Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Why I'm Pulling for the Stranded Students of Corinthian Colleges, Inc.

Note- I was contacted by Maya Pope-Chappell, a news editor at LinkedIn overseeing education content, to write a blog post for LinkedIn concerning students reusing to pay back student loans/ ascking the Department of Education to forgive their loan payments, based on false reporting on graduation/job placement on the part of Corinthian Colleges, my former employer.  I have no idea if blogging is included in my LinkedIn profile, but this was a great chance to get out years of opinions and frustrations. The link to the actual post is here.
My name is Cameron Hawkins.  I am a Finance Planner at the Everest Institute in Austin, TX.  My campus was a subsidiary of Corinthian Colleges Inc. until February 2nd, 2015.  I've worked at this campus, in this position, since March 2nd, 2009, the majority of my adult life.  I did as much growing up in this particular office as I ever did in college, or high school before that.  I include a bit about myself only to help show why my opinions, and strong feelings, are those of a person that came into this position with ignorance, and innocence, and has probably become a bit hardened of the course of six years.
The campus had been opened under the "National Institute of Technology" name for years before I started.  When I came on board, it was thriving.  The student population was large, vibrant, and people from all walks of life were coming to school to further their educations.  In my first week or training, I heard the story of a man who had spent a good part of his adult like in prison, and wanted to change the path of "going nowhere fast" as he coined it.  At this point, I'm 23, and education hardship isn't something I knew much about.  I'd just finished college, where some people were rich, some broke, but on an intellectual and social level, we were more or less the same.
As time went on, the stories got more and more interesting.  You had people that were going to school to no longer have to rely on abusive partners, people that were recently divorced and had no income of their own, people with asylum form other countries, pretty much the full scope "what else could happen?" came across my desk.  And for each of these people, the goal was to find a way to get them into school, one way or another.
In just about every case, regardless of income, our students walked out the door having to pay back some portion of the cost of education.  For example, in 2011-2012, it's fair to say the cost of education, on average, was $17,500.  So if Susie Smith, who works at Best Buy, and has one kid, wants to attend school?  Here's how things would break down for her:
1 person household, $25,000 per year income, eligible for financial aid -
$5550.00 - Pell grant (does not have to be repaid)
$3500.00 - subsidized Stafford loan (3.4% interest rate)
$6000.00 - unsubsidized Stafford loan (6.8% interest rate)
So this would be standard to a person eligible for the full amount of financial aid offered during their time here.
What complicated this was that in most cases, they also had a private loan they had to pay back to make up for the difference in costs.  So, that gap of $2000-$3000 that wasn't accounted for by government aid?  That became a private loan based on Susie's credit, that at one point had an interest as high as 17% if the credit report didn’t favor her.  So for that $2000, she'd be paying $40/mo in school to cover the interest, and then $200/mo between her federal and private loans.  It never seemed fair, but to many of us, that was the price you paid, quite literally, for OUR education.
Whether it was a requirement or not, it was STRONGLY suggested that anyone working in financial aid, or admissions, had at least an Associate’s degree, or was working towards their Bachelor's in order to work in those positions.  I'm not sure if it was by design, but it did make talking about using student loans an easier conversation with a prospective student.
"That's a lot of money to pay back."
"Well I went to school too.  I think of it as necessary, in that without using loans to help fund your education, you may not be able to get one until you're in a position to pay out of pocket.  Most of us weren't in that position, and it's something we pay back now, but it's worth it."
I never felt, and still don't feel, I ever talked someone into doing something that wasn't their intention.  It's my understanding that a school needs students to operate, but the idea of stressing how to make a payment each month doesn't help a student focus.  But student loan debt is something I'd have in common with just about every student, and in just about every case, the dollar amount I was paying back was triple the amount they were facing, so it never seemed like "that much" from my side of the cubicle.
Now, Admissions and Financial Aid are really the entry points to our industry.  The other half is of course, the classroom, and career services.  "Are y'all going to help me get a job (this is Texas) after I'm done?" was a frequent, and necessary question.  I always told students that we have a department specifically geared toward just that.  Career Services, in my estimation, was created specifically to separate trade Education from your standard college experience.  I wasn't given information on what jobs to go after, or who to talk to, once I graduated.  Corinthian sought to account for creating good will by hiring people specifically to help with resumes, find externship sites (most classes require a month of unpaid work in the field to graduate) and develop job leads so graduates would not finish and have nowhere to go.
On occasion, a prospective student would lean in during an appointment and ask, "so, do they REALLY help find jobs, and how can I make sure I'm ok."  I could only speak from what I saw, as that wasn't my department.  I always told students to make themselves known to Career Services, and not to wait until their final month or two to do so.  I never saw job placement as favoritism, but it's far easier to find a place for a student who not only does good work, but makes it a point to be known, and be forthcoming about their goals.  Many students already had a feel for a particular site or company they wanted to work for, so they didn't really need that department, but very rarely did I see someone qualified, with a good attitude, get lost in the shuffle.
I've seen students who were kicked off of extern sites complain about not getting hired at a place they were interested in.  While this certainly wasn't the majority, they make it hard for people to recommend them based on a past performance.  I've never heard a conversation end with "I’m not going to find this person anything" but I'd assume that in order to maintain goodwill with certain employers, you'd have to limit who you'd recommend based on prior knowledge.  Another thing that made job placement hard was criminal history.  For some occupations, like the medical field, anyone with a felony conviction was almost immediately steered into something else that would be a bit more forgiving, like a skilled trade (Heating/Air, Electrical Tech).  But even a tamer history complicated job placement.  In a school looking to be a positive alternative to traditional education, I certainly understand wanting to give people a chance regardless of past transgressions, but I'm sure there were people, if given the chance to see what would happen at the end of their programs, would have chosen not to incur the debt associated with their education.
When Corinthian came under fire, the chief accusations were misleading students about their job prospects, as well as the actual number of people that completed the programs.  It's hard to speak to specifics, as the accusations were primarily lobbied at California campuses.  Whenever you complete the FAFSA form, it gives you graduation and retention numbers for whatever school you choose to send the information to.  our campus in particular has around a 75% graduation rate.  Working in financial aid, it's difficult to say if that number is on the nose.  I'd say it's not far off, based off of re-entries and drops.  A re-entry is a student that quits the program, and comes back as later point.  Sometimes, a re-entry can be gone for full years, and still be able to pick up where they left off at a prorated tuition amount,  Even though we see re-entries regularly, it pales in comparison to the amount of new students we enroll on a  daily basis.
(While writing, I took a break to go to our primary file room - in the section designated "drops" from 2011 to the present, I counted roughly 28 filing cabinets and 64 stacked boxes.  The rest of the room was either current student or graduates.  With the space that took up, I'd suggest the numbers are on point, if not very close.)
With all that said, I do have very strong opinions about former senior management/employment, and the role that should play in former students repaying their costs of education.  We've had students sit in class for a few days, decide that it wasn't for them, and leave.  They were able to be "reversals", meaning they weren't charged for the time they sat in class.  With students who did what I believe was longer than ten days, they were considered drops, they'd have to pay back the tuition earned while they were here, which varied by program.  Typically, a student who stays for 4 months of an 8 month program was responsible for around 50% of the cost, less depending on what books they'd received to that point.  Now, this was all prior to the fears of the school closing.  As emails/ articles started to be read, student would pop in with questions on what would happen to them, and what would happen to their loans.  The most common idea out there was that if they'd started, the school would be around long enough to do a "teach out", where they would be able to finish the program with the certificate awarded for completion.  And that since they finished the program, they'd have to pay back their loans.  If their school in particular was a not a "teach out" school, their federal loans would be refunded in full.  We didn't have any word on if they'd have to repay their 3rd party loans or not.
Our campus in particular didn't close, as we were purchased by the non-profit company Zenith, but that didn't stop a flood of phone calls:
"Since y'all are closing, do I have to pay back my loans?"
"Who do I need to talk to about loan forgiveness since you won't be able to place me in a job?"
"I heard the government is shutting you down, do I still owe you guys money?"
All of those questions were answered more or less the same way:  If you attended here, you're still responsible for your loans.  Now, if we had closed, like many other schools, here's how I would interpret repayment:
As a school where the back end is geared SPECIFICALLY to help student find employment, if an entire "Start", or generation of students cannot be placed due to circumstances outside of their control, the school has failed them.  As an employee, I'd leave a closed school with the job experience, and monetary compensation, to go somewhere else and maybe not miss a beat.  I think the big secret about trade schools that is communicated, but not really explored, is that the credits RARELY transfer there isn't one curriculum shared by all schools.  So Susie can't come here for 4 months, have the school close, and pick up somewhere else that isn't under the Corinthian Umbrella, and most cities under that umbrella only have a single campus.  So a student that went to a Corinthian school for 7.5 months then had the school close, they likely paid for the entire cost of an education they can't produce proof of!  In instances where a student devoted time, and energy to an education stripped from them, I don't think they should have to foot any portion of that bill unless the program can be completed.
Student that were able to finish, but don't have a career services department to go through, that's a tougher situation to tackle.  On one hand, they were given all of the knowledge in the field they were pursuing.  On the other, a very strong portion of what was promised to them is gone.  Much like student loan forgiveness exists for other careers/ walks of life. That should be handled on a case by case basis.  Plenty of students bypassed that aspect of we offer, and were just fine in the long run.  I still concede that without that, it hinders some student from attaining employment, because not everyone has the same access/ connections to find employment.
The question of who should help to pay for these students has come up.  I'm always slow to put that burden on people that have nothing to do with the errors in judgement on a situation.  The buildings/ campuses the company held?  Once those are sold, that money should go to repaying the debt students incurred.  The individuals making huge sums of money while all this was falling apart?  They should have money taken from them to aid those individuals they misled.  This isn't a faceless issue - the people who made poor choices have been outed, and in many cases let go, but that doesn't make them any less responsible to the people they hurt.  When you have a company headed by people that can't even remember their dedicated employees' names, and work across the hall from them, you can't expect those same people to value students they've never even met.  These are the people that should have to atone for students worrying about their next step in life, when all they've done is try to better themselves.
Being employed by a new company, with in many cases new leadership, there's no personal axe to grind with Corinthian Colleges.  In some cases, their name is still on the paperwork.  But when you have to look at a room full of grown men and women, and you can't tell them if the lights will be on tomorrow, you can't help but want those responsible to make it right, whether it's voluntary, or forced on them.  To any student left out there, you've got lots of people that know your struggles, and hardships, and know that you deserve to be heard, to be respected, and vindicated for any hardship this caused you.


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