Submitted by Jesse (not verified) on May 2, 2008 - 1:55pm.
So this is the most I've read on on the topic of fly-by-night trade schools in the 20 or so years since I got shafted by them. But none of the articles list any course of action people affected by these schools and the complicit if not equally criminal lenders and backers. They backed the schools that had little or no chance of surviving (let alone actually teaching anyone) and then heavily lobbied for the protection of their loans from bankruptcy.
I was one of the lucky ones. My education would have cost me in the neighborhood of 30-40 thousand dollars. i realized halfway through the third (of 12) phase that the school had no interest in actually providing an education, and left. The 5K I owed at the time had doubled by the time they first contacted me for repayment. I was 16 at the time I entered the school, didn't know anything about how the system worked, and it was 10 years before they *FIRST* contacted me (coincidentally, in 1996 after the bankruptcy code was revised retroactively to protect their criminal behavior) so the amount owed was already double what it started out to be.
Someone needs to do something about it. A class-action lawsuit against Sallie Mae seems in order - brought by every person screwed over by their predatory lending and negligence.
Many claims, no options
So this is the most I've read on on the topic of fly-by-night trade schools in the 20 or so years since I got shafted by them. But none of the articles list any course of action people affected by these schools and the complicit if not equally criminal lenders and backers. They backed the schools that had little or no chance of surviving (let alone actually teaching anyone) and then heavily lobbied for the protection of their loans from bankruptcy.
I was one of the lucky ones. My education would have cost me in the neighborhood of 30-40 thousand dollars. i realized halfway through the third (of 12) phase that the school had no interest in actually providing an education, and left. The 5K I owed at the time had doubled by the time they first contacted me for repayment. I was 16 at the time I entered the school, didn't know anything about how the system worked, and it was 10 years before they *FIRST* contacted me (coincidentally, in 1996 after the bankruptcy code was revised retroactively to protect their criminal behavior) so the amount owed was already double what it started out to be.
Someone needs to do something about it. A class-action lawsuit against Sallie Mae seems in order - brought by every person screwed over by their predatory lending and negligence.