The Huffington Post Thinks That the Washington Post Has a Federal False Claims Act Problem
Chris Kirkham:
At Kaplan University, 'Guerilla Registration' Leaves Students Deep In Debt: Arlen Castillo had just begun an online associate's degree program at Kaplan University when a family emergency forced a change of plans. Her mother in Florida learned she needed extensive surgery that entailed months of recuperation. Only two weeks into her first term, Castillo promptly withdrew to lend her mother support.
As Castillo recalls, a Kaplan academic advisor told her she could simply fill out a withdrawal form and incur no additional expenses beyond the registration fees she had already paid. But a year and a half later, in 2006, collections agents began hounding her, she says, demanding that she pay some $10,000 in supposedly overdue tuition charges. Despite having attended only two online sessions, Castillo had remained officially enrolled at Kaplan for nearly a year after her withdrawal.
Far from an aberration, Castillo's experience typifies the results of a practice known informally inside Kaplan as "guerilla registration": academic advisors have long enrolled students in classes they never take, without their consent.... Managers at Kaplan--the highly profitable educational arm of the Washington Post Co.-- have for years pressured academic advisors to use this method to boost enrollment numbers, the former employees said, offering accounts consistent with dozens of complaints filed by former students with the Florida Attorney General's Office and reviewed by The Huffington Post. Guerilla registration has been part of a concerted effort by the university to keep students enrolled as long as possible in order to harvest more of the federal financial aid dollars that make up nearly all of the company's higher education revenues, according to former Kaplan academic advisor Sheldon Cobbler, who described the practice in detail.
Most advisors had access to a company database that allowed them to view students' e-mail correspondence without their knowledge, said Cobbler, who worked at Kaplan's Fort Lauderdale, Fla., corporate office from 2007 through July of this year. The advisors routinely searched through students' e-mails to look up their user names and passwords for Kaplan's enrollment system, and then they used that information to sign in using multiple student identities, enrolling them in classes they never intended to join, he said. "The company didn't want students to withdraw," Cobbler said. "They wanted them to stay in class by any means." Kaplan denied claims that it has engaged in so-called guerilla registration, branding as "false" and a "complete mischaracterization" allegations that it has signed students up for classes without their knowledge. "No one in this company has ever been asked, advised or permitted to be an impostor in terms of e-mail messages or student accounts," said Kaplan spokesman Mark Harrad. "That's just not acceptable."
Kaplan declined requests for interviews with senior company executives...
