BBC NEWS | Jobless graduate sues her college — Now this would set some kind of wild precedent, no?
A New York woman who says she cannot find a job is suing the college where she obtained a bachelor’s degree, the New York Post reports.Trina Thompson, 27, filed a lawsuit last week against Monroe College in Bronx Supreme Court.She is seeking to recover $70,000 £42,000 she spent on tuition to get her information technology degree.
Found by Steveo.
A vocational degree, like IT, is marketed on it’s vocational merits. If the degree doesn’t deliver a vocation, then she can sue.
sargasso
so you’re saying graduates from vocation schools are guaranteed jobs or should be awarded compensation if not hired. what?!? you’re kidding right?
wait a minute…first post + stupid statement = troll!
you almost had me there.
She might have a case, because these vocational schools advertise their job placement departments as part of the package.
See what the people really think about this law suit in allrise.com community court – http://bit.ly/OY7y0
I can only presume she is too ugly to work in adult entertainment.
#5 – Wow. That is setting the bar low.
#6 – It’s more lucrative than what she’s doing now. Well, I guess she could go wait tables.
Well if litigation is her thang, she must love waitin.. y’all
It really depends on what she was promised….
An ordinary College doesn’t guarantee anything. The vocational schools often do, or at least promise something…. Might be something to that.
Many years ago, the former day job sent me to a low-budget vocational school to pick up some cheap education in low-end business computers. (Way cheaper than the local College, and “hands on”, too, long before personal terminals were common or PC’s existed.) The promises they made were painful to listen to. ‘Course, I had a job, and stayed there for another 20 years, but….
Anyway, if promises were made, it might be actionable. If the gal just heard that “get a BA and you’ll get a job”, that’s another story.
Can’t wait to see how this turns out.
Even if express promises were made, “everyone” knows they were lies. I think its called “puffing” and just meant to catch your attention.
After all, if this precedent is set, think of all the Army enlistee’s who did not turn out to be all they could be. The litigation awards would bankrupt our country.
Obvious lies should never be actionable–otherwise ignorant people will get a fair break, and thats not capitalizm where everyone is free to look out for themselves.
#9 is right on the money. Threats of lawsuits happen all the time at schools like DeVry and ITT Tech…the recruiters say whatever it takes, and the instructors can be the same way.
I am a graduate of Monroe College’s bachelor’s program; I also had the chance to work within the facility at the Distance Learning office. I may vouch for the fact that the College cares about the progress of student’s while in school. However, like a business which suffers with client feedback and what most college’s lack is the ability to follow-up with career placement services. This is a problem due to the college relationship with businesses and not tapping into a larger network for its students. Most graduates live off their prestige of the university/college however this becomes a hurdle for the people coming from a smaller demographic. I agree with Trina Thompson for the fact that she may have a case if she could prove that she was swayed in to getting her degree with a false promise. At the same time I disagree for the fact that we all have all been lied to at some point (anyone who fills out a W2 form) about the American Dream on the fact that you go to school, get a job, work hard and buy a house with a white picket fence, thus easier said than done.
#10, bobbo, the PROUD patriotic American,
Well almost. Puffery is a claim that can’t be proven, such as “nothing tastes better” or “whiter than white”. How do you disprove that?
Where puffery won’t work is a concrete claim. If you claim your car gets 30 mpg when it is only rated for 25 mpg then that is a claim that can be disproven.
If the school promised a job placement in her field she has a case. Anything less and she probably doesn’t.
From the Monroe website…
“The Office of Career Advancement [B]helps[/B] with career assessment, resume writing, job search and strategy, employer recruitment and placement, interviewing skills, and other job search guidance.”
Let me help her… http://dice.com/
hmm. it doesn’t even say what her “bachelor’s degree” was in. if it were in Middle English Literature or some other crap like that, then I would say that her best job offer would come from the same place she buys her morning latte. guess that’s not exactly what she expected.
The real shocker of this story is there’s a Supreme Court in Bronx, NY!
#17, Jim,
No, the real shocker is your ignorance in not knowing that.
I don’t know if she has a real case or not, but I adamantly do agree that most, if not all, schools will screw you over hard and fast to get every last dollar.
They will help you get financial aid (the government dollar) knowing full well that your degree isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on and won’t help you pay back your loans.
The school has a placement center and knows full well what degrees place and what degrees don’t. So selling someone a philosophy/Humanities/Art/Basketweaving degree with the implied “You’ve got a degree and on the road to riches” is fraud.
#13–Fusion==good point. Definitional, the kind I really like. That only leaves me with: “Should obvious lies be actionable?”
Hah, hah. Isn’t most of everything we think a pack of lies? At least everything we have been told.
As a fall back, I hope she has a count for “failure to provide the edumacation” that she paid for. Maybe settle for some pro-ration of what she did get. Typing skills?
#14:
““The Office of Career Advancement *helps* with career…”
Right, so if they’re not even helping, she could win. Like when you pay a headhunter but they don’t send out the resumes.
John’s right – with this precedent, Berkeley would be in big trouble going forward. har!
Tort reform – NOW
There is no simpler or faster way to restore some sanity and responsibility to America than to institute loser pays.
#23 said:.. “There is no simpler or
faster way to restore some sanity and
responsibility to America than to
institute loser pays.”
-here here.
If this case goes through and wins, it
will further destroy whats left of our
pitiful education system.
Given that we have an education system [and workplace requirements] that pretty much mandate that you give preferential treatment, graduate and hire complete morons, -is it any wonder why we have young adults now trying skip the whole “stressful” job hunt process
by suing for lost future potential earnings?
[do not forget to add in the entitlement junkie attitude that has been ingrained
into society the past 25+ years that
compounds the issue further]
The flip-side of this is that we are
producing layers by the thousands with
nary a scruple amongst them, promoting
this behavour even further by putting ads
on TV that just barely stop short of
saying “if you shit on a Wednesday, you
may be entitled to lost income earnings.
call now for a free interview:.
Call now at: 555-1212” etc etc…
-s
Maybe she’s just stupid. I don’t even have an IT degree and I’ve been in the IT field for over 15 years.
# 25 Rick Cain said:
“Maybe she’s just stupid. I don’t even have an IT degree and I’ve been in the IT field for over 15 years.”
I think that’s where she may have a point. If they really taught her anything truly useful about IT (which you can certainly learn for way less than $70K), she would most likely _have_ an IT job by now, in spite of the rest of the job market. On the other hand, if they couldn’t teach her enough to make her employable (read useful) for that SEVENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS, they are a bunch of mountebanks and charlatans and deserve to be exposed as such. And if she’s too dumb to have learned enough to get a job, then they awarded her a degree fraudulently, and _that_ should be exposed.
However, legally, I doubt she has much of a case.