Dive Transient:
- Graduates of the College of Southern California’s on-line grasp’s diploma in social work filed a class-action lawsuit Thursday, alleging the establishment misrepresented this system as on par with an on-campus model.
- They allege the college offered the net program as “precisely the identical” because the in-person program, although the net model was outsourced fully to 2U, a for-profit schooling expertise firm. Each packages charged the identical tuition and charges — in extra of $100,000.
- The lawsuit, filed within the Los Angeles County Superior Court docket, accuses USC of misrepresentation, false promoting, and different unlawful recruitment practices. The plaintiffs are in search of to be refunded for the quantity they are saying USC overcharged them and to cease the college repeating its alleged dangerous behaviors, based on one of many regulation corporations representing the plaintiffs.
Dive Perception:
Since USC partnered with 2U, enrollment within the college’s social work grasp’s program grew from 300 college students to over 3,000 college students, based on the lawsuit, which has but to be licensed as a category motion. On-line progress virtually fully drove the rise.
However this system has been beneath intense scrutiny since a 2021 investigation by The Wall Avenue Journal discovered it left graduates with one of many worst debt-to-earnings ratios within the nation.
The web grasp’s diploma’s instructors, content material, curriculum, advising and scientific placements have been all inferior to the choices on the in-person program and have been managed by 2U, not the College of Southern California, based on the grievance.
The lawsuit additionally alleges USC, by means of 2U workers, focused college students of colour and veterans with aggressive and predatory ways to persuade them to enroll within the on-line program. Recruiters used usc.edu emails when speaking with potential college students, regardless of working for 2U, not the college, the lawsuit mentioned.
“The truth that the MSW program was used as a moneymaker and to deceive folks like myself and the communities that I come from shouldn’t be okay, and one thing must be carried out as a result of folks proceed to be recruited,” Stephanie Luna, a plaintiff within the lawsuit and a Mexican-American school scholar, mentioned in an announcement.
The Venture on Predatory Scholar Lending, which focuses on claims involving former college students of for-profit schools, is representing the plaintiffs. Its president and director, Eileen Connor, described the college’s on-line social work program as “an costly diploma mill.”
“USC used its model to intentionally deceive unsuspecting college students to create a ‘money cow’ by means of its inferior on-line MSW program at college students’ expense,” Connor mentioned in an announcement.
USC mentioned Thursday it has not been served with the lawsuit but and can assessment it intimately at the moment.
This is not the one class-action lawsuit USC is presently dealing with.
In December, a separate group of former college students sued the establishment and 2U, alleging they artificially inflated the rankings of USC’s on-line education schemes to spice up enrollment.
