribery scheme for fraudulently admitting ineligible students to a four-year college.

All of which is part of a larger conversation about pushing more high school graduates to join the traditional four-year institution. Some guidance counselors now question whether a teenager or family should go deep into debt to pay for higher education.

The total amount of student debt outstanding in 2021 was $ 1.58 trillion, an increase of about $ 14 billion between the second quarter and the third quarter, according to the New York Federal Reserve. About one-third of all American students now carry college debt. The average student loan reached a record high of, 38,792 in 2020.

A new survey has many buyers regretting it.

According to a new study by Giving, a group that helps people who are struggling with student debt, “Forty-six percent of people regret taking student loans.”

A survey of 1,600 student borrowers across the United States revealed that nearly half have been repaying student loans for 10 years. About a quarter of student loan debt carries about $ 70,000. 27 percent of respondents said that the return on investment does not justify the loan.

“The student loan crisis has grown 144 percent in the last decade, forcing 45 million Americans to lend more than 1.5 trillion,” said Lori Faros, president of Giving.

Several financial advisers have said they are concerned about the large debt burden of young workers.

Anthony Ogorek, an adviser in Buffalo, New York, said: He believes that debt should be related to post-college pay. Generally, Ogorek says college debt should be about 15 percent of a monthly income.

“I would like my clients not to take out any student loans or parent loans for their undergraduate studies,” said Melissa B. Brennan, a consultant in Plano, Texas. “There are many ways to make a bachelor’s degree more affordable, and families need to keep an eye on the rewards: financially self-sufficient children.”