I am currently investigating New Horizons Computer Learning Centers, a system of franchises that provides certified Microsoft and Cisco training and testing. The centers cumulatively receive more than $20 million a year in GI Bill funds for military veterans and an unknown amount from the Department of Defense for military spouses. New Horizons also takes VA Vocational Rehabilitation funds for disabled veterans.
Claims about New Horizons' training and outcomes are impressive, but only if they are true. At this point, I am skeptical about these claims after reading repeated complaints about New Horizons Computer Centers and their business practices.
Several of the New Horizons Learning Computer Learning centers are based where service members and veterans live, including Killeen (163 veterans, $686K), Fort Worth (55 veterans, $445K), San Antonio (102 veterans, $641K), Richmond (111 veterans, $1.33M), Atlanta (44 veterans, $208K), Jacksonville, FL (219 veterans, $2.62M), Anaheim (254 veterans, $1.01M), Las Vegas (29 veterans, $15K), Miami (452 veterans, $6.06M), Colorado Springs (52 veterans, $356K), Orlando (236 veterans, $3.99M), Spokane (56 veterans, $968K), Tampa (171 veterans, $1.65M), and McClean, Virginia (94 veterans, $807K).
Recruiting thousands of military spouses, and veterans (including disabled vets), the New Horizons chain also claims to be "Military Friendly" and to adhere to VA's Principles of Excellence. New Horizons markets to veterans by selling their programs as "GI Bill Training." And they claim to offer top-notch instructors and career consultants. Credible information about gainful employment following the training programs, however, is non-existent.
Despite its claims, New Horizons Computer Centers have received a rash of complaints from veterans using their GI Bill benefits. The most common GI Bill complaints about the schools have been about finances, marketing and recruiting, and quality of education.
Complaints across the internet suggest that the learning centers are not worth the cost. New Horizon's recruiting practices also appear to be unethical, using bogus job offers to make their sales pitches.
While New Horizons courses cost $87 to $100 per hour, community colleges offer computer and IT training at lower costs. Lower priced online training can also be gotten for free or close to free, through One Stop unemployment offices and Groupon.
If you have any complaints about any New Horizons Computer Learning Centers, please email me at CollegeMeltdown@protonmail.com
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Activists, Coalitions, Innovators, and Alternative Voices
In 2011, Sherry Li hatched the idea to create a $6 billion Chinese
Disneyland in the Catskills, with a for-profit college, a casino,
shopping venues, eateries, Chinese-themed rides, and a community full of
wealthy Communist Chinese immigrants...just a few miles away from
nearby villages of American peasants. The ideas were Trump-like, and
like several of Donald Trump's business efforts, most likely to fail
without political ties at all levels, and lots of money. In this case,
Li needed hundreds of millions just to start, most from wealthy Chinese
investors. Together with her business associate Mike Wang, Li paid out large sums of money to establish political ties,
but politicians claim not to know her. In 2019, this fantastic scheme,
whittled down to a school with no buildings, no students,
and one person sitting at a desk, looks more like a swindle. But without
victims coming forward, and most are unlikely to come forward, this
relatively unknown businesswoman will continue what can now be called a
scam.
(Note: I have tried communicating with Sherry Li and Mike Wang,
her media director, several times via phone, email, and social media.
Someone at the Thompson Education Center does answer the phone, and says
"they are out of the country." But this person cannot tell me when they
left or when they are returning to the US. When I mentioned that their
social media was not updated or even monitored, she admitted "we're not
operating anything.")
China City of America is a multi-phased construction project planned for the town of Thompson, Sullivan County, in the Catskill Mountains region of the U.S. state of New York. The current project, Thompson Education Center (TEC), is a proposed college for foreign students, situated in a 573-acre parcel which borders a state-protected wetland.
In December 2011, China City LLC applied to be a USCIS recognized EB-5 visa Regional Center, but the business was never approved by US Homeland Security. The EB-5 immigrant investor program grants permanent residency
to foreign investors in exchange for job-creating investments in the
United States. The 880 Regional Centers sponsor capital investment
projects for foreign entrepreneurs seeking green card status.
Approximately 85 percent of EB-5 participants are Chinese, but there is a
quota system, and waits for Chinese applicants can be as long as 15
years.
More than a year later, China City America publicly
presented its idea to build a 2,200-acre Chinese theme park, hotel, and
casino for an estimated $6 billion. According to The Economist,
the plan "would attract 1.5 million visitors annually" and "transform
the struggling economy" in upstate New York while seducing thousands of
wealthy Chinese investors through the federal EB-5 visa
program. The initial capital investment of $325 million would include
$127.5 million from EB-5 investors, $132.5 million from equity
investors, and $65 million from the U.S. government.
According to
the scheme, each Chinese client would pay a small investment up front: a
$65,000 non-refundable deposit. One catch was that in return, Li's
business would have to quickly create at least 10 new jobs per investor.
Local, national, and international media articles conveyed a variety of
interests and concerns about the project while local officials and
residents expressed both hope and skepticism.
[The initial
presentation by Sherry Li starts at about 7:15 in this Youtube video.
The comments are in some cases brutally honest, in other cases racist.]
Sherry Xue Li, an Oyster Bay, Long Island businesswoman, has been the chief executive officer and
founder of China City of America. Li reported to the Associated Press
that she came to the US in 1991, at the age of 19, and has a background
in development and finance. Everything about her wealth seems to be a
mystery that can only be gleaned from detective work by media outlets
and groups like Defeat China City of America on Facebook.
According to her LinkedIn page,
Sherry Li has a master's degree from NYU and was a Vice President of
Hengli International Corporation (1995-1998), Executive Assistant at
Money Securities (1997-1999), and President of China Financial Services
(2003-2011).
SEC records show that Sherry Xue Li had been
a major shareholder in BRS Group, Inc., a Delaware company dealing in
scrap copper imports to China and China Electronic Holdings. Sherry Xue
Li sold her stake in China Electronic in 2010 and BRS in 2011. In the
video you will see in a moment, Sherry Li also mentions that she has a
young child.
According to Lachlan Markay at The Daily Beast,
"Li rarely, if ever, talks to the press, issuing her statements mainly
through press releases in which she boasts of her meetings with
Republican officeholders and Trump administration officials." The other
officer of the Thompson Education Center is Mike Lianbo Wang who has appeared in a few TEC press releases.
At
a 2013 town council meeting where Sherry Li first pitched the plan, she
stated that "Each dynasty will have its building and will have rides go
with it," China City’s website features golden dragons, and projects an
initial investment of $325 million — with $10 million going to a
"Temple of Heaven," $24 million on a hotel and entertainment complex,
and $20 million to construct a 'Forbidden City.'" In its second meeting
with the town council, Thomas J. Shepstone represented China City.
Shepstone was known in the region as a defender of fracking. According to Paula Medley of the Basha Kill Area Association the project couldn't be developed on the scale proposed by China City without damaging environmentally sensitive wetlands.
In
2014, Town of Thompson supervisor Bill Rieber became frustrated with
Li's constantly shifting plans and the Town of Thompson declined to
approve the project, but the project was granted approval for three
wells in 2016. In the same year, Sullivan county lawyer Jacob Billig
sued China City of America for failing to pay him fees for service. A
settlement was reached out of court for $25,000.
Thompson Education Center
While the larger China City project has stalled, the Thompson Education Center (TEC) is still being planned. The proposed for-profit college campus is on a 573 acre parcel of land near Route 17, Exit 112, which borders Wild Turnpike in Thompson, New York and extends to the town of Mamakating. The mostly undeveloped land for the project is in proximity to an environmentally protected wetland, the Harlen Swamp Wetland Complex. It is also near Monticello, New York,
a village with a poverty rate of about 36 percent. TEC press releases
have promised that the "high-end" project would create at least 20,000
jobs.
Thompson Education Center plans to have a school of
business, a film & arts school, and programs in nursing and medical
training, culinary arts, high school equivalency and executive and
vocational training. The project includes four classroom buildings,
student dormitories, student townhouses and a student center. TEC claims
to have entered into agreements with US and Chinese high schools,
colleges, education institutions and systems to provide students to the
institution. TEC claims also that it has been working with several U.S.
accredited colleges on undergraduate programs and ESL programs.
In
a January 2017 presentation to the Monticello Rotary, Sherry Li claimed
that China City had executed letters of understanding with the Catskill Regional Hospital for its nursing program, and with Phoenix, a Chinese media company that has educated 80,000 students.
According to the Wall Street Journal, in June 2017 Lianbo Wang donated $329,500 to a joint fund between President Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC). About $86,000 was diverted to the RNC’s legal fund. Politico also reported on the large donations by Wang and Li.
In
August 2017, Thompson Education Center appeared before the Town of
Thompson, with a plan for a campus that would include 732 dorm rooms for
2,508 students, 276 homes for faculty members, and a college
president’s house to be built in a “Founding Trustee Village.” Another
source stated that the campus would also include a community center,
three recreational buildings, three playgrounds, a sports stadium, a
performing arts center, a library and museum, a conference center, a
business center, a medical center and an inn for visitors.
In
September 2017, TEC sponsored a golf tournament benefiting the Catskill
Regional Medical Center (CRMC) Foundation. Ms. Li also visited
Congressman Steve Stivers, Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, in Washington, D.C.
In 2018, residents sought for a revocation of a permit that the Fallsburg, New York
building department had granted for a 9,000-square-foot building,
claiming that the building was not a residential structure. The property
is adjacent to the Thompson Education Center and is owned by Sherry Li.
Epoch Times
reported that Sherry Li was featured in Chinese media promoting the
school "as an 'easy' way to get an American green card." The May 17,
2018 Economist
issue noted that Chinese media said that "investors in the scheme will
find emigrating to America 'so easy.'" But the current wait time for
Chinese nationals to receive an EB-5 visa is a decade and a half, and a
new regulation for EB-5 visas may substantially raise the price for
obtaining a green card.
In January 2019, at the Ivy Football
Association Dinner, Sherry Li's Thompson Education Center said they
planned to provide application counseling, exam preparation and tutoring
for students by The Butler Method. Then in February, TEC announced
plans to offer the Ivy League Prep program, to give students with sports
trauma treatment-related classes, noting that the courses could be
"transferred to Ivy League universities for college credits." At the
time, TEC also reported that the project received three well permits,
and that the construction road was completed, which should not have been
news--the permits had been issued in 2016. The for-profit college with
no buildings and no students also reportedly signed contracts with
schools in China "to deliver 2,700 nursing program students every year."
On a trip to Thailand in March 2019, Ms. Li met with the president of Thonburi University
and discussed educational cooperation between TEC, its partners schools
and colleges, and the Bangkok school.
In the same press release, Sherry
Li's organiation reported that
"College Town covers an area
of 650 acres, with over 5 million square feet of the construction area
for educational campus and ancillary facilities. TEC has partnered with
many prestigious universities in Unites States, planned to establish
courses including, business schools, media arts, medical academies,
culinary, various MBAs, special license training, high schools and their
affiliated facilities to create an intelligent high-end university
community. In 2019, Thompson Education Center will work with
International University Alliance under the Ministry of Education to open 50 Thompson Education Center Extension campuses in China."
Meanwhile
the Facebook and Twitter accounts for Thompson Education Center lie
dormant: a giveaway that something is very wrong with this picture.
While I was updating my College Meltdown bibliography and writing a review of College is Bullshi*t, I found an enormous number of Youtube music
videos dedicated to student loan debt. Scholarly sources are fine, but
they don't get people to move. These videos vary in quality and genre,
from blues to rap, to pop, heavy metal, and country. But you gotta
listen. My favorites are Eatin' Me Alive by Ramy B. and Dee-1's Sallie Mae Back. An extremely popular tune, Stressed Out by Twenty-one Pilots, has just one line about student loan debt, but definitely hits on the consequences of youth and making choices.
Works Cited
B., Ramy. “EATIN' ME ALIVE (STUDENT LOAN RAP).” YouTube, YouTube, 10 Feb. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=C44O_GUtcQs.
Cornell, Charles. “Student Loans, You've Got Me By The Balls - Charles Cornell.” YouTube, YouTube, 12 June 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aJWUA3-E0E%2Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv.
Dee1music. “Dee-1 - Sallie Mae Back (Official Video).” YouTube, YouTube, 11 Feb. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqbXQa05Z6c.
ebonysongstress. “Student Loan Song by C. Richaude.” YouTube, YouTube, 5 Jan. 2008, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILcTrUHqHa0&list=PLBiTf7f_nVjgtZ7HCrrPEHY9xvIIHSkXd.
Grosscup, Ben. “‘Four Years of College’ (Parody of ‘Sixteen Tons’ by Ben Grosscup).” YouTube, YouTube, 28 Feb. 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sWosZ2qshc
“Twenty One Pilots: Stressed Out [OFFICIAL VIDEO].” YouTube, YouTube, 27 Apr. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXRviuL6vMY.
Wilson, David. “Simple Mind (The Student Loan Song) by David Wilson.” YouTube, YouTube, 6 June 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDVtuoPmTPQ%2Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv.
?v=_sWosZ2qshc.
Pictures speak louder than words. And emotions move people more than rationality. And the harsh words that Mike Newman (aka Ekim Namwen) speaks in his video "college is bullsh*t" express the anger and depression of a 30-something year old Ohio State graduate who gets it. While Newman's work is thoughtful and original, the emotions are common in many once-aspiring graduates from state flagship universities who never quite get ahead.
If you can deal with the critical tone and the emotions expressed in this video, it's well worth looking at it from start to finish. If not, start looking at it from 28:30. Newmans's intent has been to finish a serious decade-long documentary on higher education, but two recent suicides at OSU led him to speak out against the madness of higher education: its outrageous costs, its greedy anti-labor administration, and its uncaring bureaucracy.
The College Meltdown has been going on for more than a decade, and things are getting worse. Books critical of higher education could fill a book case or two. That's admirable. And of course, there are some great exceptions amid the meltdown, such as free community college, and potential free market innovations such as TuitionFit, but the general direction of US higher education is downward.
We
can't blame the problems of higher ed just on higher education. US
inequality has been increasing for a half century, and it displays
itself across society, from "savage inequalities"
in the college pipeline to how end of life is medicalized and made so
expensive, at the expense of state and federal budgets.
But there has to
be some recognition of the damage that has been done by business minded
college administrators and college boards, by the madness of crushing student loan debt and underemployment, and the system that turns almost everything good into sh*t.
As a military veteran
working to expose some of the most predatory practices by subprime
colleges, the idea that anyone at the US Department of Education, US Department of Defense (DOD) or
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) would say "Thank you for your
service" rings hollow, especially on the 4th of July.
The US government has systematically shirked its oversight of subprime
colleges that target servicemembers, veterans, and their families,
especially during the Trump Administration.
I have to give some credit to President Obama for trying to do something against these schools, with Executive Order 13607, but much of that work has been undermined by DOD and VA officials.
I have filed a FOIA and a complaint about Waste, Fraud, and Abuse
to DOD, but have been told not to hold my breath. And I have also filed a
complaint with the VA, but have even less faith that they will do their
job.
In
an recent article, titled "Enrollment declines, campus closings,
economic losses, and the hollowing out of America," I posted the
state-by-state enrollment drops from 2011 to 2018. These numbers are
posted here.
Alaska was at the top of the list, with a 31 percent drop in
enrollment. However, there are other states with significant enrollment
losses.
Besides Alaska, New Mexico, Hawaii, Michigan, Illinois,
Oregon, Missouri, West Virginia, Montana, Minnesota, Arkansas,
Louisiana, Kentucky, Indiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and
Wisconsin have had the largest enrollment losses. What states do about
the losses has varied, from austerity and tax cuts on the right side to
prison reduction and social investments, such as free community colleges
on the left.
What drives austerity, and higher education cuts, depends on many factors, and politics are important. State economies,
movement of people and companies out of state, obligations to K-12
education, Medicaid, and infrastructure, enrollment losses and tax
structures also play a large part in how dramatic these cuts will be.
Alaska's recent cuts are a worst case scenario, but that doesn't mean we won't see
dramatic funding cuts in other states and counties in the coming years.
I was reminded by one College Meltdown reader that Alaska was not the first state to feel Republican slash and burn tactics. Louisiana, under Bobby Jindal, felt it.
While
Democrats and Republicans are diverse within their own parties, we can
take a first look at the situation by charting higher education
enrollment and state control and make the hypothesis that states with
the largest enrollment losses and Republican control of state politics
are most vulnerable to austerity, at least in the short run.
My
first guess for the most vulnerable states? Missouri, West Virginia,
Arkansas, Kentucky, and Indiana, and as many as 18 other states, because they are Republican controlled.
But many others will have to make tough economic decisions, to increase
taxes, reduce funding, and to make cuts elsewhere. This is especially
true in states like Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The problem with
raising taxes is that many people don't like to pay taxes, and they see higher education as an individual choice rather than a public investment. In some cases, they also see (or hear about) administrative largesse and university amenities that border on insanity.
Smart leaders will look for smart (and just) answers.
For
a decade and a half, CEO Doug Becker went on a buying spree of colleges
across the globe, with a boatload of famous people to pitch for them.
But since 2015, Laureate has sold or shut down more than 30 schools, and
it faces enormous headwinds in the countries where it continues to
operate. 2018 and 2019 have been particularly difficult. This year, LAUR even threatened to sell its big US moneymaker, subprime Walden University.
Brazil, Laureate's largest segment, is facing reducing revenues after student aid was cut. Brazil's President, Jair Bolsonaro, who is terrible for the country
is a wild card at best for Laureate. In earlier years, someone in the
company might have been able to bribe officials, but those days are
probably gone.
While
Laureate has continued to pare down its $3.5B debt to just above $2B,
most of its profits have come from selling off more than 30 schools.
Here's a list of the schools it has sold, closed, or lost contracts with since 2015. More are
likely to be sold off in 2019 and 2020. Laureate sold off Bilgi University, but forgot to mention the terrible details.
Centro Universitário do Norte – UniNorte (Brazil) (sold 2019)
Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
XJTLU (China) (Laureate's online program partnership with the
university was discontinued in 2018. The degrees were awarded by
University of Liverpool.)
University of Liverpool
(Laureate's online program partnership with the university was
discontinued in 2018. All degrees were awarded by University of
Liverpool.)
University of Roehampton
(Laureate's online program partnership with the university was
discontinued in 2018. All degrees were awarded by University of
Roehampton.)
I just about had a heart attack reading the headlines from two NY Federal Reserve researchers in Buffalo, that college was still a "good investment" despite the costs. The authors, Jaison R. Abel and Richard Deitz, showed a few graphs indicating that college completion still resulted in significant wage premiums, and muttered something about “back of envelope” projections to prove their point.
Are these people mad? Have they not read Annie Nova (CNBC), Jillian Berman (Marketwatch) or Mike Vasquez (Chronicle of Higher Education)? Have they not glanced at Wikipedia
or thelayoff.com or bothered to use IPEDS help? Have they read Suzanne
Mettler’s “Degrees of Inequality”? Have they ever heard of the
layoff.com or College Meltdown? Don't they listen to Dave Ramsey on the radio? The answer is no and probably no, no, no, no, no, no, definitely not because it’s too heavy, no, no, and no.
Have these guys no understanding of the outrageous costs of higher
education: tuition, housing, board, text books, transportation,
computers, fees, officially licensed college t-shirts, football tickets,
concert tickets, pizza, beer, drugs, pregnancy tests, and who know what
all else?
If you read the small print in the NY Fed article, these two wise
guys from Buffalo oh so briefly mention that the wage premium doesn’t
apply to 25 percent of the people who start. They note that the wage
premium is muted in the 40 percent who don’t finish college. And the wealth premium, you know, the actual return on investment after trying to pay off the loans? Forget about it.
They don’t mention that college students are selling their bodies ("Sugar Babies") across the US or selling drugs to get through college. (For the record, I sold my body very cheap to the US Army for an ROTC scholarship to get out of Western Pennsylvania).
These guys don’t mention that more than 40 percent of all student
debtors are not paying off their principal. Or that millions of
Millennials with student debt are delaying marriage and kids, not
starting families or businesses. And by having fewer kids, they are
setting the nation up for another phase of the College Meltdown in
2026.
Nor did they note that peak enrollment was in 2010-11 and that
numbers have decreased every year since then. I suppose they’d say that
was all due to a great economy, like so many others who do not live near
reality, even in Buffalo. Really, it would never have anything to do
with outrageous prices or record-setting inequality.
Perhaps the men are talking about the business of education, which
has been a good investment for some. The higher ed “racket” involving
dorm building, restaurant building, gyms and climbing walls. Or the
student loan business that’s booming and student loan asset-backed
securities also known as SLABS. Or the online program managers that
actually run colleges online. Or the marketing and ad agencies that are
profiting hand over fist, as some students literally live in their cars
or struggle with hunger. Or maybe they are talking about the bright
future behind unregulated “human capital contracts” (What could go wrong?).
But why should I be so angry, literally fed up? The NY Fed is not the
only organization feeding the “College Mania!” It’s everyone, aside from
Dave Ramsey, Thomas Frank, and too few others. But who reads Thomas Frank? Hopefully it’s the same people who read the two guys from the NY Fed.
Once
again, the National Student
Clearinghouse report on college enrollment was enlightening,
and devastating. US college enrollment has been declining steadily for at least
eight years, and community colleges and for-profit colleges are hardest
hit--but that's only part of the story.
State
by state losses are not uniform. It appears that they mirror the hollowing out
of America.
National Student Clearinghouse reported losses
in 40 states, most notably in Alaska, Hawaii, New Mexico, Oregon, and Montana,
and Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Maryland,
West Virginia, Florida, and South Carolina, all which have significant and
complicated rural histories.
What's
happening in your neck of the woods? Can someone tell us what's happening on in
Alaska, Hawaii, and New Mexico, where enrollments are decreasing dramatically
and for so many years? Is it just that the economy is doing well, or are there
other important stories to tell?
