CALS against Westwood sets unfortunate precedent.

[SheepToTheFleecing]

Title: School Battles in Wake of Supreme Court Class Arbitration Decision
Date: July 08, 2011, updated July 14, 2011
Author: Dana Olsen

(I originally found out about it here http://blogs.forbes.com/jamesmarshallcrotty/2011/07/13/class-action-dismissed-for-student-claims-against-for-profit-colleges/?partner=yahoofeed)

On June 6, The ruling in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion nearly eliminated class action arbitration. The ruling was used to dismiss a lawsuit against Westwood College.

Source: http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202499577280

[sevenalive]

I highly recommend everybody read the attached PDF before reading the article as it explains it better. Basically the decision of an unrelated lawsuit against at&t has screwed over students who want to sue for-profit schools. The enrollment agreement, the contract, we signed is legal and prevents us from suing the company as determined by the at&t lawsuit. Due to these rulings, it seems a class action would be almost impossible if other judges feel the same way. Arbitration may be the only way to go, class actions take years and rarely pay off for anyone besides the lawyers.

From the PDF:

Students at Westwood College and other for-profit institutions may have no legal option but to go to binding arbitration if they feel they were misled, following a Supreme Court opinion in another consumer case.

Plaintiffs' lawyers, however, say that, in arbitration, colleges hold all the cards. Putting an individual student in arbitration against a for-profit educational corporation is like "pitting a flyweight against a heavyweight," says Elena Ackel, a senior consumer-rights lawyer for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. Ms. Ackel says that students struggle to find lawyers to represent them in such situations --and that she believes the major arbitration firms, such as the American Arbitration Association, are filled with people who have worked for large companies. "You're not going to find consumer lawyers ... or anyone who isn't biased toward businesses," she says. Ms. Ackel and other plaintiffs' lawyers argue that to maintain their business with forprofit institutions, arbitration firms err on the side of giving only moderate awards when student claimants prevail. And the decisions are binding; unlike in the courts, a student can't appeal.

From the article:

The plaintiffs accused their alma mater of using high-pressure recruitment methods to enroll them in costly fashion merchandising and criminal justice programs, which they say were not worth the expense, as neither graduate has secured employment in their respective fields. Bernal and Krol also sought class action status so thousands of other potential plaintiffs could join the suit, and it was the class action request that ultimately led Judge Martinez to close the federal court case.

The claimants in the class action included former Westwood students who said the Colorado-based school provided false or deceptive information about tuition costs and job placement statistics.

Martinez's decision to end the claims in federal court means that students from Westwood and other similar schools who feel they were misled may be left with only one method of legal recourse: individual binding arbitration.

Deceptive marketing practices and alleged misrepresentation of post-graduation employment at for-profit colleges is a hot-button issue. The latest Westwood ruling came just weeks before the U.S. Department of Education's new advertising regulations went into effect. According to DoE spokesperson Sara Gast, the regulations were inspired by a series of complaints about aggressive and misleading recruiting practices from students at for-profit colleges.

As of July of this year, for-profit colleges are required to disclose debt burden, graduation rates, and employment rates on their websites and printed advertising materials—and Ojile says Westwood updated their website and brochures to reflect the new rules. But while the regulations give victims of educational false advertising more legal options, critics contend that the Westwood ruling is evidence that the Concepcion decision takes some away.

Ojile counters that students with legitimate claims still have a chance to recover damages from Westwood: "Arbitration is a good form of dispute resolution for the students and the school. It's cost-effective and quicker than litigation, and we continue to believe the arbitration process is fair."

The California state case that was filed simultaneously with the Colorado case is still pending, as are federal cases in Texas and Wisconsin. "We have 1,200 victims who say they have been deceived by Westwood. There are also 120 employees who came forward on their own to support the students," Chris Hoyer says. "Somewhere, someplace, somehow, we want to put on our case."

Ojile, for his part, says he believes the pending cases will also be denied class status.

[Krugg]

Yeah all this sounds about right, and from all the bullshit that is being pulled it seems the only way to get anywhere in our great country is to just screw people or get screwed by people...........I for one would like to think people are capable of fairness and want to treat people respectfully, but the more I research into my student loans and what ITT Tech did to me the more pressure is put onto my belief.