Computer school’s failure no fault of its own

Jennifer Knight

Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2001 | 11:19 a.m.

In the competitive world of vocational schools, Computer Learning Centers didn't play fair, U.S. Department of Education officials say.

Now, the center's Henderson branch is feeling the sting of violations that were caused by its parent company in Virginia, according to the Nevada Commission on Postsecondary Education.

Through no fault of its own, the Henderson branch will go down with the rest of the ship, despite the fact that it has been described as an outstanding school by both students and the postsecondary commission.

"This school received accolades from every student who went there," said David Perlman, administrator for the commission. "We've had students call up crying because this was such a great school."

The trouble with the center's chain began after the Department of Education discovered that many of the schools paid incentive-based bonuses to recruiters according to the number of students they brought in. The violation set about a chain of financial problems starting with the federal government ordering the parent company to repay $187 million in aid money and post a multimillion-dollar bond. Those actions led to the closure of 25 of its for-profit campuses nationwide.

Title IV of the Higher Education Act forbids a federally funded institution from offering incentives based on student enrollment.

But, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, educators representing for-profit colleges are asking Congress to clarify the law. They argue that the rules for incentive payments are ambiguous.

Attorneys for the center have made the same argument in court, claiming they received conflicting letters from the Department of Education's guidelines on incentive payments for "admissions assistants," the Chronicle article says.

The center filed for bankruptcy in Alexandia, Va., and on Monday the company filed a motion that stopped all teaching at its schools.

That left Stevens-Henager College, a Utah-based vocational school which stepped in to take over the reins of the Henderson school, out of luck.

Vicky Duesnup, the president of Stevens-Henager, refused requests for comment.

The company had taken over after Computer Learning Centers closed its doors on Jan. 22. When the center reopened under Stevens-Henager, all 24 employees were promptly paid for salary owed to them, and it appeared that the 212 students who were taking classes would get the education they had paid for.

"When everybody's paycheck bounced and Stevens-Henager College covered all of this for us, we thought that was a good start, and we thought this was going to be a good thing," said Douglas Marsh, a teacher at the school.

Now Marsh says many students are left with unpaid student loans, some up to $14,000, and one of the teachers at the institution has up to $5,000 in unpaid medical claims that the center was supposed to pay.

The remaining 191 students collectively owe an estimated $1.5 million to a local bank which is holding the loans, state postsecondary commission administrator Perlman said.

State officials are trying to work out an agreement with the bank to possibly discount some of those loans.

Students who wish to file claims are asked to contact Computer Learning Center's bankruptcy attorney, Gold Morrison & Laughlin, in McLean, Va. They can also get updates on the case by logging on to http://members.aol.com/ viaperl/ index.htm.

In the meantime, until the courts can work out the particulars of the bankruptcy agreement, students and teachers will be left trying to figure out what happened to a vocational college that held so much promise.

"I think the really sad thing about it is that it seems to me that decisions that were made back East are causing the displacement of hundreds and hundreds of workers and thousands of students," Marsh said. "So, what good came out of it?"