| NEWS | University from p 13 “Then they bait-and-switch them. It’s appalling.” When the University of Arizona acquired Ashford in 2020, Lee was in the midst of her final semester of school. Her tuition nearly doubled from $750 to $1,350 per course at the outset, she said. For-profit educational institutions like Ashford have a history of abusing and defrauding military students for millions of dollars, the Military Times wrote. Retail Ready Career Center in Garland, Texas, doled out more than $137 million in restitution to military-affiliated students last year. Indiana State University Purdue acquired for-profit Kaplan University, which had a record of fraud, to create Purdue Global in 2018. “For-profit schools advertise as veteran-friendly,” Esparza said. “Some of their programs aren’t accredited and students may not understand that. They have the ability to really reel these students in under the pretense that they are more flexible than a public school, which is often not the case.” Esparza and Lee capitalized on the GI Bill, a law dating back to World War II that provides financial benefits to studious veterans and active-duty members. Ashford University promised those benefits would cover the entire cost of tuition — $28,824 per year, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Naturally, Lee was stupefied when Ashford demanded $6,000 from her upon graduation. She was even more dismayed when the university refused to turn over her diploma until the balance was settled. “That was after GI Bill and Pell Grants,” she said. “It’s a hardship you don’t want to endure.” Lee was forced to sell her family’s only car to avoid crippling debt. Kids couldn’t get to school, parents couldn’t get to work. It was not the life she envisioned when an Ashford recruiter told her she’d be wealthy after graduation. “Ashford is unfriendly and unhelpful to military veterans, especially those experi- encing injuries,” Army veteran and former student Jenica King testified to the U.S. Department of Education during a recent public hearing about rulemaking. Attorneys general in North Carolina, Massachusetts, New York, and Iowa have also investigated fraud and abuse at Ashford University. “Unfortunately for many Ashford students, they didn’t get the degree they hoped for or the job they were led to believe they’d get after graduating,” Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said after a $7.5 million settlement in 2014. “What they did end up with was a crushing amount of student loan debt.” Former Iowa Senator Tom Harkin 14 called Ashford, “a scam, an absolute scam.” He also called the university’s recruit- ment method “unconscionable.” Eric Dean, an ex-recruiter and whistle- blower in the recent case against Ashford, described how he was pressured to enroll veterans “no matter what,” and to main- tain their enrollment for at least three weeks — at which point they would be ineligible for a refund. Dean said he felt like he was “throwing fellow veterans under the bus” by “relating to them, gaining their trust, and taking advantage of their trust.” After the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found Ashford “engaged in deceptive acts and practices” in 2016, Zovio and the federal agency entered into a consent order. Zovio was ordered to dismiss all outstanding private loans and pay a civil penalty totaling more than $31 million. But footing the legal bill was no problem for Zovio, a publicly-traded company that was flush with cash at the time. Ashford University churned out hundreds of millions of dollars for Chandler-based Zovio since 2005 and once boasted an enrollment of close to 80,000 students, court records show. But only a quarter of full-time under- graduate students are returning to the University of Arizona Global Campus after their first year, and even fewer are gradu- ating, federal education records show. That’s compared to more than 80 percent at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “The student believes the school has their best interest at heart,” Esparza said. “But they are wrong.” In October, Zovio reported $62 million in quarterly earnings at the University of Arizona Global Campus. Three years ago, revenue was more than double that amount. Zovio founder and CEO Andrew Clark departed the company last year, collecting a severance payment of more than $3 million. It could take as few as 15 student loans to generate that kind of cash. “I currently have about $200,000 in … loans because of Ashford and UAGC,” former student Jonelle Daugherty said. “Even though my school has changed names and corporate ownership twice since I started, the quality of instruction and disregard of student interests has never improved.” The university rejects this narrative. The UAGC Board of Directors continues to focus on fostering a military- friendly institution and is constantly looking for ways to put 16 years of lawsuits and government inspection in the rearview mirror, directors maintain. “We will continue to do everything in our power to serve those who have sacrificed to serve our country,” Robertson said. APRIL 7TH– APRIL 13TH, 2022 PHOENIX NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | FILM | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | NEWS | OPINION | FEEDBACK | CONTENTS | phoenixnewtimes.com
