The Ohio Board of Career Colleges -- Just Who are They Serving?

Straight from the 2008 Annual Report of the Ohio Board of Career Colleges, the last report available, these are the duties of the board:

1. Maintaining the viability of registered schools through oversight of their programs and curricula along with their business practices, including advertising and recruiting.
2. Monitoring schools that provide educational and related services to a population of students who might not be served in the non-profit or public sector.
3. Protecting reputable schools from unfair competitive practices of unscrupulous school operators and their representatives.
4. Protecting the investment of students who have paid for education and training services.
5. Protecting the citizens of Ohio from fraudulent and unscrupulous school operators and their representatives.

In carrying out these responsibilities, the Board’s goals are to offer help, encouragement, and guidance to registered schools so that those Ohioans who choose them will be assured of quality education and training. In that process, the Board strives to uniformly deliver a consistent, fair, and equitable administration of its responsibilities.

The Ohio Board of Career Colleges is a governing -- or regulating -- board. The board was created by legislation and all of the rules that address this and the duties of the board are found in the Ohio Revised Code (ORC) Chapter 3332: Career Colleges and Schools.

The board is responsible for regulation and oversight of more than 290 schools in the state and to protect over 70,000 students with that oversight. I have concluded that the board is not doing the job of maintaining "viability through oversight of their programs and curricula" not to mention the business practices. They have also done a very sad job of protecting the investment of at least some of the students. Fraudulent and unscrupulous school operators and their representatives abound in at least five locations around the state at the campuses of Miami-Jacobs Career College.

If the board were overseeing the programs and curricula, then they would have known a long time ago that Miami-Jacobs was having problems with their Practical Nursing program. Indeed, the program has been under a Consent Agreement with the Ohio Board of Nursing since March of 2008, along with a Conditional Approval instead of the Full Approval it would have been granted if the program was up to par. We are not even mentioning the Respiratory Therapy or Surgical Tech program....

John Ware, Executive Director and employee, of the board was quite defensive of the program on March 26, 2010 after an article appeared in the Dayton Daily News reporting that the program was in jeopardy. Dave Larsen, staff writer, also reported that the Education Liaison had recommended withdrawing even Conditional Approval to the nursing board, effectively cancelling the program if the board agreed. It cannot operate without the Ohio Board of Nursing's approval.

Still, John Ware hinted that the article was not factual -- something I knew to be untrue since I had already gone to the Ohio Board of Nursing's website and read the recommendation for myself. I wonder if that was because over TWENTY months after the Consent Agreement was in place, the board, at the November 18, 2009 meeting, approved a Practical Nursing program for the Columbus Miami-Jacobs campus, effective for January 1, 2010?

Hello? Anybody home at the board? What were you thinking or were you just unaware of the problems with the nursing program? Whose responsibility is it to notify the board? Are there any sanctions for trying to get a program started at another school location when the ones you are already operating are sub-par? If no, why aren't there? It certainly makes the board appear to be foolish, at the very least.

What about protecting those students? Mr. Board Members and Mr. Ware, are you aware of how a sub-standard program affects the student's ability to benefit from that education? How is that "protecting the investment?"

I think that the Ohio Board of Career Colleges does not have much needed oversight themselves. Who is watching the Roosters who are overseeing the henhouses? I believe that because of the lack of oversight, that the board has gotten much too cozy with the hens, in this case, the schools that they are mandated to regulate.

The Ohio Board of Career College members are appointed by the governor("with the advice and consent of the senate"),according to the Ohio Revised Code(ORC)3332.0, for a term of five years, with the exception of two mandated members:

One member shall be either the Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents -- or a vice-Chancellor who is appointed by the Chancellor. THERE HAS NOT BEEN AN OBR REPRESENTATIVE FOR 2008, 2009 OR THE FIRST BOARD MEETING OF 2010.

One member will be the state superintendent of the Ohio Department of Education -- or an assistant superintendent who is appointed by the superintendent. This is Dr. Steven Puckett of the Ohio Board of Education. DR. PUCKETT HAS MISSED FOUR OUT OF THE LAST SIX BOARD MEETINGS.

Three of the members (called school representatives) are supposed to have at least five years in an "executive or managerial position" at a type of school (for-profit) that the board oversees. They have not missed any meetings.

Two members of the public who "shall be representatives of the general public and shall have had no affiliation with, or direct or indirect interest in, schools subject to this chapter for at least two years prior to appointment." DR. SEARFOSS, PUBLIC MEMBER AND CHAIRPERSON OF THE BOARD IS ALSO CHAIRMAN OF THE (Governing) BOARD AT DAVIS COLLEGE, A FOR-PROFIT COLLEGE IN TOLEDO.

One member, appointed by the governor, is supposed to be a former student who shall be a representative of students and shall have graduated with an associate or baccalaureate degree, within five years prior to appointment, from a school subject to this chapter. Unfortunately, this member DOES NOT have voting rights, which I think is totally wrong. Even more of a problem is that THERE HAS BEEN NO STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS!

The students of the state who are spending over $20,000 and more to get an education through career colleges deserve more than this. For two years in a row, the Board of Regent's seat is vacant and for at least five years in a row, the student seat is vacant? This is unacceptable.

So....who is guarding the hen house? That would NOT be Dr. Steven Puckett of the Ohio Department of Education, that other mandated seat. He missed FOUR out of SIX board meetings in 2009-2010. That leaves five members to make the decisions that affect over 70,000 Ohio students. Remember, three of these members have a vested interest in career colleges as they are affiliated in the administration of career colleges. Then of course, there are two public members, the minority, who "shall have no affiliation with....", these schools for at least two years.

But, wait! As you see above, this is really not the case. The Chairperson of the board, Dr. Kenneth Searfoss, is actually affiliated with a for-profit school! Dr. Searfoss is also the Chairman of the Board at Davis College in Toledo, a for-profit school. Folks, I think we need to ask the governor to request that this member, who is clearly NOT eligible, to resign his post.

That leaves one member, Dr. Jerome Brockway, superintendent of the Ashtabula County Joint Vocational School, a public school. So, we actually have only ONE disinterested member (who actually attends the meetings on a regular basis), who does not have something to gain by favorable legislation for career colleges. Remember, one of the jobs of the board is to make recommendations to the legislators about legislation. That legislation is actually supposed to protect the students, not the career colleges, by the way. Remember, folks, these board members are the regulators of the state for career colleges, a sector of higher education that is big business and puts the "PROFIT$" in for-profit schools.

So....Just whose responsibility is it to ensure that the board seats are filled so that the board has an equitable balance? Is it the governor's? While it is true that he appoints six members, how does that process work? Does the governor have time to research all his appointments? In a perfect world, maybe so, but we all know that the worlds of both politics and career colleges are definitely not perfect!

Since we had to have an answer to those questions, I called up Governor Strickland's office and asked Jared Port, Special Assistant of the Board and Commissions office. It appears to be a haphazard process at best.

I mentioned the Board of Regents seat that has gone vacant, as well as the student seat. First of all, like an idiot, I tried to find out what happens if the Chancellor doesn't do his job and protect the career college students of the state by having his own watchdog there. However, we know that rarely are government officials held accountable for not doing their jobs. I didn't get a clear answer....

I then asked Port how they find out what seats are vacant. Port said, "Well, for one, phone calls like these are helpful." Okay.....

I asked Port why the student vacancy on the Board of Career Colleges that has been left vacant for over five years, even though it was mandated by legislation. How does that get filled? Of course, the governor appoints the person for all these board positions, but he only does so because they have applied or have been recommended by others.

Port said that they had trouble filling it as no one seemed to want it. I replied that I had a hard time believing that out of the 70,000+ students who attend career colleges, that there was not a graduate of a career college out there somewhere who would not like to add that to his résumé. What were they doing to find one for a seat that has been vacant for five years? Port said that they asked the Ohio Association of Career Colleges (OACC) to help them find someone.

Huh? The OACC is not a state organization. Instead, it is a membership-based organization for the for-profit schools operating in Ohio. It is not a government agency!
The OACC, according to their website, "is the active voice of postsecondary career education colleges and schools of Ohio." They work "to keep legislators and regulators, both in Columbus and Washington, on our member schools unique ability to achieve successful results for Ohio’s students and employers."

This is an organization whose function is to promote career colleges -- period. In other words, this is another self-serving organization that exists to protect the members of the association. The members of the association are for-profit colleges, not students. OACCS lobbies legislators and regulators on issues that pertain to their members.

In keeping with that, David Rankin, president of OACCS, not only attends every board meeting, he also speaks at every board meeting, during the general session. I was very curious on what he had to talk about so I called up a representative of another agency, Terry Worsted of SAA, this one is governmental, who also speaks at most meetings. He told me that Rankin speaks of subjects that affect career colleges, like financial aid and legislation. Rankin is obviously lobbying for the colleges at every board meeting.

In fact, the OACCS is so tied up in the affairs of the board that the first page of their last newsletter posted on their internet website, www.ohiocareercolleges.org is mostly a report from John Ware, executive director of the Ohio Board of Career Colleges. Why the OACCS is apprised of the Board of Career Colleges budget over other agencies is beyond me -- unless the Ohio Board of Career Colleges is a little too buddy-buddy with a membership association of career colleges. Remember this agency, folks, because we are going to talk about them again. We have more, much more, to say.

Besides asking the OACCS for help, one way that board seats can be filled is by simply applying for one. Who knew? Port affirmed that this is correct. I, Connie Smith -- if I were currently a resident of the state of Ohio -- could actually apply personally for any vacancy on any board in the state. Surely, I would be eligible for at least one. At the Governor's website, under the Boards and Commissions page, there is an application that can be downloaded to apply for a position.

I actually have a former student in mind for the student vacancy. Since the seat is for a student who has already graduated, who would be more suited for it than one of the 7 students who are suing the school over lack of accreditation in the Surgical Tech program? We need to make changes to the laws concerning for-profit schools and no one has more insight to some of the problems that can occur at for-profit schools than those 7 students. I also suggest that one of the nursing students who spent $22,000 on a sub-standard education in Practical Nursing might be interested in applying as well.

The only way we can be truly effective to make the changes that are clearly needed is to have the ear of those who can make recommendations to the legislature so that we may be heard. By applying to become a student member of the Board, a former student who understands how a for-profit school can operate under the radar and have as many unsatisfied students as Miami-Jacobs does, can be of great benefit to the Ohio Board of Career Colleges -- who according to their 2008 annual report, thinks that 57 complaints out of 70,000 students is normal.

Though the student position is a non-voting one, a former dissatisfied Miami-Jacobs student could really make a difference for all future students in the state. Also, it will go a long way to off-set that sub-standard education that the student received at the school.

I hope that, in the future, we can lobby for the former student seat to become a full voting member. It is very condescending to think that an educated former graduate of a career school is not intelligent enough to make decisions along with the rest of the learned gentlemen on the board.

If you are interested in applying for the seat or want to make a recommendation for the seat or any other, go to the Board and Commissions page of the governor's website to print out an application: http://governor.ohio.gov/Default.aspx?tabid=61

While the ORC says that a public member cannot have any affiliation with a for-profit school for at least two years, I think that the law needs to be rewritten to say NEVER. There are plenty of retired people who are interested in education who would be qualified to sit on that board.

People, write your legislators over this. Again, this is the only regulatory board for career colleges in the state and it is part of the reason that these for-profit schools go unchecked. While it appears that Dr. Searfoss's background is exemplary, I think we all need to demand that he step down as the Chair of the Ohio Board of Career Colleges and resign his post. He is not a "Public" member! We need people in that position who looking out for the best interests of the over 70,000 students who attend for-profit colleges in the state of Ohio. Can those students possibly be served under these circumstances?

Miami-Jacobs Career College and Some Questionable Business Practices

Most people, except lawyers and paralegals do not just pick up statutes and administrative codes for light reading. However, anyone who should one do so would have little doubt that the intent of legislature is clear under Ohio Revised Code 3332, Career Colleges and Schools, that the Ohio legislature had every intention of protecting the student, their investment and the investment of the state and federal government's money in writing these laws.

Unfortunately, some for-profit colleges, also known as career colleges and technical or vocational schools continue to operate year after year with impunity -- meaning both the Ohio state and the federal legislature's job is far from over.

It is time for me to take off the gloves and get down and dirty in my quest to educate the public about the business practices of one such school: Miami-Jacobs Career College of Dayton, Ohio. I am publicly accusing the school of the following:

Misleading, deceptive, false and fraudulent information relating to a program.

According to the Ohio Revised Code, this charge is punishable by suspension or revocation of the school's certificate of registration. Here is the actual text in the ORC:

3332-1-04.5 Suspension or revocation of certificate of registration

(F)
Presenting to prospective students, either at the time of solicitation or enrollment, or through advertising , mail circulars, or phone solicitation, misleading, deceptive, false, or fraudulent information relating to any program.... employment opportunity, or opportunities for enrollment in accredited institutions of higher education after entering or completing
programs offered by the holder of a certificate of registration; Any agent’s permit issued may be suspended or revoked by the state board of career colleges and schools if the holder of the permit solicits or enrolls students through fraud, deception, or misrepresentation, upon a finding that the permit holder has violated any provision enumerated in division (A), (B), (F), (H), (J), (K), or (M) of section 3332.09 of the Revised Code, or upon finding that the permit
holder is not of good moral character....

After all, the futures of our young people are at stake here as more and more for-profit schools begin operating each year. Just ask a few weary, frustrated and disillusioned former (and current) students just whose interests are being served at this school, the students....or the administration’s -- and ultimately, the private equity group who owns the school and its 36 other “sister schools.”

Let us begin by reviewing this evidence copied and pasted directly from Miami-Jacob’s Accreditation/Approvals page of their best and, most likely, least expensive form of advertisement, their website:

The Ohio Board of Nursing granted the Practical Nursing program at Miami-Jacobs Career College Conditional Approval. Conditional Approval is the standard approval level for all new Nursing programs.

In fact, in the last year, they have put an overlay on the website so that a prospective student must fill out a short questionnaire, along with name, phone number and email address to enter the site. By doing this, you have given permission for the school to contact you, circumventing the National Do Not Call Registry. This tactic is well used in the for-profit sector of colleges on many sites.

This is what the Registry says in this regard:

An established business relationship with a company also will be created if you make an inquiry to the company, or submit an application to it. This kind of established business relationship exists for three months after the inquiry or application. During this time, the company can call
you.

There is no mention here of how old you have to be to establish this business relationship, but I am going to assume that if a student is under 18, they must have parental consent to establish a business relationship that countermands the Do Not Call List request by the parent. Unfortunately, there is no disclaimer stating that.

A visitor to the school's website must answer a short survey that includes a name, phone number and email address requirement to enter the website. There is a disclaimer that says they will not share the information with anyone else and will only use it to "follow-up and track visitors" to their website.

If the whole website weren't so blatantly promoting the school, like all the other forms of advertising they use, the fact that they try to gather information to create a prospect database, shows that the website is for advertisement.

Having established that there is some evidence that the website is a form of advertisement, then according to ORC 3332.1-04.5, that website should be truthful and no segment or web page should be written in a way that could be considered deceptive or fraudulent.

While the above statement is truthful that the Nursing board granted Conditional Approval to the Miami-Jacob's PN program and it is also truthful that Conditional Approval is the standard level of approval for new programs, I charge that this statement is deceptive and fraudulent.

That is because Miami-Jacob’s Practical Nursing program is not new and was under Conditional Approval only due to deficiencies in the program. If the program was operating up to par, it would currently hold a Full Approval with the Ohio Board of Nursing. In addition, the program was one of only 7 in the whole state that was also under a Consent Agreement with the board due to long term deficiencies. In fact, the program is so bad that the Education Liaison with the Ohio Board of Nursing has recommended that the program be discontinued. That is not a daily occurrence with the Nursing board.

It certainly appears then that those two sentences were meant to deceive anyone who checked the accreditation page for the Practical Nursing program. That, folks is the definition for fraud. The school deceived prospective students into continuing to enroll in what the school knew to be a sub-par program that was under grave restrictions with the only agency that is eligible to approve the program and license Practical Nurses in the state of Ohio.

How despicable! This school has no moral or ethical bounds when it comes to the almighty tuition dollars flowing through its coffers on its way to Gryphon Investors. The school also never gave any thought to how employers might look upon graduates of a program so bad that it is cancelled by the board at a time when the whole world knows we need more nurses, not less of them.

Not one of the Practical Nursing students were told at the time of enrollment that the school's program was in jeopardy. Now, if the program is actually denied by the Ohio Board of Nursing, the only students who will be able to sit for the test and become Licensed Practical Nurses will be those who have completed the program by the time that the appeals process has been completed and the board schedules the matter for a meeting.

According to Lisa Emrich, MSN RN, of the Ohio Board of Nursing, the absolute soonest that an order withdrawing Conditional Approval could be ordered would be at the September 2010 board meeting. Anyone completing the program before that time (or later, if applicable) would be allowed to sit for the board.

Unfortunately, any student who has not completed the program would be out of luck as far as continuing on with the program, using any of the classes already taken and passed at Miami-Jacobs. The problem is, and has been, that until a program course has been totally completed, these credits do not transfer from one for-profit school to another.
In order to get your money back, you will most likely have to sue. Good luck there, since you signed an arbitration agreement with the school....

I brought all this up in a phone conversation with John Ware, the Executive Director of the Ohio Board of Career Colleges. According to Ware, IF the Ohio Board of Nursing should fail to allow the program to continue (and he doesn’t think that will happen, he says ), his offices would help the students (as it has done before, according to him) to get the loans of the students discharged. I have not been able to confirm this as yet, as this is totally contrary to current federal law, as explained in The Common Manual, the go-to guide for information on the FFELP(Federal Family of Education Loans program).

According to The Common Manual, and this sounds crazy, but here it is in black and white, straight from the source:

13.8.B Closed School

If a borrower (or a student for whom a parent obtained a PLUS loan) is unable to complete his or her program of study due to the closing of a school, the borrower may qualify to have his or her applicable loans discharged. A borrower is eligible for loan discharge of all or part of his or her
Consolidation loan for the amount of the closed school loan discharge that would have been applicable to the borrower’s underlying loan(s). A borrower is not eligible for loan discharge if the student’s program of study was terminated by the school, but the school did not close at that time. An entire school or location must close for a borrower to be eligible for loan discharge.

It would certainly seem like Mr. Ware should know what he was talking about and that I would not question the source at all. However, I spoke to Ware for over an hour and, frankly, I was not impressed. His return phone call was accompanied by a bored, ho-hum attitude about having to return it that I said, "Boy, you're enthusiastic today, aren't you?"

I was really surprised by his attitude from the beginning. During the conversation, I also kept having to ask him why he was being so argumentative with me. I had to remind him that the Ohio Board of Career Colleges and Schools is a regulatory board to protect the students of the state and not meant as a brochure to promote career colleges in the state of Ohio.

He, in fact, was not impressed by Dave Larsen’s piece in the March 26, 2010 edition of the Dayton Daily News about Miami-Jacob’s nursing program and inferred that most of it was not true within 3 or 4 minutes of the beginning of our conversation. That did not sit well with me at all as I have not only read the Ohio Board of Nursing recommendation, I have also read the Consent Agreement under which the school is currently operating. I knew that the article was factual.

I also know, as I have been doing research on this school since March 12, 2009, a lot more information that was NOT in the article that Mr. Ware cited: intimidation tactics that the school uses to keep the students from making complaints to the board, intimidation tactics that Ms. Mitchell uses to keep intelligent people away from the school. I was accused of violating the “Student Code of Conduct,” though I, a 50 year old parent am not a student and was asked not to return to the campus. Gevena Milbrey, 57, is a student who was terminated over false allegations and then “reinstated” by Ms. Mitchell, after retaining an attorney. We also have phony clinicals, fabrication of evidence, shoddy teaching, shoddy training, and much, much more. n We will go into further details over various aspects of this all in future articles.

So....why is Mr. Ware so defensive over career colleges in the state? According to him, he has never worked at a career college and has been with the board for over 13 years. Has it been too long? Have the staff members of the board gotten too buddy-buddy with the “guests” at the board meetings?

While there are more than 280 schools in the state, there are usually about thirty “guests” at the board meetings. At least for the last six meetings that there are minutes posted for at the website, there is always a representative from Miami-Jacobs. Usually both Joannie Krein and Darlene Waite, the college president show up. Waite only missed one board meeting last year.

I am going even further with my accusations and accusing the Ohio Board of Career Colleges and Schools, in particular, John Ware, of dereliction of duty to the state of Ohio, the Governor’s office and, most importantly, the 70,000 plus students who attend for-profit colleges in the state of Ohio.

During the conversation with Ware, I was sickened by his attitude toward the nursing students and the nursing program at Miami-Jacobs. He kept saying that I was basing things on “what ifs.” That is because I asked him what the type of sanctions the Ohio Board would make to Miami-Jacobs. I asked him all these questions and more: “Was the board aware that the nursing program was on a Consent Agreement? Was the board aware that students were being enrolled without disclosing the fact that the program was in jeopardy? Was that even legal? Why wasn’t the board doing more to protect the students in these cases? What would happen to the students who had not completed the program? What about the time and trouble these students have gone through to just not graduate? How was the board protecting the student with that attitude? What about the ramifications of future employment with a known sub-par program? Was he a pal of Miami-Jacob president, Darlene Waite’s? Have they lunched? Attended the same social functions?"(No to the last two questions)”

Disgustingly, he was very blasé about the fact that the students might not get their degrees. They could transfer to other schools, he said. I asked him, “Are you telling me you are not aware that these credits do not transfer, Mr. Ware?” That was when he started telling me that the board would help them get their tuition back....I believe Mr. Ware was again confusing the issue. If the Practical Nursing program closes, the students are on their own....if the whole school closes, the students have access to the Ohio Student Tuition Recovery Fund.

Mr. Ware and his cronies at the Ohio Board of Career Colleges are not doing their jobs, folks. You can swear me in before the state legislature and I will attest to it. I have more on this and will report on it in a future article.

It is up to a court of law to prove the criminality of these allegations that I make toward the school. Unfortunately, there is no court of law currently taking Miami-Jacobs Career College to task over violations of any state or federal law. (The first sign of evidence that the members of the Ohio Board of Career Colleges are not doing their jobs.)

That is why I chose to conduct my campaign in the court of public opinion and am not afraid to do so. Do you think that the school should have been required to disclose to enrolling students that its nursing program was in jeopardy? Do you think that the board should take a greater role in regulating these schools? Stay tuned for part two of this article before you decide.

In spite of my accusations toward the board, I urge you all to file any and all complaints that you have about Miami-Jacobs to the Ohio Board of Career Colleges. The school has a pattern and a history of student abuse, intimidation, shoddy programs and more. There are plenty of people stepping up all of a sudden and telling me their stories. I've had three phone calls in the past three days. If you have a story, call me at 727-638-2178. Let us all work together to force the board to do its job. It is past the time for the board to have its eyes opened about this school and others like it.

Miami-Jacobs Career College -- Just What Is It That They Are Trying To Hide?

This ain’t grandma’s typing school anymore, folks. Miami-Jacobs Career College, located in downtown Dayton, Ohio, stands cloaked in the respectability of a college that has been operating since 1860. When you enter the hallowed halls of the building that they have currently been occupying since 2002, you will see several giant pictures on the wall of students in class in the early days of the last century. After learning some secretarial skills, they went off to have successful careers at such notable places as NCR, Frigidaire, General Motors and others. There is a distinct possibility that grandma, grandpa or Great Aunt Edna -- someone that you know -- successfully attended The Miami- Jacobs Business College of that era.

This history is played up using the pictures, a written version of their history on their website and trotted out by Darlene Waite, current Miami-Jacobs president since December 2000, to the newspapers whenever necessary to give credence to their claims of a long and continued existence. However, according to an article from the Dayton Daily Newspaper, dated December 17, 2003, this particular school was sold to a private for-profit company on December 2 of that year. “Other schools in the chain have grown significantly. . .” Waite was quoted as saying at the time, while declining to identify the buyer.

The Miami-Jacobs Business College Company has remained undisturbed as a corporation, according to public records, since the first filing shown for the company on November 2, 1904. On the school’s website, there is no mention in the history of the school about being sold to another corporation, unlike a similar for-profit school that has been around Dayton since the 1950’s -- RETS Tech Center -- who also lists the name of the company that bought them in 2005. At the Miami-Jacobs website, there is no list of executives, board of directors or trustees. There is only Darlene Waite, president.


In fact, they’ve gone so far to remain anonymous, that the same Charles Campbell whose family had owned The Miami-Jacobs Business College Company for nearly 100 years at that time, continued on as the Domestic Agent designee for corporate filings with the Ohio Secretary of State’s office until January 4, 2008, over five years later. When Darlene Waite became the designated agent, her appointment, as required by law, was signed by authorized representative Kevin A. Smith, CFO, but doesn’t say what he is the CFO of.

What are they trying to hide? I asked Marcia Byrd, Financial Aid Director of Miami-Jacobs, how many locations the school has. She said she didn‘t know. When I questioned how she could not know, she then informed me that, in addition to the 5 other Miami- Jacob locations, they have “sister associations.” She could not tell me how many. It is clear that even the employees know little about the operation -- or they are not telling. I asked her for an organizational chart for both companies but never received them. I had to find out that information for myself.

I don’t have access to property records going back as far as 1860, but I can tell you that Miami-Jacobs is leasing their current location. In other words, even though they are a 149 year old institution in this town, they are not investing in it.

Why does all this matter to us? We are pouring our state and federal tax dollars into a private for-profit company that has taken great steps to remain anonymous, or at the very least, Miami-Jacobs has taken great steps to hide them. Why? And why should we care?

Whether you are a concerned parent or frustrated taxpayer, according to data obtained from ed.gov, the official Department of Education website, 100% of Miami-Jacobs students receive federal student loans, 91% receive federal grants and 81% receive state grants. The tuition for the 2008-2009 academic year is $11,590. Per Student.

Ed.gov reports 811 students attending the main campus of Miami-Jacobs. According to press releases, the Troy and Springboro locations have a student capacity of 400 each, and there are 3 more locations: Cincinnati, Columbus and Akron.

With specialized training, very few, if any credits transfer to other schools, even other trade schools with the same program. For example, Rets Tech Center reports that a maximum of 16 credits may be transferred to their school, and strict criteria must be met. A “retention rate” is calculated by how many enrolling freshman come back the following year to continue their education. Miami-Jacobs retention rate is currently 57%.

Still, 100 % of Miami-Jacobs students at the main campus receive federal loans that do have to be paid back. If the students do not come back and get their degrees for whatever reason, even though the credits go away, I can assure you the loans do not. According to ed.gov, the average loan for a student at Miami-Jacobs for the school year 2006-2007 is $4,008.

With only a 33% graduation rate at Miami-Jacobs and a loan default rate that at 21.9% is well over 3 times the national average of 6.9%, according to the school’s statistics at the Ed.gov website. We are not getting much for our investment and neither are the students.

Consider this, early last year Miami-Jacobs was in the news due to two different programs that it offers. The nursing program was in trouble after a review in September 2007 by the Ohio Board of Nursing ended with the program placed on a conditional approval due to inadequate “clinicals” in the proper range of health care settings. The program was also accused of “consistently” lacking to provide a qualified administrator for the program. That program has been fixed, according to later articles from the Dayton Daily News and a new administrator was put in place. A new review was supposed to take place in March of 2009, but the web site is still showing a conditional approval as the date of this post.

Additionally, 7 former students from the surgical technology program sued the school last year alleging that the program wasn’t properly accredited. Due to the enrollment agreement that contains an arbitration clause, they were forced to take the case to arbitration instead of the court system. According to Jane Peach, attorney for the students, that case is still pending a year later. Unfortunately for the students, the low level publicity that most arbitration cases receive has kept that case out of the news. The last newspaper coverage was a letter to the editor of the Dayton Daily News from Darlene Waite on June 12, 2008 defending the school and, again, trotting out its sterling 148 year history.

None the less, in light of Miami-Jacobs heavy reliance on government aid for its students and their poor record of educating them, it is time for the school to quit hiding behind its past and look to the future of its students. This is not a 149 year old school; it is a 5 year old school. It is not still owned by a century’s worth of Harbottles and Campbells.

It is, in fact, owned by a company called Delta Career Education Corporation that is owned by a $700 million dollar private equity company called Gryphon Investors, who bought it from the original purchaser, Huron Capital Partners LLC. Getting dizzy yet? To be fair, it is true that Huron Capital put out a press release when they bought Miami-Jacobs, as did Gryphon Investors, but I don’t think we got the memo.

According to Gryphon Investors website, Delta Career Education Corporation is “one of the leading privately held education providers in the U.S.” All of the schools are similar to Miami-Jacobs in that they all offer vocational education and provide certificates, diplomas and degrees to their students -- and offer federal financial aid to their students. With Miami-Jacobs and its 5 other locations, they have 30 campuses in 12 different states and 12,000 students to go along with them. They operate under “strong regional brand names, some with over 100+ years of history,” according to Gryphon's website.

These schools include Miller-Mott Technical School, founded in 1916 by Judge Leon Mott in Wilmington, North Carolina. They now have 9 locations. Lamson College was founded in 1889 by Colonel Edwin M. Lamson in a house in Phoenix, Arizona and is the oldest private college in the state. They now have 2 locations. The McCann School of Business was founded in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania in 1897, 112 years ago. Some of the schools admit to being owned by Delta, but none say that they are being held (up?) by a $700 million dollar private equity firm.

No, I wasn’t kidding about the big bucks those federal loans and grants bring in. When Huron Capital sold Delta Educational Systems to Gryphon Investors, it was sold for 11.1 times what Huron had originally paid for it all: $120 million -- just 2 short years after bringing Miami Jacobs into the fold. These companies have been very aggressive in expanding Miami-Jacobs since they bought it. Miami-Jacobs has added 5 new locations in as many years.

I am not against capitalism nor am I against specialized training. In fact, I am a big proponent of vocational education. Many students thrive in a hands-on learning environment who fail in a traditional class room setting. What I am against is making that money on the backs of our young people while leaving many of them without an education, but with a boatload of debt in the form of student loans. To be fair, not all the schools under the Delta umbrella have the same sorry graduation rates. McCann’s in Pottsville, Pennsylvania has an 87% rate. The Miller-Mott campus in Wilmington, North Carolina has a 49% graduation rate.

But where is the government oversight? Can it possibly be legal for a school like Miami-Jacobs who receives so much government money in the form of student financial aid, both state and federal, to “decline to name their buyer?” In any case, I don’t understand why that article on the sale didn’t raise a red flag for a reader, or possibly even the newspaper itself, to do a bit more investigating.

For instance, Huron Capital Partners LLC, Miami-Jacob’s original buyer, hasn’t gotten out of the education business. Huron still owns Ross Education LLC, a postsecondary career school company that has 14 locations, including 2 in Ohio. Joseph Kennedy, the current CEO of Delta, who owns Miami-Jacobs, is a member of the Board of Directors for Ross Education LLC. He is also listed as an “Executive Partner” of Huron Capital, even though his company is now owned by Gryphon Investors. Huron Capital also lists as a “Select Limited Partner” National City Bank, among other financial institutions, who is a purveyor of federal student loans for the government. As the old saying goes, it sounds like they are all in bed together. Shouldn’t we all have a right to know that?

Due to a federal loan default by my daughter because of false information received by the financial aid office at Miami-Jacobs, we turned to Congressman Michael Turner’s office for help. During a phone conversation with an employee of his local office who deals with constituent education problems, I mentioned the ownership of Miami-Jacobs. I asked this very question: Why don’t we have government oversight of these private companies that own these for-profit colleges and receive all these government dollars? Her answer? “Don’t you think that we have government oversight?” Well, frankly, no . . . . no, I don’t. At least, not nearly enough, if an institution like Miami-Jacobs can mislead the public for so many years about who they are.

There seems to be something intrinsically wrong when our tax dollars, in the form of federal and state financial aid, goes unchecked into the bank accounts of the super rich. This is happening on the backs of some of our most vulnerable citizens: students fresh out of high school. Many of these students are poor and Miami-Jacobs represents a way out. Many, if not most, of these students begin Miami-Jacobs with little or no credit history, not a bad credit history. Thousands of dollars later, they leave, but do they leave armed with an education? Not many of them. Remember, the school only has a 33% graduation rate.