Retraining boosts private schools

In a Southfield office park, the former ComputerTraining.edu suite is dark and empty. The desks, computers and servers were removed hastily months ago. Neat writing on a classroom whiteboard is the only remnant of the hopes of its students: "Microsoft IT Academy," it says, introducing the six-month course with "Graduation: 7/14/2010."

The private for-profit school once represented a fresh start for Senad Zukic, 24, a laid-off graphic design worker who qualified for tuition assistance through the state's $500 million retraining effort called No Worker Left Behind. But an abrupt e-mail to him and about 100 others on Dec. 31 announced the school would immediately close -- midway through his program.

Now Zukic is without a certification or a job and still on the hook to repay a $7,000 private loan he took out to help cover the cost of tuition.

"I felt really betrayed," said Zukic. "I was really disappointed. I had everything planned out. ... I was really confident that as one of the top students I was to get the best job."

The sudden closure of a school represents an extreme risk of the state's retraining program. No Worker Left Behind has been a boon to proprietary schools, which some argue are better equipped to quickly handle career-changers. They also typically charge and promise more than public schools, although they are sporadically accredited and loosely regulated by the state.

Proprietary schools are the No. 1 recipient of No Worker Left Behind dollars in Metro Detroit, ahead of community colleges, a Detroit News check of local Michigan Works! offices found. While the state could not provide figures on payments to propriety schools statewide, in suburban Metro Detroit alone private schools have collected $50 million in taxpayer money from 15,000 students in six counties. The figures exclude Detroit, which declined to provide financial information.

ComputerTraining.edu, also known as ComputerTraining.com, had been licensed in Michigan since 2005 but was not accredited. Zukic's six-month course cost $13,500 -- more than a year's worth of undergraduate tuition at the University of Michigan.

Michigan's No Worker Left Behind program, pays up to $10,000 in tuition over two years to retrain 130,000 laid-off workers for the new economy. Participants in the program get to choose their retraining program, with guidance from caseworkers.

A large share of participants are going to private, for-profit schools, which have minimal standards for licensing in Michigan.

"A license does not necessarily guarantee quality," said Michael Beamish, postsecondary education specialist in the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth, one of several departments that grant licenses in Michigan. "It does guarantee it meets the minimum qualifications of licensure and provides students recourse in cases where quality is lacking."

Without a single repository for licensing, the state doesn't tally how many schools operate. A Detroit News analysis counted 723 proprietary schools -- ranging from flight and truck driving to beauty and massage therapy schools. That's up from 664 in 2006.

"There is a serious problem with for-profit education, and our courts and our legislators need to deal with it," said Thomas H. Howlett, an attorney who filed a class action lawsuit against ComputerTraining.edu on behalf of students. "It seems these schools are largely unregulated and your average person trying to better themselves is very vulnerable to the sales pitches and overpromises that these schools make."

Quicker training touted

Proprietary schools have taken a larger role because the higher education system is built for 18-to-24-year-olds, said Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush to serve on a White House commission that examined adult education.

They offer flexible, quick and concentrated training without the hassle of milling over prerequisite math and English courses, Carnevale said. They don't offer degrees; their certificate programs can take less than a month or more than a year. And the quicker the training is, the quicker the unemployed are eligible to get back to work.

Many students see their experience as a benefit.

Daphne Wakefield, 49, of Dexter was a business analyst in Ford Motor Co.'s IT department before losing her job. She already had a bachelor's degree, but turned to New Horizons Computer Learning Centers, a nonaccredited school that offers computer certification courses ranging from $229 to $24,000 for No Worker Left Behind students.

Though her web design training wasn't required, she believes it made her marketable and helped her land a new position at the University of Michigan.

"I would recommend it," Wakefield said of her training.

New Horizons chose not to apply for accreditation, because students come to earn certificates and not degrees.

"And when you become accredited you start issuing credits towards degrees," said Mark McManus, CEO for New Horizons, Great Lakes, which has among the highest numbers of No Worker Left Behind trainees. "It really isn't our model."

The tradeoff is that proprietary schools come at a significant cost, sometimes charging upward of $30,000 for a certificate course, or more than six times the cost of an associate degree at a community college. Without accreditation, they don't have to meet independent quality standards, their students aren't eligible for federal grants and their credits won't transfer to other institutions. Some have been cited for luring students with misleading advertising.

Detroit takes issue

Detroit's work force department tried to rein in proprietary schools during the start of the No Worker Left Behind program.

Some for-profits, they found, abused the system by "charging higher than commensurate rates, bribery of students to come to a particular school and, most importantly, admitting students who had little chance of success in order to give them federal loans that would be retained by the institution when the failing students dropped out," according to a 2008 report by Detroit work force consultant Joe Skiba.

A 2007 performance report showed that of 461 Detroit students then in training, 94 percent chose proprietary schools at a cost of more than $2 million. Many schools posted a 0 percent job placement rate. In all, 96 students landed jobs, but a third of those jobs had nothing to do with their training.

Frustrated with the performance, Detroit refused to send clients to schools whose tuition was so high it necessitated loans and who weren't hitting the minimum standard of 50 percent completion. The move whittled their providers down from more than 80 to about 30, according to Skiba's report. In a 2008 lawsuit, two schools claimed they were wrongfully kicked off the city's provider list. Although it was later dismissed, the city's list now numbers 110 schools.

"They are still there and still operating," said Gregory Collier, No Worker Left Behind manager at Detroit's Workforce Development Department. "They prey on the least informed and the most vulnerable."

Patricia Fischer, president of the Michigan Association of Career Colleges and Schools, defends the role proprietary institutions. What happened at ComputerTraining.edu is an anomaly and shouldn't detract from the quality career education that's happening at other schools, said Fischer. She said her 22 members reported a combined completion rate of 74 percent last year.

Below-average test scores

While the state doesn't track whether for-profit or college-educated retrainees have a higher success rate in landing jobs, students do compete on some statewide tests. In nursing programs, among the most popular choices for state retrainees, students must take certification tests.

Community college students scored above the state averages on the 2009 certified nurse's aide and practical nurse examsand proprietary school students on average scored below average, according to Michigan Department of Community Health results.

At the private Everest Institute in Southfield, for example, 86 percent of students who took the $30,000 year-long program passed the practical nursing license exam last year, compared to a 94 percent average statewide. Less than four miles away, 100 percent of the Oakland Community College students who paid under $5,000 for their year-long program passed the test. However, the OCC program is extremely competitive because of capacity issues, and students with the highest grades in six prerequisite courses are selected for the 27 slots.

Aress Networking Academy is among the for-profit schools that train prospective nurse's aides. CEO Mohammed Khan said his enrollment doubled because of No Worker Left Behind. He spends $5,000 in advertising and it "gets our phones ringing off the hook."

He stands by the role of his school in training adults who can't afford to be out of work for years in community college, but need a new skill.

"If you come to a proprietary school that is well-run and the program is concentrated (you) can be done in half the time," Khan said.

Tonya Moore, 43, of Detroit was among the state retraining students who didn't pass the certified nurse's aide exam.

The divorced mother of three received a certificate when she completed a two-month program at Aress, near Northland Mall, to which she was attracted by the advertising. "I had accomplished something," she said. "I was proud of myself. My friends were proud of me."

But when she took the exam, she failed. It cost $119 to take again. She did. And failed again. And then didn't pass a third time. She is confused how she grasped the concepts in school but could not succeed on the exam. "Maybe it could just be me."

In 2008, 62 percent of Aress students passed the clinical exam, below the state average of 74 percent.

"I just finished school, I got my certificate," Moore said. "I can't find a frickin' job and I'm staying at someone's house. It sucks."

mschultz@detnews.com">mschultz@detnews.com (313) 222-2310 This project was reported with assistance from the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media.