Dozens of former students at a culinary college in California owned by the Career Education Corporation have sued the institution.

The lawsuit, filed last week in a state court in San Francisco, accuses Career Education and its California Culinary Academy of misrepresenting the quality of its program and overstating the job prospects of the academy’s graduates.

The suit also accuses the academy and its parent company of accepting benefits from student-loan companies to place students in loans that exceeded market rates, according to a news release from the law firm that filed the case. The firm is seeking class-action status for the lawsuit.

The suit comes as California consumer-activist groups continue to raise questions about the state’s efforts to regulate for-profit colleges. This past summer, lawmakers agreed to a stop-gap approach, after a regulatory agency, the Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education, expired and was not renewed by legislators.

A new proposal from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, released in August, has drawn support from for-profit college groups. But according to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, consumer advocates call it a “disaster” that will fuel the revival of diploma mills in the state. —Goldie Blumenstyk