/PG/ Washington, D.C. (Signal High) [Digest/Credit: Lesley Fair] —– The Federal Trade Commission has determined that placement rates and employment partnership claims with “big-name business” made by Sollers College are false, deceptive and unsubstantiated. It has ordered that millions in tuitions be refunded to students.
Complaints allege that Sollers Education, a.k.a. Sollers College, lured prospective students with inflated job placement rates and misleading representations about employment partnerships with big-name business. It is further alleged that Sollers encouraged some students to pay their tuition by giving Sollers a cut of their future earnings, what they call “income share agreements,” in violation of the Holder Rule.
Sollers College is a for-profit, post-secondary institution that offers online and in-person courses at its New Jersey campus. Tuition ranges from $4,000 to $27,000 for short-term programs and certificates in information technology, life sciences and others. Some of Sollers’ advertising claims “90% of our students are placed within 3 months of graduation […] We record an 82% placement rate within three months of graduation […] a near perfect” placement rate. Sollers claimed to have partnerships with leading companies like Pfizer, Weill Cornell Medicine and Infosys.
The FTC gives Sollers a failing grade, alleging that Sollers “. The FTC alleges that “Defendants “inflate the number of students they claim to ‘place’ by including anyone who does not communicate with Sollers after graduating.” In fact, Sollers’ own data suggest that the current job placement rate for its Life Sciences graduates is as low as 52%.
According to the FTC, many of those businesses “have no partnership with the school whatsoever, much less one that results in Sollers graduates getting jobs at those companies.” For example, in May 2022, Weill Cornell Medicine sent Sollers a cease-and-desist letter demanding the removal of its name and logo from the site because the claim it was an “employer partner” or “corporate partner” was “false and misleading.” Staffing company Aerotek sent a similar letter demanding that Sollers remove its name and logo.
According to the FTC, Sollers encouraged some students to enter into “income share agreements” whereby require students cover the cost of tuition by paying the school a share of their future income, as much as 10%-20% for two years. These agreements turned the cost of tuition into a debt obligation. In some cases, graduates found themselves paying as long as six years, the penalty for failure to pay was generally around $45,000 plus fees and collection costs. Furthermore, Sollers failed to include mandatory consumer protection notices about how the students could assert claims and defences about Sollers’ misconduct.
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