The Shadow Scholar

by Dave Tomar

  To which Finestone would respond with something like “Well, you do have a three-thousand-dollar balance due from the current semester, so you should really think about following through on your commitment.”

  Finestone was instructed to do or say anything to compel students to reenroll. He was told to use outstanding balances to leverage withdrawn students back into school. He was instructed to tell resistant students that if they agreed to reenroll, he could see to it that their outstanding balance was eliminated. This was not true, though Finestone didn’t know it at the time.

  As Finestone said, all the best training material was reserved for the recruiters in Admissions. With regard to said material, in 2011, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions completed a yearlong probe and subsequently released internal training documents used by several well-known for-profit universities. These documents revealed a sales premise perfectly harmonious with consumer culture in the post-9/11 era. Indeed, spikes in duct tape and firearm sales suggest that nobody is quite so motivated as the consumer scared crapless.

  Enter the most prolific period of growth in the history of the for-profit educational business.

  According to a 2011 article on the Huffington Post, a document from a for-profit institution that has more than one hundred campuses in the United States advises its recruiters to “remind [potential students] of what things will be like if they don’t continue forward and earn their degrees… Poke the pain a bit and remind them who else is depending on them and their commitment to a better future.”3

  The Senate committee describes a “Pain Funnel and Pain Puzzle” utilized by the institution in order to freak out potential customers. As you can see in the diagram on page 130, this involves the use of four “Levels of Pain,” all to be poked and prodded until the lead is so miserable and despondent that your crappy school seems as if it must be the answer. As the figure shows, the Pain Funnel cloaks the lead in all the misery, self-doubt, and regret that have marked his life to this point. Then, when the lead reaches the point at which only suicide seems like an appropriate resolution, the Pain Funnel spits him out into a discussion about enrollment like a giant sphincter firing one out into a toilet bowl.

  Another prominent proprietary school named by the Senate committee uses a slight variation on the sphincter-and-toilet-bowl model, but it has very similar ideas about how to stimulate enrollment. Its training material reports that “it is all about uncovering their Pain and Fears. Once they are reminded of how bad things are, this will create a sense of urgency to make this change.”4

  The idea that a sense of urgency is something that must be “created” is particularly compelling and feeds into the modern debate about whether or not we are teetering on the top of an education bubble, wherein a universal “need” for college has created a rampant and saturated marketplace that is bound for bursting.

  According to Claudia Shapiro, who spoke to me about her role as an administrator of academic affairs at a highly competitive for-profit institution that we will refer to as Krap-Wiesel University, this recruitment strategy produces a student body that is inherently deficient and necessarily held up to inferior standards. Shapiro remarked that in addition to lacking academic proficiency, most students present disciplinary challenges that for-profit schools have no capacity to prevent.

  Shapiro reported that

  the students presented a bevy of behavior and personal problems that led one to believe they were pushed through the public school system without the benefit of an actual education. The average student was single, aged mid-low twenties, and had more children than an Orthodox Jewish family. Accommodations were made for students with learning disabilities, but most of the students just plain weren’t smart enough to handle the material. And that is saying something, as the material was insanely easy in many of the classes I observed. Instructors were encouraged to employ progressive discipline, but they often were not backed by the higher-ups, and rude students were allowed to return to class if they cried foul loud enough.

  It was Shapiro’s responsibility during her year of employment with Krap-Wiesel to conduct teacher evaluations. She observed between five and ten sessions a week and served in a supervisory role for the instructors. It was also her responsibility to organize and plan “for several hundred students to take a corporate survey at the end of each class” (each month).

  Her observations revealed a faculty whose deficiencies mirrored the students’:

  I evaluated the instructors with a corporate-approved checklist. They were judged more on specific facilitative techniques than actual teaching or knowledge, both of which most instructors lacked. Some of the most important standards I was expected to watch for were: movement around the classroom, facilitation—games, activities, etc.—removing students who didn’t fit the dress code, and putting the day’s objectives on the board. Though there were plenty of other benchmarks on the evaluations, those were considered most important to corporate.

  Shapiro balked at using the word “teacher” to describe the instructors she evaluated, particularly because no teaching certificate was required. It was only necessary that the instructor had completed three years of schooling in the subject to which he or she was assigned. Shapiro pointed out that a vast majority of the instructors had obtained such experience from similar so-called proprietary schools.

  When I asked Shapiro if there was a considerable difference between what she considered competent instruction and what Krap-Wiesel looked for in its instructors, she responded emphatically, “Oh, absolutely.”

  She told me that many of the instructors habitually misspelled words on the blackboard. She had an instructor in a medical assistance class who called the larynx a “larnyx.” She once observed an instructor who explained to her class that AIDS was now curable, “but only for rich people like Magic Johnson.”

  But Shapiro was under strict orders never to correct an instructor in front of the students.

  As to whether or not Krap-Wiesel University fulfilled its promise of a higher education, a better life, and a remedy for one’s innermost pains and fears, Shapiro reported that

  a lot of what went wrong could be blamed on students who didn’t show up to class or screwed up their externship, but you can still fault the school for admitting and keeping students who don’t belong. In general, though, no, the school does not fulfill promises. If you ever see the commercials, the students are led to believe that a six-to twelve-month program will net them a profitable job. Truthfully, only the electricians really have that opportunity, and employers are still going to pick community college and university students over proprietary students. Medical assistant, dental assistant, and medical Office assistant jobs are low paying and hard to find. I recently saw an M.A. graduate working at ShopRite. Really, it’s hard enough to find a job with just a bachelor’s from a highly regarded institution. What hope do these graduates have?

  It is easy to understand, then, why it has become fashionable to employ the phrase “education bubble.” For-profit schools are part of a market so saturated with product that it has lost all quality control. Schools are producing a mountain of debt and a flock of graduates without any prospect of paying for their investment.

  U.S. Department of Education publicity flack Jane Glickman made the following statement in September 2010: “U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that the FY 2008 national cohort default rate is 7.0 percent, up from the FY 2007 rate of 6.7 percent. The default rates increased from 5.9 to 6 percent for public institutions, from 3.7 to 4 percent for private institutions, and from 11 to 11.6 percent for for-profit schools.”5

  Glickman continued, “In award year 2008–09, students at for-profit schools represented 26 percent of the borrower population and 43 percent of all defaulters. The median federal student loan debt carried by students earning associate degrees at for-profit institutions was $14,000.”6

  Eventually, Finestone came to work in the Financial Aid Depar
tment at Shady Trade. Here, he reiterated, it was all about meeting recruitment quotas. It did not matter how the student’s name and financial information came to be in the university’s hands. Once this was accomplished, Finestone said, the lead was just another busted ATM, dispensing cash without discretion.

  Finestone worked in all three departments and on three separate campuses in one region. On all three campuses and on multiple occasions, he was approached by students who had been enrolled in the university without their knowledge. After some debt had been incurred and the collections process had begun, students who had never applied to the school would find that they were on the hook for a year’s worth of university bills.

  We may deduce, Finestone said, that in many cases an admissions Officer had cold-called a lead and used the typical coercion tactics. One popular tagline used by admissions Officers was “Come to school. I’ll put money in your pocket.”

  Now, during this lengthy discussion, the Officer may have said, “Let’s just see if you’re eligible for financial aid. Give me your Social Security number and we’ll take it from there.”

  The lead may have naively handed over this information before ultimately deciding not to enroll and ending the conversation. And a year later, thanks to a friendly correspondence from a collection agency, he would learn that he was just one of thousands of students taking control of their lives by having enrolled in Shady Trade University.

  A cocktail of Pell Grants and private loans is used to keep students filing through a revolving door, pass or fail. Low graduation rates are not a problem. On the contrary, low graduation rates help to create what Finestone called the “career student.” Because the threshold to qualify for a Pell Grant is so low, it is a very compelling way for some students to “make money,” as it were.

  Finestone recalled that during his stint in Financial Aid one student called him and candidly informed him, “I need my grant money today because I have to go Christmas shopping.” Others used loans for trips to Paris and big-screen TVs.

  Not that it was just Shady Trade. Finestone described the career student as one who careens from one grant or loan to the next, bouncing from Shady Trade to McLearning to Krap-Wiesel, and so on. The career student remains sheltered from the storm of unemployment out there in the world, staying in one school until he fails out and subsequently borrowing more money to jump to the next one. When one debt catches up with him, he’ll use a new loan to pay it down.

  And no for-profit university will ever reject him. On the contrary, this guy is a boon to Shady Trade University and its kind. Their admissions officers meet their quotas. Their campuses meet their recruitment targets. And ultimately, the institutions meet their projected earnings.

  Finestone did have some friends at Shady Trade. He worked on one campus with a buddy who shared his integrity and his sense of humor. They were close allies who could count on each other for a dirty joke, a commiserating soul, and the psychological support necessary for survival. They would meet to blow off steam on bad days, which were more common than good ones.

  Finestone’s buddy was transferred to another campus, one where Finestone himself had previously worked. One day, his buddy reported during a phone conversation that the campus director had rented a van, taken it to a local shelter, filled it with homeless people, and carted them to the Financial Aid office for processing.

  From his new position in the Financial Aid Department, within the Business Office, it was Finestone’s job to help reluctant students process financial aid forms. Once a person has set foot in an administrative office at Shady Trade, all personnel are under strict instructions to keep him from leaving until he has signed away his personal information. If a lead demonstrated any hesitancy about providing this information, Finestone was instructed to call in an admissions Officer. Between them they were not to let the student leave without consenting to have his personal information processed for financial aid eligibility.

  The admissions Officer would then proceed to hound and harass the student in front of Finestone. He would prod Finestone to “assist” the student in completing the financial aid forms. Using uncomfortable, high-pressure sales tactics, the admissions Officer would coerce the lead into signing forms that required sensitive personal and financial information.

  In some instances, students’ applications for financial aid were rejected. Some continuing students had used up all the financial aid for which they were eligible. Other students were naturalized citizens without the selective service information or proper citizenship documentation to be eligible. Others still were simply waylaid by bureaucratic discrepancy. In these instances, and using forcibly obtained personal information, the campus director would register the students anyway. They would accrue personal debts that ranged between five hundred and twelve thousand dollars, with accounts assigned to collection agencies before many of them knew it.

  It was policy in the Financial Aid Department to aggressively reenroll students who lacked this basic eligibility. And Finestone was learning firsthand during his interactions with students that lives were indeed being ruined. He began to resist. He made it clear to his campus director that he would no longer recruit students who were in tremendous debt and who had no ability to get financial aid. He argued that it was bad for the student, that it was bad for the school, that it was just bad business altogether.

  After that conversation, Finestone was moved to a new campus. Then he was moved again. And again. He was forced to come in seven days a week. Eventually, his campus director said to him, “If you can’t comply, I can’t use you.”

  Finestone stopped asking questions and began to follow his protocols. And suddenly, through what he believed to be a glitch in the system, his employee account gave him access to any and all student information. As an Officer in Financial Aid, he never should have been able to see the information used by recruiters, and vice versa. He informed his campus director of the glitch. The director instructed him to use this information in any way possible to complete student enrollments. So Finestone would open up a student’s recruiting file and use the information to process uncompleted financial aid forms. He would locate student PINs and use these to electronically forge signatures in order to complete financial aid forms.

  This was a time when banks were collapsing and, therefore, evacuating the student loan market. So one thing that Finestone did frequently was use financial aid documents to find a valid lender amid the many who were pulling out. Under instructions from his superiors, Finestone would sign students not eligible for Pell Grants up for private loans without their knowledge.

  Eventually, Finestone told me, the system in his region fell in on itself. An internal whistle-blower ratted out the regional director, his immediate campus director, and his business office manager. The anonymous individual called HR and said that these three Officers had all physically forged students’ signatures on financial aid and enrollment forms. The sweep was internal. There was no public statement. No press. No legal recourse. Just quiet terminations and official policy reforms.

  Finestone soon had a new boss, who also pressured him to recruit and enroll students. Company-wide, Finestone reported, it was difficult even after the reforms to really know the difference between right and wrong.

  In the shakeout following the reforms, the new regional director decided to fast-track Finestone on the road to management. He was moved to the Admissions Office with the idea that he should know the internal workings of each of the three Operations departments.

  A student called and told him that he wished to withdraw and that he wanted to know how to fill out the proper paperwork. Finestone told him that he didn’t need to fill out any paperwork, that he could simply withdraw right then and there. He needed only to give the word over the phone. But, he suggested, the student should really reconsider. He asked the student why he wanted to withdraw, went through the training-manual script, and did his best to “save the student,” as the new corporate lingo phrased it.<
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  The student demanded to be allowed to withdraw, and Finestone conceded. Shortly thereafter, he was called into the Office of the new campus director. The new director was upset that Finestone had allowed the student to withdraw.

  Finestone insisted that the company was now operating honestly and with greater transparency. The director told him that if he wanted to succeed at Shady Trade, he needed to let her help him “better understand how to save students.” He tendered his two-week notice the next morning.

  As for his superiors who had left Shady Trade during the internal sweep, two of the three now work for McLearning University.

  And until my termination, I had also worked for Shady Trade, for McLearning, for Krap-Wiesel, and for a host of other for-profit schools. I worked for all of them. I was a part of this system. I was helping to make all this possible.

  10

  The Bends

  In spite of my dishonorable discharge, I was back on duty in no time. I googled for companies until I came across a website hosted by the Coastal Carolina University. The university’s Kimbel Library has a page called Cheating 101: Internet Paper Mills, which provides links to roughly two hundred paper-mill companies and dozens of additional links breaking down the various subsidiary companies that are syndicated under a single name. If you want to know the names of the companies I have worked for, I can’t tell you. But most of them are on that webpage.

  Originally created as supplemental material for a 1999 presentation on cheating prevention, the page was designed to function as an instrument for identifying, hindering, and punishing academic dishonesty. I have used it as my own personal Monster.com. Can you imagine? Can you imagine that in this economy, where we pretend not to be insulted by the verbal pretense of begging for work on a site called Flipdog, where we risk unsolicited sexual assault every time we scan Craigslist’s Gigs category, where we throw our names into a pool so large that there’s always a risk that our application could get mixed up with the application of another guy who has the exact same name… Can you imagine that just a week after being fired, I was copying and pasting one cover letter and writing sample and sending them out to every company in my field without even a hint of competition?