

Jobless IT graduate sues her college - gaius
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8180806.stm

======
jacquesm
So that college forced her to choose this education ?

I'm sure she would have shared her income with them as well if she did find a
job, after all they are responsible and should get a cut of the benefits as
well as the blame for the risks.

Choosing your education is your own responsibility and if you choose a path
for which there are not enough jobs in the area where you graduate you can do
a whole bunch of things:

\- learn something new

\- take a job that may pay less and does not match your education

\- move to a place where work is available

If the college can not follow up on its promises made in better times because
the economy has tanked in the intermediate period then you have plenty of
options, suing them does not seem to be the most productive way of going
forward.

It's the one way in which you probably can just about guarantee that any
employer that has heard about this is _NEVER_ going to hire you. They'll
already know you have a history of frivolously suing parties that you have a
relationship with, it would't take a lot of imagination to think that you
could be suing your would be employers next.

~~~
wglb
Although with some colleges, the advertisements imply strongly that you will
get a job with their degree. Don't know in this particular case.

~~~
jacquesm
That's true, but caveat emptor still applies. Common sense will tell you that
they are not in a position to make such a promise unless they can show you the
paperwork on a deal with the name of a third party that is willing to hire you
provided you pass their program _up front_.

Anything less than that and you know for sure that there is no such thing as a
guaranteed job, especially not in a marketplace that is as variable as the IT
market is.

------
TomOfTTB
Part of me wants to blame the society we're creating with all these bail outs.
I want to say we've created a culture where people have gone to the complete
opposite of self reliance to the point where they simply can't accept their
circumstance in life might be their own fault

But honestly, when I put that logic up to scrutiny I have to think it's an
over reaction. When society thinks this woman is justified then we have a
problem but right now I think it's an issue of not reading too much into the
actions of an idiot. Anyone who is straight out of college in the current
economy and thinks they are entitled to a job is just being foolish.

------
trevelyan
This could be a legitimate lawsuit. There's not enough information in the
article to know what promises the school made to students and if it delivered
on them.

~~~
jsares
All schools promise job placement assistance and in general it's very poor.
The real issue is they can't put you in a job that doesn't exist.

------
ArturSoler
If she does not find a job, maybe it's her fault, not the college's.

She was not forced to go to that college, and she should had done some
research about the institution before enrolling, if it happens to be so bad as
she claims (that should be confirmed looking at other students).

------
callahad
My snarkier side wants this to be tit-for-tat. If she believes her degree is
worthless and is seeking reimbursement for tuition, should she also be allowed
to retain her diploma?

~~~
dkersten
Then she should not only get her money back, but be compensated for lost time
too.

------
edw519
If she's finding someone else to blame before she even gets a job, imagine how
quickly she'll find someone else to blame as soon as something goes wrong on
the job. Maybe it's just as well. I don't know if I want to work with someone
like that.

One way an IT job is like real life is that you need to find a way to solve
your problems. Her solution won't work. Not much of a problem solver, huh?

~~~
jacquesm
It's the entitlement problem. If you don't get what you think you have a right
to in life sue someone.

------
clistctrl
Her lawsuit may not be legitimate, (I have little idea what Monroe college is
and who owns it.) but if it is a for-profit college, then I for one enjoy
seeing SOMEONE bring some kind of lawsuit upon one of these schools. Their
business is unethical, their priority is profit not education. When i was born
my father started putting money away in tax-free Mutual Funds. With some help
of the 90's boom, I had a nice college fund. My father went to Vietnam instead
of college, and my mother... well she's a nice lady. So when i graduated my
only encouragement from them was to go to college, they had no advice to give
me as it was new territory for them. Being a young naive geek I saw the
commercials for going to school for game development, and I knew that was the
greatest thing ever. My parents knew I was going to school, and that was all
they cared about. Fast forward a year of drama, and I was starting an
internship for Activision. While there, I quickly realized game companies have
no interest in hiring people from these programs for anything other then
testing positions. Admittedly with good reason, I remember having one good
professor, and about four pretty shady professors. The decisions made at these
places are profit driven. Even the accreditation is a facade. The
accreditation is from another child company owned by the same corporation that
owns the school. After the internship, I started looking for jobs at a help
desk. I managed to land one pretty quickly, as I had some pretty good
experience working at a cable station when I was in high school. What
surprised me was I was now working full time with fellow graduates from my
school! This was enough to completely convince me to quit the program
altogether, and start looking around. The thing about an 18 year old making
40k is he doesn't understand just how little that is (even in Minnesota) after
a few months I gave up the search, and started searching for a better job
instead. At this point in time companies didn't care what kind of experience
you had, I taught myself to program when I was twelve, and I taught myself C#
since I was working nights at the help desk (and had lots of free time) It
took about a month before I found a position working in a development lab for
a fortune 500 company. When I started I was building servers, and before I
left I was writing software to build servers. The experience I gained, and the
technologies I worked with opened the door of possibilities wide open. I also
got a significant pay raise twice. After a year and a half (thats two years
since I left school) I had this vision of people my age graduating in 2 more
years, then in another 3 or 4 years getting my level of experience. It might
take 5 years but soon, I won't be the hotshot that I thought I was. So I
decided to go back to school, this time I chose a Community College since it
worked well with my full time schedule and was inexpensive, which was
important since I was paying for it all myself (did i mention that a year at
the for-profit school ate ALL my college money that my dad spent 18 years
saving) The difference between the two schools was night and day. What value!
my professors were truly professional, and knowledgeable on their subjects.
The students were not hood rats, and did not interfere with classes. They
spoke proper English, and had actual goals. Unfortunatley I decided to move
from Minnesota to Boston after two Semesters because I was offered a great job
(and the environment at the fortune 500 was getting extremely depressing) I'm
happy here, I make 70k now which makes my father very happy but It's not the
best I can do. My friends from school graduated about 8 months ago, and the
last I talked to them not a single one has a job which doesn't matter to the
school since it has made at least 700k from their tuition not including the
800k from the students in the class when i first started

~~~
callahad
[Reposting for clear formatting. This post is worth reading. For reference to
the original poster, don't try to indent your paragraphs, it makes Hacker News
think you're trying to post a code snippet.]

Her lawsuit may not be legitimate, (I have little idea what Monroe college is
and who owns it.) but if it is a for-profit college, then I for one enjoy
seeing SOMEONE bring some kind of lawsuit upon one of these schools. Their
business is unethical, their priority is profit not education.

When i was born my father started putting money away in tax-free Mutual Funds.
With some help of the 90's boom, I had a nice college fund. My father went to
Vietnam instead of college, and my mother... well she's a nice lady. So when i
graduated my only encouragement from them was to go to college, they had no
advice to give me as it was new territory for them. Being a young naive geek I
saw the commercials for going to school for game development, and I knew that
was the greatest thing ever. My parents knew I was going to school, and that
was all they cared about. Fast forward a year of drama, and I was starting an
internship for Activision. While there, I quickly realized game companies have
no interest in hiring people from these programs for anything other then
testing positions. Admittedly with good reason, I remember having one good
professor, and about four pretty shady professors. The decisions made at these
places are profit driven. Even the accreditation is a facade. The
accreditation is from another child company owned by the same corporation that
owns the school. After the internship, I started looking for jobs at a help
desk. I managed to land one pretty quickly, as I had some pretty good
experience working at a cable station when I was in high school. What
surprised me was I was now working full time with fellow graduates from my
school! This was enough to completely convince me to quit the program
altogether, and start looking around. The thing about an 18 year old making
40k is he doesn't understand just how little that is (even in Minnesota) after
a few months I gave up the search, and started searching for a better job
instead. At this point in time companies didn't care what kind of experience
you had, I taught myself to program when I was twelve, and I taught myself C#
since I was working nights at the help desk (and had lots of free time) It
took about a month before I found a position working in a development lab for
a fortune 500 company. When I started I was building servers, and before I
left I was writing software to build servers. The experience I gained, and the
technologies I worked with opened the door of possibilities wide open. I also
got a significant pay raise twice. After a year and a half (thats two years
since I left school) I had this vision of people my age graduating in 2 more
years, then in another 3 or 4 years getting my level of experience. It might
take 5 years but soon, I won't be the hotshot that I thought I was. So I
decided to go back to school, this time I chose a Community College since it
worked well with my full time schedule and was inexpensive, which was
important since I was paying for it all myself (did i mention that a year at
the for-profit school ate ALL my college money that my dad spent 18 years
saving) The difference between the two schools was night and day. What value!
my professors were truly professional, and knowledgeable on their subjects.
The students were not hood rats, and did not interfere with classes. They
spoke proper English, and had actual goals. Unfortunatley I decided to move
from Minnesota to Boston after two Semesters because I was offered a great job
(and the environment at the fortune 500 was getting extremely depressing) I'm
happy here, I make 70k now which makes my father very happy but It's not the
best I can do. My friends from school graduated about 8 months ago, and the
last I talked to them not a single one has a job which doesn't matter to the
school since it has made at least 700k from their tuition not including the
800k from the students in the class when i first started

~~~
pavel_lishin
One paragraph break does not a reformatting make.

~~~
callahad
When it was originally posted it was two paragraphs, but with leading spaces
that set it as two really long pre-formatted lines. My "reformat" was just to
de-pre it.

------
blacktastic
Tuition costs to join the middle-class are so high that most kids today end up
in a form of indentured servitude in order to pay off the loans. I don't
support the notion that universities and colleges are responsible for finding
anyone a job, but the price these kids pay should be investigated.

I have my doubts as to whether the current loans for tuition model is
sustainable.

