Art Institute employee questions recruiting practices
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WASHINGTON -- An employee of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh told a U.S. Senate committee today that the for-profit institution distorts its job placement statistics and uses overly aggressive means to court students.
Kathleen Bittel, a Westmoreland County resident and an employee now on leave from the Art Institute's online operation, testified that when she reported a career services co-worker for inflating the salary of a graduate in order to meet a quota, the employee never was disciplined and later was given an award.
At a previous job recruiting students for Argosy University -- also owned by Pittsburgh-based Education Management Corp. -- she said employees were told to call new "leads" three times a day to pressure them to enroll in the school, and little attention was paid to them once they did.
"I stand to lose everything by coming here to see you today," she said. "Yet I am willing to risk all that I have to stop the unethical funneling of tax dollars through low-income individuals to further fill the coffers of mega-rich corporations."
The hearing was the third in a series convened by Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee chairman Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, to investigate abuses at for-profit institutions -- a booming industry that is leaving students with a disproportionate debt load.
"Going to college should not be like going to a casino where the odds are stacked against you and the house usually wins," Mr. Harkin said.
The Education Management Corp. disputed Ms. Bittel's claims. In letters addressed to Mr. Harkin and the committee's top Republican, Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi, EDMC chief executive officer Todd S. Nelson said an internal investigation found no abuse and Ms. Bittel did not entirely cooperate with the investigation.
Ms. Bittel testified that she refused to provide the names of individual employees who were defrauding the jobs numbers.
Mr. Enzi and other committee Republicans called into question the motives behind the investigation and targeting of for-profit institutions, when many public and non-profit schools have abysmal graduation rates as well.
"It's naive to think these problems are limited to just the for-profit sector," Mr. Enzi said. "We've been looking at this in a vacuum."
But the problems identified by the witnesses -- including the president of the Institute for College Access and Success and the president for the Council for Opportunity in Education -- relate to the built-in incentives of schools trying to make a profit: More resources are devoted to recruiting students, particularly low-income students supported by federal money, than to educating them or finding them jobs. An estimated $24 billion in federal grants and loans went to for-profit schools last year.
"Considered together, the for-profit college industry's rapid growth, aggressive recruiting practices, heavy reliance on federal funds, disturbing student debt patterns and disproportionate enrollment of under-represented students clearly point to high and rising stakes for both students and taxpayers," testified Lauren Asher, the president of the Institute for College Access and Success.
First Published September 30, 2010 12:51 pm
