BCTI Students get $9 Mil in Insurance Settlement.

As those who have been paying attention to the state of "vocational" education in Washington state the David Wickert of the Tacoma News Tribune who has reported extensively on BCTI reported that an insurance company for BCTI has agreed to pay $9 million dollars to settle some of the claims of fraud. It's very fortunate that BCTI had insurance for this .... sort of thing. I'm thinking it might be a great idea for the Washington State Workforce Training and Education Board to make it mandatory that these schools carry insurance for fraud. I'm thinking the premiums might be high in light of this settlement, but the price to students was extremely high. Now it's true that each school does pay into a tuition reimbursement fund but this insurance would supplement that. Ironically enough, if more students from Computer Reporting Institute ("CRI") had made successful complaints -- the Seattle Times article stated that only "a dozen" did -- the Tuition Reimbursement Fund might have been exhausted, another reason to have schools take out fraud insurance.

Some of the students from CRI are going to lobby the legislature to post the rules and statute of limitations (1 year from the time you leave the school) for filing a Workforce complaint against a vocational school for tuition refund in a public and central location at each school. Had this legislation been in place, many more students might have made complaints and there is a possibility that the tuition refund kitty would have been overdrawn.

Court Reporting Institute (CRI) and Irregulation!

CRI aka Court Reporting Institute was a corporation incorporated in Washington state which ran four court reporting schools in Seattle, Tacoma, Idaho and San Diego. CRI is is a failure that rivals BCTI and it employed many of BCTI's tactics and some of Crown College. As in the BCTI case, lax oversite by the Washington State Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board allowed CRI to continue to perpetuate its fraud when perhaps it should have been shut down earlier. Ultimately, the decision by the Workforce Board to revoke its license led to its demise and its entry into the bankruptcy court.

However, in its dealings with CRI, the Workforce Board appeared to be more interested in chiding a beloved but wayward child rather than enforcing the law and addressing the real concerns of students. Time and time again, it brandished its mighty ruler and brought it down softly on the naughty palms of CRI, then offered it a cookie. CRI took the cookie, savored it, appeared mollified then did it all again. According to the Seattle Times CRI was ordered to refund tuition to students in 1999 and 2003 because the Workforce Board found CRI used deceptive practices. Then it did it again. Finally, 2005, the Workforce Board pulled their license. CRI appealed the decision was hit with a lawsuit by its former students. The lawsuit named the sole shareholder of now defunct CRI, Alen Janisch, and also its director, Mike Girgus. Mike Girgus was so good at recruiting students with false promises that Gene Juarez Academy is now utilizing his skills as the supervisor of their recruiters. After adverse publicity from the Seattle Times newspaper article CRI dropped its appeal of the Workforce Board's decision and closed its schools. Here are articles in the Seattle Times, the San Diego Union Tribune and the Idaho Statesman covering the closure.

Subsequently, it declared bankruptcy in Western District of the U.S. Bankruptcy court in Seattle. The former students some of which owe as much as $50,000 in student loans have not given up. They have filed proof of claims in the bankruptcy court and are hoping to get the sole shareholder of the CRI, Alen Janisch, indicted in federal court for frauds they allege he has committed against the Department of Education. They also allege that he has kept thousands of dollars of federal aid that should have been returned to the Department of Education, the lenders or the students.