Hopshin Institute of Tech of New Jersey

      As an individual who observes the world economic state quite frequently, I tend to look for things that could really impact the country and our financial status. In 2008, the world nearly crumbled due to the housing mortgage crisis and it took a major bailout by the United States government to prevent that from happening. The issue there was debt outweighing the assets, false mortgage applications or fraud, and greedy bankers that provided loans with teaser rates to people that truly could not afford them. That was considered the American dream, home ownership but unfortunately it was obtaining the dream by any means necessary that ruined countless lives.

      Beside owning a home, the next huge life accomplishment that many Americans strive for is obtaining a college degree. Many of the current enrolled students are first generation college attendees or graduates. In addition, the world is as competitive as it has ever been and having just a college degree is not enough. In terms, what does that do to the people that only have a high school diploma that were never accepted into a college? What those individuals that have college degrees but want to advance deeper into their careers but couldn’t? The answers to these questions would contribute to the outstanding, growing total of student loan debt that plagues the United States of America.

     The college tuition debt is a huge problem and it comes from all sectors. Baby boomers refusing to retire, the number of highly qualified candidates for one job, and a swinging economy limit job growth. In addition, the creation of For-Profit colleges would sell many teens and adults the dream of a college education but at almost triple the price and half the worth. The goal is to target students in low economic areas and minorities and use government funds to maximize a student’s financial aid to pay for the term of the school. This is not to say graduates of For-Profit schools are not successful, but a good portion of the schools hold little value in the job market and leave students with enormous amount of debt that they are in no position to afford. This leads missed payments, horrible credit ratings, the inability to establish credit and borrow funds, and ultimately create additional debt within the economic system.

HOW EASY COULD IT BE?

   We did a look up of the For-Profit colleges recruiting tactics and found out their main source of enrollment came from cold calls. We also looked into the way some of the cold calls were handled and if the student or in this case client mentioned one source of weakness, the caller would pounce on them.

In comes Hopshin Institute of Tech of New Jersey, a phony For-Profit college that we created sitting in my office. We cost $77,000 per term and each term runs for 12-15 months pending your course of study and we teach EVERYTHING. We called 94 random people in the 07305 zip code of New Jersey, see our numbers below.

Typical REAL recruiter     :  200 calls every 4-5 hours if possible. (High commissions paid out.)

Hopshin Fake recruiter   :   94 total calls for one day.

Real recruiters closing rate :   16% monthly rate.

Hopshin FAKE recruiter :    contact 17 individuals, 3 questioned, 1 potentially was willing to           meet and possibly sign up.

Hopshin Potential Gross revenue : $77,000. ( SERIOUSLY! $77,000 POTENTIALLY FOR OUR FAKE SCHOOL. LOANS BACKED BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.)

What Did We Say???

    Majority of our callers were quite rude and told us to screw off, wouldn’t you? A person calling you to try to sign up for a $77,000 per term school and receive your bachelor’s degree in that time has to be a scammer. Now if you know the right words to say, you can possibly get your way in the door and make money for your company. Here are some of the selling points we tried to work on.

1.     Receive your college degree in 12 months, plus finding a job is seamless with our contacts in many industries.

2.     Do it for your kids!

3.     Who doesn’t want career advancement? With our program, get your Masters and climb that corporate ladder. Plus we offer online courses with skype, webex, and cisco facetime classes.

4.     Already have that masters? Get another one. If you do not want another, how about our PHD program.

5.     DO IT FOR YOUR KIDS.

6.     How much money are you making now? Why not make more with a degree?

7.     Everyone has a college degree! Having a college degree is the new high school diploma.

8.     Your retired? Perfect! Now you have all the time you would need to learn something new. New language, computer skills, or new want to learn to trade stocks? We can accommodate.

9.     DO IT YOUR FAMILY.

HOW OTHERS FEEL ABOUT THEIR FOR-PROFIT EXPERIENCES

(These are only opinions but show true emotion)

Trevor

 San Jose

“I owe DeVry University roughly $60,000. Yes I made some poor choices, and yes I could have went to community college for nearly nothing for two years then hit the traditional 4-year university. However, I was too trusting in my yearly 20's, like many young people, to research other options. The solution here is simple. Keep these institutions open, because they can be a force for good, but mandate that each student take an "information session" by an independent party that gives beneficiaries of Title IV funding, namely the students, options on the cost vs benefit of different colleges and universities. If we care about our youths' education then we deserve to educate them on the choices they have, not hope or expect they'll learn it in primary schools or in their homes.”

Janel

 North Carolina 

“I now know that something needs to be done after taking out a PARENT PLUS LOAN in the tune of $34,000.00 for my daughter to attend the Art Institute NYC. This was only for one term and I had to travel to New York las weekend to pick her up because I became ineligible for any more loans. I know I was dupped and there is nothing I can do about it. My daughter is depressed and I am angry that these predators can operate like this.”

Jefferson

 Baltimore, MD 

They need to launch an attack on Laureate, Inc. as well. Laureate is the Baltimore based parent company that owns Walden University and whose CEO, Doug Becker makes $600K a year plus bonuses. All they care about is profit and 95% of their students hail from African-American backgrounds. Shut them all down!

DDH

 CT 

The for-profit colleges have been more aggressive than the non-profit colleges, but both are equally guilty of making promises that could never be fulfilled, using government loans and grants to generate revenue - all the while boasting about their effectiveness and independence. Both sectors need to be held accountable, and it only makes sense to begin with the colleges with the highest default rates. Can we please have a little common sense here? If Congress would stop "listening" to the lobbyists, something could be done.