EDMC, which is the parent company of The Art Ainstitutes, is being being sued due to an investigation that began in 2008 of their unlawful recruiting practices. Here’s what The Huffington Post is reporting:
“The U.S. Justice Department and four states sued the nation’s second-largest for-profit college corporation on Monday, alleging in a wide-ranging complaint that Education Management Corp. violated federal laws by giving bonuses and raises to college recruiters based entirely on the number of students they enrolled.”
If you have seen any of the 100+ comments on the article about the Pros and Cons of The Art Institute Online, then this probably comes as no surprise.
Numerous students have commented about the “predatory” tactics of recruiters from The Art Institute that have coerced them into getting financial aid and signed up for classes quickly. This investigation reveals why that was the case.
If The Art Institutes do successfully get sued by the government, does that mean that the government and lawyers will benefit from it financially and not the students who were the ones directly affected? How do you feel about all of this?
Click here to view the full article on the Huffington Post website
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I’d have to say the Art Institute has screwed many people over, including my friends and I. I attended the Art Institute for four years so, I should have a four year degree, but I only have an Associates degree. I was going for the Bachelors, however, I decided to switch to the Associates so I could have some type of degree and get out in the field already. With only a few more quarters left, I was offered to switch over to the “‘new program” witch made more sense to do from what I was told. They said “if you switch over, you will be saving money because you will only have to take one more class rather than four”. After I switched from the “old” program to the “new” program, I started comparing the two and found that I had now wasted thousands of dollars and time on classes that don’t apply to the “new” program. With almost 200 credits, I graduated with an Associate of Science and will be in debt for the rest of my life…I have yet to receive my diploma.
I forgot to mention…I had one week left from a quarter and had to leave due to a life or death medical emergency. Rather than finishing that one weeks worth of assignments, I had to re-take those entire classes over.
Wow. So, I guess I can say I got scammed as well. This adds more to how much I hate how I chose to leave high school with enough credits and no plans for my life after high school. I live in the Pacific and was told that the school would pay my way to attend the graduation ceremony if I wanted. A couple weeks into my 2nd class, I decided to check into that. Then I found out there was no printed (in .pdf) or posted (on website) information about such a thing. I decided to write my FinAidAdvisor to ask about it and…well you can guess what response I got and you’d most likely be correct. Anyway, I’m pretty motivated to make this work. I don’t want to have my partner’s ego touch the moon and say “I told you so! I TOLD YOU THAT WAS A BAD IDEA.” Anyway, this is a great website I can recommend to friends looking into AIO.
I have been screwed over with the debt that I am left. Approx. $60,000 that I cannot afford. They promised to find me a job before I graduate and never found a job and they stopped trying after 3 months. Wtf? I started as a low income student and still no job. I wish they can pay my debt for all the BS they put me thru, not to mention the sexist teachers I had before. I will never recommend the Ai to anyone!
I got a two year degree from an Ai. My recruiter said that a 2 year degree from Ai was on the same level as a 4 year degree from a university! NOT TRUE! He also said I would be guaranteed a job after graduation (not sure why I believe this lie!) When I tried to get help finding a job after graduation they sent me links to jobs that were hiring…for $7.25/hr! Minimum wage and in debt 50k wasn’t my plan! I think the students that have the loans and can’t find jobs should be given the money back from the government, or at least some! Ai is a joke! I was one of THREE people who graduated with honors with my degree, that says a lot! The students that went to this school didn’t care and their homework proved it…but the teachers passed them so they wouldn’t have to deal with them another quarter. I feel very cheated and would like all my money back and my 2 years back so that I could go to a different school. I truly hope the government gets that money and dispurses it amongst the students that have the loans and can’t pay because they can’t find jobs now! Ai SUCKS!
Hi Shane,
I think it sucks! I have been at ai a year and a half, and am finishing up a class right now, after which I will be withdrawing. I am at a cross roads and have no idea what to do next. I am in debt 21,000. I just found out that NONE of the credits will transfer to my local college. If I decide to go there, I will have to start all over from the beginning. I have busted my butt to get a 3.97 average. The teachers are lousy (not all, but too many). I was rushed and pressured into signing up to ai. I was forced to buy virtual books which I can’t keep. I was told to sign a Payment Option Agreement, which states that if my financial aid runs out, that I will pay out-of-pocket, or get a private loan. I told the “advisor” that I have nothing and didn’t want to agree to that. That’s when she said, and I quote, “YOU HAVE TO.”
The last straw for me was when they added another 5.5 week session per year, and said that this was done “to help the students.” Of course, the reason it was done was for them (EDMC) to make more money.
So, check it out…they are getting sued for fraud right now, and what do they do? They make it harder for the current students while they continue to lure newbies into their trap. This is just sickening. I hope there is some sort of leniency by the gov’t toward the students like us who have found ourselves entangled in their web of deceit. The gov’t will get its money back, but what about us?
Lisa
It’s not just The Art Institutes!
Art Center College of Design in Pasadena California is much worse, with higher costs that put students in debt for $200,000 after graduating. And of course there’s no guarantee that you’ll land a job that relates with anything you went to school for. I know, because unfortunately I went there and have since defaulted.
Stop ripping on The Art Institutes – they are way less expensive, and they have several student success stories. Just like any other money sucking college.
You can’t tell me that ‘non-profit’ colleges are any better than ‘for profit’ colleges, all of them put people in tremendous student loan debt upon graduating. It’s the American way!
Not to sound unsympathetic, but did any of you do independent research on the school before you enrolled? Did you look at other options? Did you look for other financial aid options? Did you ask for specific details on the placement help provided after graduation (how long will they provide assistance, what type of jobs do they focus on, etc)? It’s unfortunate that you feel cheated and have buyer’s remorse, but the bottom line is you chose to sign the promisopry note for your student loans, you owe the money. I don’t go skipping to the mnailbox every month to pay my federal and Sallie Mae loans, but its my obligation because I borrowed the money.
Sarah. What you have said in no way an argument against the Art Institute.
You say you attended for “four years, so I should have a Bachelor’s degree, but I only have an associates.”
However, you also state that:
- you personally decided to go back down to the associate’s degree program yourself, to “get out in the field already.”
- you voluntarily switched to a new program and assumed all of the credits would transfer – something you never obviously researched yourself
- you failed to complete coursework and complain that you have to retake the course? Welcome to the real world. Just because its an alternative form of school does not mean they can allow you to fail to meet the requirements the other students had to meet.
So stop complaining about debt you voluntarily occurred and the associates degree you chose to earn in four years.
It can hardly be called a “scam” when supposedly “college-potential” students can voluntarily get duped every time. No wonder you guys never went to a proper university.
WELL! josh u can f*ck off….because ur probably not even attending Ai for one. ive been going here for 3 months and i already HATE it! im 18 and was going in for my bachelors degree, they told me up front it would be 100k to go here but then they said “financial aid will cover most of it so ur cool”. Ai is being sued for 11BILLION dollars..no lie, look it up! seniors here and other people have been telling me that if they could go back in time and choose another school they would MOST DEF! then im already paying $100 out of pocket cuz its not included in my tuition and if i wanted to stay on campus it would be n additional $423 making it $523 A MONTH! im majoring in art and animation and there not even teaching me how to do that, im a hands-on kinda guy, i need to be working on ART but instead im in this class taking pictures..WTF!!!…im NOT a photography major! even my older brother said this was a bad school but i didnt listen! my brother went to Miami Jacobs and they ended up srewing him over too!…my take on it is if the so called “college” looks like a damn office building its NOT a legit place (for you and your education!). but yeah im about to withdraw from here before i get in to deep!
Hey. Linda, A lot of us do research the schools we attend, it wouldn’t make sense if we did not. I do agree with you; There are some students who think that just because a school has the title of ‘Art’ in it, then they are artists and that’s their fault. However, for those of us that did research, at the time there was no evidence of a school being sued for fraud or having any fraudulent attributes, so I do believe we were scammed. I don’t care what decisions were made by the student whether they be dumb or not, if there is a Professional institution with professional employees, that are required to handle recruiting students in a professional manner and they are not living up to that, then the fault is on the school. You don’t hear about any other school going through things like this and if you do, it is very seldom. The argument is about the school being fraudulent and the last time I checked, attending school was not considered a crime, FRAUD was. So don’t down the ones who do feel like they were taken advantage of and don’t say what should have happened because we cannot go in the past. And this goes for you too Josh. Don’t come on here casting judgment on people and tell them what they should have done. We feel bad as it is, so you can just chill the hell out….POINT…BLANK…PERIOD.
It’s unfortunate. I enrolled back in 2007. I am still attending Ai Online now and I’m actually a year away from graduation. It’s to bad that I just found out today that I do not have a enough funds left to finish my degree. Even though the Admissions associate told me I would not have to pay a dime until after I receive my degree, it does not matter. I was led to believe that my loans and grants covered my college degree from the beginning to the end. I was preyed upon and lied to and now I have to pay the consequences while Ai continues to generate millions. Now I am stuck with over $50,000 in debt and no college degree almost 5 years later. This should not be tolerated in this country. We should be able to trust these institutions. I certainly did, and now I’m am suffering for it. Education should not be an expense but unfortunately it is.
when i was a senior in high school i was approached by an AI recruiter after they did a presentation in my art class. Before i continue i should mention that i was attending a continuation school. the recruiter chose this place to pray on naive teenagers whom have had tough luck and/or made poor choices in the past which caused them to get kicked-out of traditional high school. the perfect place to take advantage of young ill informed lesser educated gullible kids whom are more likely to buy into the idea that the AI is the answer to all their problems. the recruiter must have known before hand that i was the most gifted artist in the class because she clearly focused on my attention the entire presentation. afterwards they passed out a form about the school and asked me for my personal information so she can contact me. at the time i thought “wow, they are taking a real interest in me, i must be a great artist worthy of all this praise” unbeknownst to myself, she was only interested in getting me started, whether or not i was a good fit for the school or the school for i, the only thing that mattered was i must start and start immediately or else id “miss my opportunity to utilize my natural artistic abilities” and “waste my talent and life”. But the real truth is they wanted me to start immediately so i would not have time to think and back-out. My original plan was to attend AI in San Francisco because it was a dream of mine to live and go to school there. i decided i would wait a semester so i can go checkout the school and the living arrangements before i make a decision. They called me everyday 20x a day pushing me into applying and saying “you NEED to take several online classes before you attend on campus because i needed the prerequisites in order to be eligible for classes available the following semester” taking online classes was not at all what i wanted to do but they manipulated me with their high pressure sales tactics. not to mention they straight up lied about the online credits being transferable. they never discussed how much it was going to cost for the two online classes and before i finished them they kept pressuring me into taking more online courses. after only two 6 weeks online courses i stopped and realized they were scamming me. they didn’t try to contact me and help me in any way they just stopped calling me after i caught on to their scam. they succeeded in that they electronically processed two government student loans without my full-understanding nor permission, as soon as i foundout how much the two online classes were costing i dropped out and now im stuck with 3,700 dollars in defaulted student loan for only TWO 6 week courses that are non-transferable to my local community college. They made me believe that i was “turning my life around, and taking control of my future” they manipulated me every step of the way saying things like “imagine once you finish school you can live your dream of becoming a renown artist making animation that your children will watch” I work for 9.25 an hour at petsmart and the government is threatening to garnish my wages. I just recently moved back into my parents house and my wife and four month old son live with her parents now because we barely make enough to get by. NCO financial is threatening to take my tax return but that is money we rely on to offset the cost of living. im just grateful that i only got taken for 3,700 rather than the 100k that some owe. luckily in my situation i got scammed and figured it out before they took out more loans and forged my signature.
At the time the investigation began, EDMC was owned by Goldman Sachs. This should tell you everything. Occupy Education too!
NEIA hires people who barely have degrees themselves. They cancel programs without notice. Amazing professors get fired for the most trivial reasons. They replace wonderful staff and faculty with those who require less wages. Students are numbers. Faculty terrified of losing their job for challenging EDMC’s ethics. I have no advisor, chair, or director for my program but they still have the tuition I pay. A lot of companies know there are no requirements to attend the NEIA and have no respect for graduates holding a degree from them.
When I first started at the AI I was getting A’s B’s C’s and two D’s in my classes Staying up at 2:00 am getting my homework done. From that time frame my grades have dropped because i’m struggling with a handicap son with ADHD. Helping my mother because she just had surgery on her left hand. Then right before that I had surgery and I was on bed rest they terminated me for no reason at all spent 40k and then some I know what you guys are feeling because i feel cheated.
I was thinking about going to AI but im in the millitary and have money for it but I also dont want to be tookn advantage of I want an oppurtunity I wanted to go here to start working directly on my major ive heard some good but alot of bad, I beleive any situation is what u make it but being a recruiting assisstant I also know an understand how misleading to acheive a ceartain goal is, I already know it would be expensive Im already taking steps to prevent the money issue from leading me in debt but lets say im there already How could u help me in the school. Give me helpfull advice.
I went to the Art Institute of Tampa for digital photography. I started in January of 2009. The academic advisor told me that if I took 4 classes a quarter, I could get my bach. degree in 3 years instead of 4. I was told the cost of the bach. degree was going to be around $84,000. I knew that was extremely expensive for a fine arts degree, but I figured that any university was going to be right around there as well. Plus, I really thought that photography was something I genuinely wanted to pursue. The first year went fine. I was getting financial aid and my mother also got approved for a $12,000 parent plus loan. I didn’t have to pay any money out of pocket. Then came the 2010 year and I had to reapply for financial aid. My mom did not get approved this time for another parent plus loan and neither did my dad. Come February or March of 2010, the school started billing me for $500 that they wanted me to pay out of my own pocket. Each month after that I kept getting these bills for $500 a month. Finally, I made an appointment with a financial advisor. They laid out my tuition plan in front of me. Come to find out, the tuition went from $84-$86,00o to $104,000 in one year!!! They never notified me of this increase in tuition and told me that tuition was going to keep rising every year. Needless to say, because I was still only approved for so much financial aid and grants, the help I was getting from the gov. was not enough to cover the quarterly tuition anymore. They told me that I was going to have to pay $500 every month until I graduated. At that time I was 19 years old and was barely able to afford $200 a month in rent to give to my mom. Then they proceeded to tell me that my expected graduation date wasn’t until 2014 which was 2 years longer than what I was told when I started. That made me going there for 5 years, not 3. You can only guess, I withdrew immediately from there. I dropped out in August of 2010.
Also, when I enrolled there, they told me that AI was a nationally accredited school and that the credits would transfer to any other nationally accredited school. However, AI will not give me my transcripts until the $8,000 I owe them is paid in full. (That $8,000 is money that I owe them out of my own pocket, not from financial aid, from the beginning of 2010 til the day I withdrew). BUT, the school I’m trying to go to now (which is a community college that is a nationally accredited school), will not accept their credits, but they still need to see my transcripts from AI to let me register for classes with them. But until I can give AI 8K, I won’t be getting my transcripts and just keep having to put off school.
AI has put me so far behind in my education and it is a complete rip-off. I wish I had never ever gone there and let them suck me into their school. They are aweful. They do not care about the students. All they care about is getting their money and extorting the people that go there. I wish I had known better when they told me that their graduation rate was only 40%. Everything I learned at AI, I could have learned from tutorials online, or from books about photography.
To Jared:
I was in the Air Force was discharged last April receiving full benefits. When i came in i was under the G.I. Bill but opted to take the 9/11 because i figured out it would get me a lot more money for AI. If this is the case for you talk to an adviser about your options. With the 9/11 and yellow ribbon program my school was paid in full, i also get a housing allowance while in school. So you should be good as far as cost, but make sure to do your research about the area you will be going back to. You should have a class all about that stuff before you get out. You are right about life is what you make of it. i do have a few problems with the school but they are minor. I want to be able to take some photography classes while in culinary. Other than some small stuff i like the school. I’m learning a lot and my instructors are great, just don’t be afraid to ask questions, military will do that to you. I wouldn’t plan on working if I were you and missing class isn’t an option because the courses cover a lot of material in a smaller amount of time. (11 weeks)
Bottom line: Do your research, make sure you have the time and dedication for school, and even if the 9/11 pays for all or some of your school, that was your money you just paid it in military time.
Good Luck!
Jared,
I am a veteran of the military and I would like to share some helpful hints about how to find a military friendly school.
Check out the local community colleges (in your area) and the programs that they offer. Tuition at community colleges tends to be less expensive than tuition at private, for-profit schools.
Research the colleges’ and/or universities’ background. Find out if they are an accredited facility and if their credits will transfer to other colleges and universities.
Research the number of students enrolled at the school, as well as, the student turnover rate and graduation rate.
Also, check to see if the school offers a military discount.
Hope this information helped.