Independence University has permanently closed, however CEHE remains in operation. The judgment from the suit is for all the members of the group (class). Update 5/11/2014: It appears that the Standard Examiner, an Ogden, Utah based newspaper, has deleted this story from its website after having initially published the story via the automated Associated Press wire. I went to this school and now they want me to pay them some kind of loan back that I didnt even know I was getting from the university. Im in disbelief, right now, trying to understand how they can get away with this. Colleges and Universities: Independence University. Average of 13 Customer Reviews. The parties reached a proposed settlement of the WARN class action subject to preliminary and final approval by the Bankruptcy Court. The colleges troubled history came as news to many of the students trying to finish their studies and improve their chances in the workforce. National American University has been closing its physical campuses aro In order for any US colleges to offer federal student aid such as loans and grants schools must agree to not offer recruiters any commission or other incentives. These people are a huge joke. Absolutely not. Same here owe$80k now. Id like to sign onto class action lawsuit against College America Fort Collins campus, they defrauded me of $60,000 in student loans in their comp sci program. This is bull crap. If you are a current or past student of Independence University, you may now be eligible to receive Independence University loan forgiveness. Learn More:How to Get Out of Student Loan Debt Legally. When brought to their attention, they did not fix it, instead had me meet between classes with a teachers aide to learn. Stevens-Henager currently maintains several campuses in Utah and Idaho. BTW I went to Stevens in 2009-2011/12, I would like to know how i can get my loan discharged. 04:12 PM. I am being nickeled and dined to death trying to repay the amounts owed. They charge massive tuition for their associate degrees which are insufficient for most jobs in the fields they cover. 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Can someone please help me?? Then told me that they were accredited and that I could take my RHIT test after graduation for Healthcare Information Management then to find out that none of the classes will qualify me for the RHIT test that employers require. 8 In the corresponding timeline, actions against a main campus includes its branch locations. They figured out how to manipulate the forms sent out to students so they could sign the students name to them. In 2013, CEHE operated 16 colleges that were accredited by ACCSC. I was angry. Youve already joined the Navient lawsuit the company recently settled with the 39 state attorneys general if your mailing address on file with Navient as of June 30, 2021, was in a location that participated in the deal. I am so frustrated and refuse to pay it at this point, I dropped out at 9 mmonths, with 20,000 grand in loans and debt. Before commenting, please review our comment policy. The plaintiff, who worked in the defendants financial planning department until his August 2 termination, says he and other aggrieved employees are owed 60 days worth of wages, salary, commissions, bonuses and accrued holiday and vacation pay, as well as 60 days of pension and 401(k) contributions and COBRA benefits that would have been covered under the workers applicable employee benefit plans. I dropped out after 6mo. An attorney from Salt Lake City with ties to the case said Henager recruiters even enticed homeless people to enroll in order to cash in on illegal commissions. RIP OFF the same thing happened to me. The instructor at that time said I had already passed wed meet once a week and I would not take the final again. This is one of the main factors for me being fired because I could not in good conscience do this to students that never belonged in college in the first place. I only had seasonal or temporary jobs. The most common consumer class action lawsuits involve defective car warranties and defective home warranties. I dont feel like I learned what I should have from this school, despite all of the effort that I put into it. I am looking for others to start a class action suit against them. Please update me on you efforts to get out of this situation. I was a drug addict and these people should not have even talked to me. Your top priority is to figure out how you can complete your education. Tuition for GA program costed me $17,000+. Congress has made clear that colleges should not pay improper incentives to admissions recruiters, said Stuart F. Delery, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice. The reasons for this are many, but the end result is that only a measly 0.15% of all student loan borrowers are eligible. I can remember them trying to enroll a blind couple in an online program as well as 3 Alzheimers patients whose children had called in and demanded we stop contacting them. Stopping didnt feel like an option. But its the universitys efforts to push students to new colleges that has the federal government asking questions. They withdrew me in Aug and in Oct. there was a pell grant disbursed . We are an independent publisher. Purdue Global suffered losses in 2018 and 2019. The Biden Administration has forgiven the . Jul 8, 2021. For comparison, the default rate at Michigan State University was 4.3 percent. Where did the extra money left per quarter go? Thanks for this information, going to check it out to see what I can do. The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has sued CollegeAmerica in Colorado federal court over the severance agreement because of this provision. Just before Christmas, the Center for Excellence in Higher Education, which operates CollegeAmerica, Stevens-Henager College, and Independence University, dismissed its lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education, which had, in the final year of the Obama administration, refused to recognize the companys schools as non-profit for purposes of federal regulations; the Department under Obama had concluded that the schools, although technically converted from for-profit to non-profit, were being run primarily for the benefit of the prior for-profit owner, Carl Barney, rather than students. The debt collection company is adding interest. Saddled with debt from a program that promised students lucrative careers but offered them little actual training or support, she struggled after graduation to earn a living wage. I did all of my homework, turned in all of my assignments, made the presidents list numerous times, there is no reason I should feel under qualified, yet, I do every single time I look for a job. ACCSC found that CEHEs advertising and recruitment tactics coupled with a poorly documented admissions process has fostered the creation of a student population that the schools are ill-prepared to educate., The chains CEO, Eric Juhlin, charged ominously at the time that ACCSCs decision may have been issued in reaction to external or other inappropriate influences.. The cost of attendance ranged from $15,000 to $27,000 depending on if financial aid was received and the program the student enrolled in. I need help getting to the bottom of this. But students also have the option to stop their studiesand request a discharge of their federal student loans. There has to be a way to make them at least reduce this debt. They rushed me so fast enrolling.Some kind of discount if I enrolled immediately. The Settlement provides cash payments to qualifying people in . The schools accreditor, the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges, had ended itsapproval of the college in April. This section covered the different options that are now available for Independence University loan forgiveness and how you qualify for them. The case was filed as a whistleblower suit last year by two . In a letter to DeVos, the senators noted that since ACCSC had first raised concerns about CEHEs conduct, back in 2012, CEHE schools had received about $1 billion in taxpayer-funded student aid. Borrowers need not apply for the Navient settlement to get their loans forgiven. How do I Know if My Navient Loan Will Be Forgiven? Most of the students never made it past the first week of classes but the management team could have cared less as long as they were able to aquire the student aid for those that enrolled. Stevens-Henager, which has been heavily scrutinized by the federal government on more than one occassion, was earlier connected by CollegeTimes to Utahs Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints after our team discovered a Mormon magazine from the 1980s had incidentally revealed that major leaders of the LDS church had attended a groundbreaking ceremony of one of the Henager campuses. On February 23, 2022, the Court granted preliminary approval and notice of the UPDATE 06/10/2021 Raisner Roupinian LLP filed a class action suit on June 10, 2021, against Katerra Inc.,(Katerra), seeking to recover 60 days wages and benefits for former employees under the Worker Adjustment and RetrainingNotificationand its On May 18, 2020, Raisner Roupinian LLP filed a class action suit against Klausner Lumber One, LLC,and related entities(collectively Klausner), seeking to recover 60 days wages and benefits for former employees who worked at the 270 Madison AvenueSuite 1801New York, NY 10016Toll Free:866-544-9945Map & Directions, Alliance Bancorp $1 Million Settlement, UPDATE 05/26/2021, ANKA Behavioral Health, Inc. $525,000 Settlement, UPDATE 03/26/2022, Annas Linens, Inc. $1.2 Million Settlement, UPDATE 09/09/2021, CEHE (Center for Excellence in Higher Education, Independence University), Charming Charlie Holdings, Inc. Settlement, UPDATE 06/09/2022, ClearEdge Power $1.3 Million Class Settlement, UPDATE 05/04/2016, Colortree Group, Inc. $500,000 Settlement, UPDATE 01/28/2020, Corinthian Colleges, Inc. $900,000 Settlement, UPDATE 05/01/2020, Crowne Architectural Systems, Inc. $900,000 Settlement, UPDATE 09/30/2020, DGI Services, LLC $1.1 Million Settlement, UPDATE 08/20/2022, Dowling College $2.4 Million Settlement, UPDATE 02/08/2019, EverGreen Recreational Vehicles $1.2 Million Settlement, UPDATE 01/28/2020, FirstMed EMS $2.6 Million Settlement, UPDATE 04/20/2020, Fisker Automotive, Inc. $1.88 Million Settlement, UPDATE 12/02/2020, Fortunoff $340,000 Settlement, UPDATE 08/18/2020, GDC Technics $1.375 Million Settlement, UPDATE 12/14/2022, General Dynamics Information Technology, Inc. $2.988 Million Settlement, UPDATE 11/21/2022, Ideal Mortgage/Lend America $300,500 Settlement, UPDATE 01/29/2020, ITT Educational Services, Inc. $10 Million Settlement, UPDATE 06/21/2022, Klausner Lumber One $1,411,506 Settlement, UPDATE 07/27/2021. In the past month, CU took a $44 million hit refunding impacted students' housing and dining costs and paying hourly and student employees throughout the crisis. Ms. DeVos allowed hundreds of thousands of claims to stack up; in her final year in office, officials churned out mass denials. If anyone knows of a class action lawsuit that I can be a part of, please contact me. They include large chains like the Art Institutes and other campuses run by the Dream Center, whose operations abruptly collapsed in 2019, and those owned by Career Education. The end of accreditationalso meant the loss of federal money, which can be a death blow to colleges reliant on such funding. They gave me no information as far as financial aid etc, asked about my pell grant and they couldnt give me any information. Our deepest appreciation goes out to our externships sites, our business partners, and the education community that supported us over the years. Updated: 5:23 AM CDT October 14, 2021. I would also like to be included in this? In July 2022, DRA filed a class action lawsuit in the Western District of Washington against Providence St. Joseph Health and Western HealthConnect for their consistent failure to ensure effective communication for d/Deaf patients seeking medical care at Providence's Seattle-area facilities. New cases and investigations, settlement deadlines, and news straight to your inbox. Now Im 5 years sober and trying to get my life back after a 17 year long nightmare. I was royally screwed over by them and am misreable because I cant afford to pay anything. The school messed up in my schedule and did not schedule me for the 2nd xray class. Navient still services federal student loans made under the Federal Family Education Loans, which wont be wiped out because the settlements terms dont cover them. We still enroll them Our director said, Get 40 people and I dont care what you say or do to get them.'. Ms. Sweet graduated in 2006 from the Brooks Institute of Photography, a for-profit school owned by Career Education that closed in 2016. degree, and graduated with honors 8 or 9 years ago. Put simply, the device allows courts to manage lawsuits that would otherwise be unmanageable if each class member (individuals who have suffered the same wrong at the hands . If thats the case, why am I going to school??? The department expects to finish its review of borrowers payment histories and implement the debt cancellation by then. I am wondering how you could join the lawsuit. He was on SSD at the time he was enrolled with MS. Lawsuits and disputes articles; Personal injury articles; Real estate articles; Traffic tickets articles; Wills and estates articles . has been filed. By the time i realized that i was not getting any help with financial aid, grants or scholarships, it was too late. Now the government is trying to collect when I never finished the schooling because I felt like something was wrong. I voiced my concerns about being able to repay. The school is located in Salt Lake City, Utah, and operated under the parent institution Center for Excellence in Higher Education. Any help would be appreciated. The school is horrible. We basically worked independently, as we were enrolled in different courses, but all used the same classroom. How Times reporters cover politics. Thats what I get for not doing my research before signing my life away and getting next to nothing out of it, and now finding out the paper its printed on is worth more that the actual bachelors degree. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); These days, college is expensive and not the best choice for everyone. Around 200,000 who sought relief after attending schools that the Education Department said showed signs of substantial misconduct will have their federal student loans wiped out. If youre a Navient borrower, you may have a glimmer of hope. Get class action lawsuit news sent to your inbox sign up for ClassAction.orgs newsletterhere. And were not even going to get into how worthless some of the instructors are And the tutoring, my first and only time in the student success center (their tutor lab, run by current students) I did not understand programming and I was told by a tutor, Dont worry about learning programming, just do the homework to pass the class and youll be ok WTF?? Theresa Sweet, one of the named plaintiffs in the class action. College America is a diploma mill which,of course, receives no reciprocity from a truly accredited college or university. Thanks! I was 18 when I was lured in by their false promises. 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