AG: Salter to pay students $3.75 million
Salter School, which has a campus in West Boylston, will pay students in health-related programs $3.75 million to resolve allegations of misrepresenting job placement numbers and using deceptive enrollment tactics, Attorney General Martha Coakley announced Friday.
A total of $3.5 million will be used to pay down student federal loans, and the private school will provide nearly $250,000 in private loan relief and associated payments, a statement from the AG’s office said. That money will be distributed as relief for about 600 students at specific Salter College and The Salter School campuses in Massachusetts, the statement said.
“We allege this for-profit school used misleading recruitment tactics in order to obtain tuition payments and fees from students looking to further their education,” the AG’s statement said.
The consent judgment against Salter College and its owner and operator Premier Education Group requires the defendants to make appropriate disclosures on their website, advertisements, and pre-enrollment materials, and provide services to students seeking jobs in their field of study.
The AG’s investigation involved alleged deceptive practices at Salter College’s West Boylston campus, and The Salter School locations in Fall River and New Bedford.
The AG’s complaint alleges that in order to induce students to enroll in their Massachusetts campuses, Salter and Premier claimed to have a selective admissions process, and misrepresented the historical success of students in finding jobs in their fields of study, such as the medical assistant, medical billing and coding, and health claims specialist programs.
The statement said: “Since at least 2009, the defendants allegedly deceptively represented their educational programs and services to prospective students, requiring representatives of the school to describe a selective process for the ‘type of student’ accepted. In fact, Salter is an open enrollment school with limited admission standards beyond a high school diploma (or equivalent) and the ability to pay tuition or have access to federal student loans. “
Recruiting efforts also allegedly involved statements about Salter’s career-training preparation and assistance in finding jobs for students. The AG’s statement said the schools cited job placement rates as high as 80 percent or above, but improperly counted temporary jobs, part-time jobs, and jobs allegedly not in the students’ field of study, such as home health aides, toward their stated placement statistics.
This is the largest settlement to date as part of AG Coakley’s ongoing investigation of the for-profit school industry.
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