Friday, July 13, 2012

Academy of Art financial aid fraud alleged

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
Four former recruiters for the Academy of Art University in San Francisco are accusing the private art school of defrauding the government out of millions of dollars in financial aid by using illegal tactics to get students to apply.

Suing in federal court, the ex-employees say the art school used an illegal compensation scheme - adjusting their pay up or down based on how many students they registered and dangling trips to Hawaii as an incentive - then lied to the government about it to collect millions of dollars a year in financial aid.

The school says it did nothing wrong and that its compensation method was allowable under a legal loophole.

The government outlaws "incentive compensation" to discourage schools from enticing unqualified applicants or those who can't afford their student loans.
The greed in higher education.