Baltimore School Admits to Deceiving Students, Falsifying Documents: Attorney General

By JOE LIPOVICH (Patch Staff)

BALTIMORE, MD — American Career Institute (ACI), a for-profit school that had a campus in south Baltimore, has admitted to lying to students and falsifying documents, according to Attorney General Maura Healy.

Healy announced this week that the school, which abruptly closed in 2013, admitted to lying to its students, employing unqualified teachers as well other fraudulent practices. This comes on the heels of the Attorney General's 2013 suing of ACI for engaging in deceptive schemes.

“Our office has achieved an unprecedented result against a predatory for-profit school that we hope will yield long-overdue relief for thousands of ACI students in Massachusetts,” Healey said in a statement released Monday. “We look forward to working with the U.S. Department of Education to secure immediate loan forgiveness for those affected and will continue to pursue institutions who engage in this illegal and unfair conduct.”

The release states that ACI acknowledged illegal conduct including "knowingly overstating the employment prospects for its graduates; falsifying student signatures, enrollment records, attendance, and grades; and using unlicensed instructors, inadequate books and instructional materials, valueless externships and providing no meaningful career placement services."

According to Healy's release, the Attorney General's office will use these admitted violations to urge the U.S. Department of Education to cancel federal loans that students took out.

The school offered various certificate programs with tuition and fees that cost up to $23,000. ACI collected more than $30 million in federal student loan money, equaling 89 percent of the school's total revenue, according to the Attorney General's Office.

ACI had three Maryland campuses—in Columbia, Baltimore, and Wheaton. The Baltimore location was in the 100 block of West Ostend Street. The company also operated career training schools in Braintree, Cambridge, Framingham, Springfield and Woburn, Mass.

The attorney general's office stated that ACI engaged in the following activities to maintain accreditation:

• Falsified records in order to meet the student grade and attendance requirements
• Signed student signatures on various records without the students’ knowledge or permission, including enrollment agreements
• Misrepresented graduation and job placement rates and pressured students to enroll with false promises and by creating a false sense of urgency
• Told some prospective students that employment was “guaranteed”
• Unlawfully enrolled and collected tuition from students who did not meet minimum education requirements and did not qualify for federal student loans
• Falsified documents used to track job placements, representing that students worked at companies that did not exist or that never hired an ACI graduate.

The Attorney General's office stated that more than 4,400 former students may be eligible for loan relief. The judgment against ACI calls for more than $25 million in civil penalties, fees, restitution and injunctive relief, "with the amounts largely uncollectible and suspended as a result of the school's insolvency," according to the release.

Photo Credit: Morguefile.