Colleges have gone the route of advertising, marketing, networking, social networking, blogging, and on and on to attract undergraduate applications. After all, the more apps they get, the more selective they can be, which raises the U.S. News & World Report calculation. But as schools offer state-of-the-art gyms, spotless dorms, high-tech classrooms, “diversity,” semesters abroad, and promises of success, the expectations they raise may haunt them.
Here’s one case, a story at CNN headlined blankly, “Alumna sues college because she hasn’t found a job.” It’s about a recent graduate of Monroe College in the Bronx. She’s angry because after paying $72,000 tuition to get a degree in Business Administration, specializing in information technology, she hasn’t received any job offers.
In her words, “Office of Career Advancement did not help me with a full-time job placement. I am also suing them because of the stress I have been going through.”
It just isn’t fair, she insists, and she suggests that other students who’ve graduated and haven’t found a job file suits of their own.
Her complaint has a curious side-grievance, too. She alleges that Monroe College helps students with high grade point averages more than it does students with average GPA’s.
She has a 2.7–a B- score.
Now, at what point in her academic career did she lose respect for the value of grades? We’ve heard recently of a Duke professor talk about grading as “meaningless, superficial, cynical,” and perhaps she shares the view.
Or maybe she approached her college education with so career-oriented a perspective that the employment after graduation eclipsed the actual education from the start.
Or maybe the college she attended presented so much enthusiastic, spirited glow to prospective and new students–which is now a necessary part of maintaining a campus’s place; no need to blame Monroe for that–that she came to believe that the school did, indeed, owe her a job.
Her case is a lesson to teachers. Admissions and marketing offices have to do what they have to do. This adds a duty to the job of professors, however. They must address the careerism of undergraduates with an opposing ideal, namely, that of learning that doesn’t have an immediate commercial value, knowledge that can’t be placed on a resume, studying that may issue in nothing more than a thoughtful mind and a discriminating taste.
A conviction needs to go out to the freshmen: Liberal education matters, and if you’re getting a B- all the time, you’re wasting what may be your only opportunity to acquire it.
29 Responses to Student to School: ‘You Owe Me Money’
ex_ag - August 5, 2009 at 10:08 pm
She says, “…did not help me with a full-time job placement.” I’m honestly surprised she didn’t say “…did not get me a full-time job placement.” That’s the implication here. Like everything else, a full-time job should be handed to her. As for stress, she should take a vacation; maybe a trip to Iraq, Afghanistan, or Darfur would allow her to see her stress in a whole new perspective.
rgunn - August 6, 2009 at 7:40 am
The kind of student who attends Monroe College Is careerist and unlikely to attend college anywhere else or for any other reason but to get a “good-paying” job upon completion. No doubt Monroe College recruiters all but promised this student such a job, and administrators continued to string her along with the same promise as long as she filled out the financial aid documents and applied for loans. Bauerlein may sneer at the student’s B- GPA, but for the type of student that Monroe College goes after, a 2.7 is indeed “high” and something this student will regard as quite an achievement. Such a student is far less interested in a liberal arts education than she is in an education that will place her squarely in a job. Bauerlein must be careful not to confuse a Monroe College student with the students who sit in his Emory University classroom.
rogertlewis - August 6, 2009 at 7:57 am
Aren’t we reaping what we sowed? Note the B- GPA viewed as “wasting what may be your only opportunity.” Faculty who dare give lower grades are considered by administrators as failing faculty members. College should be more of a boot camp than a summer camp for students. It would be better for the students and better for the country.
lee77 - August 6, 2009 at 8:15 am
Trina Thompson, the young lady in question, has apparently learned enough in her 27 years re: how to use the legal system. In the linked to story, she actually believes that ‘any reasonable employer would pounce on an applicant with her academic credentials.’ With regard to the Career services group, she expects them to tell companies ‘I got this student, her attendance is good, her GPA is all right – can you interview this person?’ There are people for whom college is value added, and there are people for whom good trade schools/certificate programs (that also talk realistically about how to get a job), would probably be as valuable and effective. Trina seems to be in the latter camp.
juliebalamut - August 6, 2009 at 8:51 am
Hey,she can join the millions of other Americans, many with 4.0s with BAs to PhDs in all sorts of fields from all sorts of colleges who are now washing dishes, working in fast food, and spending hours searching for any kind of work that is simply not there. But it is far easier to claim victimhood, sue, and have somebody else pay. I sure many prospective employers would be happy to hire such a person. After being an honor student with a BA and MA, plus years of starting at the bottom and working hard to advance, I’m laid off and know that there are millions more like me. College is for teaching you to think, plan, organize, and figure out how to make your own way in our complex and unfair world. Even the best colleges are having a difficult time helping their best graduates find jobs in today’s economy. This graduate needs to understand that it is her responsibility, not the college’s, to use the skills she has learned to pound the pavement all on her own to find a job; like every other college graduate. And not to turn her nose at me, an honor student with two degrees, who has worked hard for years and who would be happy to have any kind of job these days.
joelcairo - August 6, 2009 at 9:20 am
The Monroe College student was hoodwinked. I wish her the best with her law suit.
boethi - August 6, 2009 at 9:42 am
This is one of those teachable moments we’ve been hearing so much about. The young lady should be offered to put her skills to the test in an entry-level position in the Monroe Office of Career Advancement. This would help the College’s graduate employment statistics, and might impress upon the young woman what it takes to help get her like-minded peers a job.
booklover - August 6, 2009 at 9:43 am
I agree with the plaintiff and here’s why. She paid this school to teach her a trade and the school should have connections to those who can hire. I mean this is America. Why can’t we train someone and then put them in a job? Our model doesn’t work.
American schools have for the most part been negligent in their mission to help people enter a profession they have trained for. Professors are only doing half the job- students pay you so that they can get a paycheck themselves.
lgasbarr - August 6, 2009 at 9:46 am
I don’t think she was hoodwinked. No school can guarantee you a job. It’s too bad that she feels cheated, but she does actually have to make her own way in life, like everyone else. So I agree with juliebalamut above. That said, the people involved in recruitment need to dial back the implicit promises and expectations, or lawsuits like this will become more common.
rlpeterson - August 6, 2009 at 9:47 am
Here’s a quote from the young lady:
“They favor more toward students that got a 4.0. They help them more out with the job placement.”
With communication skills like that, she should be grateful that Monroe College didn’t get her any interviews. They spared her a great deal of embarrassment.
I think she might be better off suing Monroe College for failing to educate her. She might have a legitimate grievance on that count.
pattpeterson - August 6, 2009 at 9:55 am
Many students are graduating with crushing debt ($72,000 for a non-prestige baccalaureate degree)and discovering within days of the graduation ceremony that they are expected to begin monthly payments on their student loans.
The employment market is in a deep freeze, debt is due, is it any wonder students panick? It isn’t the school’s obligation to find her employment – but it is the school’s obligation to exhaust all avenues of preparation for the job market. Does Monroe offer field based internships? In our discipline, better than 50% of students completing field based internships are offered a job from that experience. Bridging the gap is a very real obligation of college programs.
welgersma - August 6, 2009 at 11:29 am
With a debt of 72,000 what has she been doing while attending school? I thought the average debt load of a graduating undergrad was 40,000. As harsh as this sounds, there are jobs but they may not be what a graduate wants and the pay may be disappointing. Well, we don’t always get what we want. Currently some of Harvard’s law grads who were offered jobs have been put off 6 months to a year before the job starts. Why? Because the business is not available at the moment. She needs to stop blaming others and deal with her situation. The way she has dealt with it says much more about her potential as an employee than any GPA. America is a land of opportunity but in times like these, we have to make our opportunities.
WP
carync - August 6, 2009 at 11:48 am
For years now, we’ve heard that colleges and universities should be run more like businesses, accepting that corporations are models of efficiency and effectiveness to be emulated. So when students are treated like customers or consumers, then complaints can be expected if the customer does not receive the goods/services paid for.
akprof - August 6, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Has anyone else wondered about her interview skills? If she came across in an interview as though she believes she is “owed” and job, I wouldn’t hire her either! Glad she chose business and info systems rather than a helping field such as education or nursing.
drj50 - August 6, 2009 at 12:20 pm
She now has an — intriguing — job offer:
It was announced today by The Ski Channel Founder and CEO, Steve Bellamy that The Ski Channel would offer an entry level job to Trina Thompson, the 27 year old Information Technology Graduate who is suing New Yorks Monroe College for her inability to find work. . . .
“Either Ms Thompson is a cunning out of the box thinker and we want her,” said Bellamy “or she isn’t, and her postiion would not last long. Either way, the law suit would no longer be clogging up the courts because there are now no damages. She now has a bonifide job offer. She just needs to call us and go over the details. But it is real and valid. If she is this fiesty, we’ll try her out. But if she is playing the victim card and pushing her problems onto everyone else – then her job wouldn’t likely last long.
http://www.theskichannel.com/news/equipment/20090804/The-Ski-Channel-Offers-Job-to-Jobless-Graduate-Suing-Monroe-College
(I learned of this from a post by “Page” on Dean Dad’s blog at Inside Higher Ed.)
atana09 - August 6, 2009 at 12:29 pm
“pattpeterson” hit upon the core of the issue. Concern, or panic, resentment, or outrage about the 72,000 debt may have been part of the reason that M. Thompson elected to pursue legal action. These type of debt loads are not uncommon for students and they can be made almost exponentially worse by fee enhancements, capitalizing interest, and all the other tricks used by the educational lending industry. And incidentally the average debt load of 40,000 for a bach, is on the lower end dependent on the schools involved.
It’s not uncommon for students to graduate with unsustainable debts especially relative to possible incomes. Even the C C contingent is affected, they owe less, but make less.
So its not suprising that cases of this nature are going to happen. Students end often up with crushing debts, and too often the marketing hype which sold the college, sells the students down the river of economic ruin. Under these parameters something as simple as a promise of placement help by the college aid office, becomes incredibly important. So what a official might say as a marketing tool, is understandably read very differently by many of today’s students. And sometimes college officials do lie about these matters. For example at one so so institution students were told by a high official that there were jobs just waiting for those with fine arts degrees. Knowing full well that even in better times, it can be difficult to obtain employment in that field-usually its the incredibly persistant or the very lucky who make it.
Basically, the concern and resentment prompting this lawsuit is not isolated to this one student. Increasingly students and families are very, very concerned about the potentially detrimental effect of an education gone arye. And academe might do well to heed it as a warning. What has happened to academe is we have become an instrument in selling debt, which obviously benefits those who market that debt but it is close to wrecking any lingering perception or affection for the old tweed jacket and tower version of service. In other words, our ideals have become a very profitable commodity for those who do not teach, do not serve, but can certainly serve up an entire generation of students and families as a lenders banquet.
drj50 - August 6, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Tuition and fees (2008-09) at Monroe College is just over $11,000 and almost all students qualify for federal assistance (nces.ed.gov). The school apparently does not offer on-campus housing. It appears that a substantial portion of the $70,000 debt was for things beside the cost of education.
minnesotan - August 6, 2009 at 2:44 pm
My parents told me when I was growing up that anything is possible. Yet I am still unable to magically summon Mandy Moore to my bedchamber at night. Perhaps I should sue my folks for bringing me into this world under false pretenses.
slnachbar - August 6, 2009 at 2:46 pm
I’ll come at this from a very different direction. I worked with career counselors for ten years, working with various types of schools: two-year, four-year, specialized, and graduate. None have ever guaranteed students a job, no matter how stellar their grades. None “hand” students a list of job leads; they can help contact employers, but hiring needs change all the time.
No counselor will ever ask an employer to “take a chance” on a candidate, unless they have something on their resume that stands out. If Trina Thompson had done a significant information systems project with a faculty member, or if her GPA in the major was considerably higher than overall–Information Systems is a difficult field–then a counselor would have had some selling points.
Nothing in the news coverage suggests that she was uniquely qualified compared to peers who had earned the same degree. All we know is that a student is angry, so she has tried a creative, but potentially dangerous, way to express her anger. But now it appears she has a job offer, based on one of the comments above.
But Bauerline makes an important point. Schools aggressively market their potential to serve their students. Nothing wrong with that, but there is also the potential for misunderstanding.
For example, Monroe College’s Career Advancement office, according to their Web site, offers various resources. They do not promise a job, only that they can help. The staff size is respectable for a small school (small in comparison to other New York City colleges). They are honest about who they are.
However, the college’s mission statement, which was likely approved by their board of trustees, uses the words “career-oriented” in the very first line. This is the first I heard of a not-for-profit four year school using that phrase; it’s more commonly used by for-profit career colleges.
A bright lawyer–Thompson lacks counsel according to the CNN story–might try to prove that the mission statement is an implied warranty. These days, you have the board of Chrysler or GM claiming that they make quality cars; it’s all over their advertising. Yet they are frequently sued by car buyers under state Lemon Laws. And oftentimes they lose or reach settlements. Monroe’s mission statement is their only weakness, should Thompson’s suit ever make it to court.
Monroe College should be able to prove that their staff was capable of assisting all of their students. In fact, career services are often underutilized. They offer a comprehensive set of services. But that phrase in the mission statement, career-oriented, leaves me concerned.
rgooch - August 6, 2009 at 2:46 pm
It’s difficult for me to put value in the judgment that the recruiters are to blame for all this student’s woes. As someone still paying off student loans, I am firmly aware of the difficulties of finding work in the field I chose to study. Yet, I chose to study it.
The commonly-accepted road to higher-paying, higher-responsibility work is to go to college. Our system is not one that requires a certain career choice at post high school. We do not base someone’s career path on perceived ability and job tendencies. In fact, our testing structure is one that rewards good scores and grades with an easier time getting placement in more – pardon the phrase – institutionalized schools.
If I have the grades and scores after high school I might attempt to enroll in private educational institutions to further myself. I will pay for it monetarily, but I take the chance that I will be able to make up for those costs with the pedigree and education I am given access to. I may also choose to go to a smaller public university, where perhaps my chances of employment are not as rich as I walk out the door, but where my overhead of monetary expenses will be less.
In either case, we haven’t even approached what degree program I happen to choose to engage.
As a student who returned to school at 30 – one who had terrible high school grades and slightly-better-than-average placement scores – I must say that when we choose to attend, what we study, where we study, and what we choose to do with it when our degrees are completed are just that: choices.
The educational system cannot force information into your head anymore than it can gurantee that if it sets up an interview for you, you’re a personality and qualified fit for a position. It can only provide the tools and available faculty to allow students to engage themselves with the material to the highest degree they want to.
We need more personal responsibility for what happens to us, not less. College is not for everyone at every certain point in time. I myself was not ready for it until much later, and even after getting my B.A., I still don’t practice in my field – by choice. Torts like these run toward that “slippery slope” that makes mandated job programs rather than qualified candiate ones, and takes too much responsibility away from the individual for the lives they lead.
dank48 - August 6, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Ms. Thompson may find, if the Ski Channel gig doesn’t work out, that other employers are reluctant to hire a person who has made it clear she blames the world for her problems, feels entitled to a paycheck pronto, and is willing to sue anyone in sight rather than consider the possibility that finding a job is her own responsibility. She will definitely find that her education has not stopped now that she’s out of school.
atana09 - August 6, 2009 at 5:19 pm
“It appears that a substantial portion of the $70,000 debt was for things beside the cost of education.”
Well there are several issues there, one is how much was the result of fees levied for in school deferments and other attendant costs.
Another is that the middle class has lost much of its economic resource base, to the extent that the CIA has noted in its public assessments of the United States that there has not been any real increase in incomes for the middle and working classes since 1975. So what a preceding generation had done with their actual income, the current generation has had to do by borrowing. As such there may be considerably deeper implications than just the amount the student had to borrow to attend school or the surface reasons why she chose to borrow it. And often with students of lower economic echelons the debt they get into is directly influenced by the resources they do not have.
And its interesting that the personal responsibility paradigm alluded to by some of these responses does not extent to responsibilities on the part of academe. Yes Ms. Thompson clearly borrowed too much, and gods help her with that problem as no other entity will. But at some point there should be an awareness within academe that our students are borrowing money at an unprecedented rate. And as such, perhaps its well past time to assess our programs as to whether they are truly relevant to enhancing our students ability to obtain meaningful employment. Too often higher education is rationalized as ‘making one a better person, lifelong learners, or its not about careers” or other old saws. Problem is the economic conditions are so adversely changed, including student debt ratios, that what was tolerable insofar as outcomes back in the halcyon days of the 60′s and 70′s is simply unsustainable now.
And it is a warning to academe, that too much of the continued belief that we are isolated from the effects of our systems on student lives, is going to be the siren song leading to the rocks. The middle and working classes are very close to the point wherein their old blind faith in education leading to success, isn’t going to be believable. And so Ms. Thompson’s suit is a harbinger of things to come, rather than an isolated incident. And if academe choses to enclose itself in the Ivory Towers and ignore the signs, well I hope we also enjoy the rising flood.
commserver - August 6, 2009 at 7:22 pm
I taught at Monroe at the beginning of the millenium as an adjunct. I taught IT courses to what I thought were greatly unqualified students. The facilities were greatly lacking.
At the time the school was more interested in getting students to pay tuitions than it was in giving a quality education.
My overall impression was that there was great pressure to give high grades. This offended my sense of what going to college was about.
Monroe has spent much money in advertizing itself. You can’t miss ads in the NYC subway system. Many NYC government offices will have fliers.
I feel sorry the young lady.
litcrittr82 - August 7, 2009 at 1:59 am
There’s another piece to this puzzle that I don’t think has been addressed yet: the plaintiff apparently only graduated 3 months ago. It took me almost 4 months to get a job offer after graduation (I had a much higher GPA and an Ivy degree). I was paying rent with bartending tips for two months. Many of my classmates had similar experiences. It’s been tough these last few years. I don’t see how anyone could construe a degree of any kind as a legally viable guarantee of gainful employment, given all the variables: job market, ‘acceptable’ time between graduation and employment, fluctuating quality of competition, etc. Even playing devil’s advocate on this one and arguing that this woman was partially misled by certain factors (loan pressure, college mission statement) seems far-fetched to me. This is just a scheme to get something out of nothing; and it’s certainly not the first time someone got creative with a lawsuit…
atana09 - August 7, 2009 at 7:43 pm
“It’s been tough these last few years. I don’t see how anyone could construe a degree of any kind as a legally viable guarantee of gainful employment, given all the variables: job market, ‘acceptable’ time between graduation and employment, fluctuating quality of competition, etc”
Well the core of the dilemma is that if degrees are not a viable guarantee of gainful employment, with all the variables-what are they to be considered? And quite true that legally viable guarantee is the defining edge, but what she has done with her lawsuit and the attendent press coverage is force a broad cultural reassesment of what value college degrees do possess.
Her case is out and given the vested interest by academe, lenders, and the courts usual reluctance to go against the interests of the aforementioned parties its very probable she will lose. But if she does lose, it will reinforce the increasing perception that academe is a self referential money drain. Simply because students and families are getting uneasy about the costs and debt loads of going to college. And her case will be a rallying point for all involved even if they do not fully support her personal agenda.
From the professorial end, well we’d better have some good defenses beyond lifelong learners, enrichment, and etc. The new depression has killed off academe’s lingering idealism of the 60′s, at least in the minds of an increasing number of students and families. If we don’t have some pragmatic responses to the hard questions which will arise as a result of her case…well academes in trouble because of potentially being outmaneuvered politically by one seemingly quite astute student.
owliebehn - August 7, 2009 at 7:43 pm
This is a good story. It opens the door for me to sue some of my students who promised that they were going to study but clearly they didn’t.
jonelm - August 10, 2009 at 12:00 pm
I do think there is an implication that a degree moves one further toward a job. “Further toward” being the operative word. It is a requirement for some jobs; therefore a threshold level of acceptability. It is not a guarantee.
Coming from a marketing/business background, one has to acknowledge market forces at work; that our society believes that if someone wants something, they should be able to have it. Not Fannie and Freddie, whose mission was to put all in houses, whether or not they could afford it, or Obama’s mission that everyone should get to go to college. Such efforts run up against the reality of limited jobs.
I worked at an online for-profit school that definitely had students who were not prepared for college, and probably were never ‘college material’ in the old days. I could not accept that I was teaching students who were going into enormous debt to obtain a degree that likely had little market value. I next worked for a somewhat more rigorous not-for-profit ‘educational corporation’ who serves primarily military members, at approx. $1500 per course, every 5-10 weeks–our tax money. Yet, they were able to obtain an online degree, a degree they could not have been able to obtain as most were deployed hither and yon.
In this debate, the discussion must also include, then, if we believe as a society that everyone has a right to pursue a degree, regardless of their preparation, aptitude, etc.
And we must discern in our conversation differences between learning, knowledge, education, a degree, a job, etc. It seems the plaintiff’s goal was a degree. It is sad to think, however, that the old educational system–wherein we were in college in part for love of learning, and we knew that some of what we learned may never be used in its taught form— may have gone by the wayside in favor of the pragmatics of getting a degree to get a job, with nothing else as part of the model. . .
jamesgpeck - August 10, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Proprietary Vocational Schools have to keep records of the percentage of students who are employed in the field after graduation. Why not subject universities of all stripes to the same discipline? We all know that universities are conspiculously lax about letting people major in fields that offer little or no vocational opportunity. Universities and the used car sales companies that prey on servicemen are about on a par.
moreno1 - August 11, 2009 at 1:03 am
Universities and colleges are not vocational schools. It’s as simple as that. There are some majors and some areas that train students for specific fields, but just about any where that is reputable also includes a decent amount of humanities, social sciences, fine arts, math and sciences as part of a general education. These classes (and the major) should help students become self-reflective critical thinkers who know more about the world they live in and its history from scientific and social perspectives than they did when they left high school. They should be better writers and communicators than they were immediately out of high school or than they would otherwise be simply with vocational training.
There’s nothing wrong with vocational training, but it’s not the primary mission of education; it’s attitudes like this student’s that buttress the belief that it is. We need to provide more vocational training for students who are simply looking for a degree in order to have a job and not an education–we should consider re-vamping post-secondary education. Universities and colleges shouldn’t lower their standards or alter their missions greatly — thinking, writing, ethical reflection, and historical and scientific knowledge are important. We should provide other opportunities for technical education and encourage students to seek them–along with or instead of community college or BA level education. It’s a real shame that most students don’t know that a master plumber can earn more than a corporate lower-management person sitting in a cubicle all day, and just may have more work autonomy and job satisfaction; yet our society only seems to think the latter career is an example of success. That’s the real hoodwink.
Even if a student is trained in a professional field, there is no guarantee of employment, especially for a barely above average student in a tight job economy. Do students who have business majors feel that the word business in the major, instead of, say, sociology or french, entitles them to a job in the business field? Yet many businesses are filled with employees whose degrees are much more like sociology and french. Does the french, english or history major have elaborate internships or guaranteed connections to a job? Many of these distinctions are based on socio-economic class of student before entering school, quality and prestige of school granting degree, and student’s overall performance and ability to market him/herself for work in a particular field or fields. Career offices can only work with the latter.