State probes Hawaii College of Pharmacy

State probes Hawaii College of Pharmacy


By Kristen Consillio
Pacific Business News (Honolulu)
Updated: 8:00 p.m. ET July 17, 2005


The state is investigating the Hawaii College of Pharmacy in Kapolei for alleged unfair and deceptive business practices.

The investigation stems from complaints by some of the 240 students who have paid $28,000 each -- a total of $6.72 million -- in annual tuition for a three-year doctorate program, which was denied accreditation. Students are worried that without accreditation they will be left with worthless degrees and unable to work as pharmacists.

The Hawaii College of Pharmacy, operated by Nevada-based Pacific Educational Services, opened last October and has since struggled to get accreditation after quietly enrolling 240 students -- far more than any startup pharmacy school ever enrolled in its first class.

Pacific Educational Services is the same company that plans to build Hawaii's first dental school, also in Kapolei.

The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, the national accrediting agency for pharmacy degree programs, rejected the college's accreditation request and in January instructed it to withdraw its application primarily because of its unprecedented class size. A typical startup program opens with between 60 and 80 students.

Other problems include a revolving door of administrators and qualified faculty and inadequate teaching facilities and training sites.

The state Office of Consumer Protection, which oversees unaccredited universities, is investigating a wide range of allegations based on student complaints. If a business is deemed guilty of violating the law, the office can file a civil lawsuit asking the court to intervene to prevent further violations, require restitution to victims and impose civil penalties. Hawaii has no licensing requirements for unaccredited universities and therefore little oversight.

"The primary problem does focus on accreditation," said Jeffrey Brunton, staff attorney for the Office of Consumer Protection. "These students can't take the pharmacy licensing exam unless they graduate from a school which is either accredited or has candidate status. If the school doesn't get accredited these students will spend presumably $100,000 [on tuition and living expenses for three years] and they won't be able to work as pharmacists."

The school opened without going through the normal accreditation process by skipping the first step -- pre-candidate status, which is granted before a school admits any students as long as its plans meet basic accreditation standards. Instead, the college enrolled students and directly applied for candidate status, which is granted if a school reasonably assures that a program will become fully accredited by the time the first class graduates.

"In the meantime they enrolled 240 students, many times larger than any new college of pharmacy has ever enrolled," said Jerry Johnson, project director for the proposed University of Hawaii College of Pharmacy. "There are serious concerns about the way the college developed by deans of colleges of pharmacy all over the country because they cut corners and haven't done the things one normally does in creating a college of pharmacy to ensure the quality is there."

The UH College of Pharmacy is planned for UH-Hilo. Johnson expects to recommend dean candidates to the Board of Regents in September. The opening date has not been determined.

The accrediting agency also has received numerous complaints from students at the private Kapolei college -- 95 percent of whom are from the Mainland and moved to Hawaii to attend the startup school. The college is operating in temporary leased lecture-hall classrooms and has yet to break ground on a proposed 5.7-acre campus. The students also can't get financial aid because the school is unaccredited.

Many students, who asked that their names not be published for fear of retribution, say school officials deceived them by taking their tuition and making empty promises regarding accreditation and the quality of the faculty and facilities.

"They knowingly misrepresented themselves when they knew that it was a joke and told us millions of times that everything would be fine even though they had no faculty, no rotation sites and too many students," said John Quinn, a former student who left the school in April after being informed the first graduating class would be delayed at least six months. "They're taking all of our money and giving us nothing in return."

Meanwhile, Pacific Educational Services, a private for-profit organization, plans to open a 120,000-square-foot Hawaii College of Dental Medicine next year and has openly discussed plans to start a nursing school as well. The company says it will spend $100 million to build the pharmacy and dental colleges totaling almost 300,000 square feet.

Students took a chance
The current dean of the private pharmacy school admits that enrolling in the college was a gamble for students.

"Students really took a chance spending $28,000 and then coming here and living here," said Dean H.A. Hasan, a former Waipahu High School special education teacher who became dean of the pharmacy college on July 1. "But they knew it was very much understood that this was a startup institution."

Hasan, who had been the assistant dean of curriculum, says the college didn't receive accreditation because it didn't have enough faculty and training sites and skipped pre-candidate status because of a mix-up with its former deans.

"The school started with that many students by accident -- we didn't feel that many students were going to come here," he said. "We had been behind the eight ball since I got here. It's been a very rough road and very hostile situation in many ways."

Hasan says enrollment has dropped to 231 students.

In recent months, at least eight college faculty, staff and administrators were either fired or resigned for reasons that weren't disclosed.

Hasan says problems began when the college made many, in his words, "bad hires" who didn't recruit more faculty and contract training sites. He says the college recently hired 13 part-time faculty and 13 full-time faculty and now has more than 155 practice sites.

"They've had a revolving door of administrators who are there one day and gone the next," UH's Johnson said. "I don't think the instability in the administration gives the accrediting body the confidence that they know what they're doing."

Students also are complaining about inadequate facilities and unqualified teachers who don't have pharmacy backgrounds. When students started at the school, Denise Criswell, Pacific Educational Services president, and David Monroe, corporation secretary and a former librarian, even taught pharmacy classes.

Former Maui state Sen. Jan Yagi-Buen is a director in other dissolved corporations started by Monroe and Criswell and was involved with the pharmacy school early on. Monroe and Yagi-Buen didn't return PBN's phone calls for comment.

"They assured us it would be a cake-walk process with no problems whatsoever because they had everything in place, so many great faculty members, and none of it was true," Quinn said.

Reducing class size
The college has proposed numerous plans to break up class size to fulfill accreditation requirements and keep students enrolled. Hasan says the college plans to reapply for candidate status on Oct. 1.

Among the plans that have been proposed by the college was a voluntary student deferment, meaning 100 students would stay at the school while 140 would voluntarily defer until the next class enrolls. Another proposal was a "save the college lottery," which would force half the student body to defer a year. A third plan was to partner with National University, which offers a pharmacy technician program but no doctorate degree.

The latest plan is to allow the top 100 students to return as second-year students, graduating as planned in 2007; placing the next 100 as first-year remediated students, graduating in 2008; and forcing the remaining students to start over in a year. Students repeating the first year have been asked to pay next year's tuition but wouldn't have to pay for a fourth year.

Meanwhile, the planned Pacific Educational Services' dental school is scheduled to break ground this fall.

"If they're going to do a dental college like they did the pharmacy college, Hawaii's getting a terrible reputation for operating like an offshore medical school," Johnson said. "They made a mess of the pharmacy program. We don't want to get a reputation of providing second-class health-care education in Hawaii."

© 2005 MSNBC.com

URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8613320/

 

Honolulu article on accreditation

http://starbulletin.com/2005/07/16/business/story2.html

 

News article said:
"The investigation stems from complaints by some of the 240 students who have paid $28,000 each -- a total of $6.72 million -- in annual tuition for a three-year doctorate program, which was denied accreditation. Students are worried that without accreditation they will be left with worthless degrees and unable to work as pharmacists."


They plunked down this money before accredidation? Why should they be able to sue for accredidation denial? No one was thinking here prior to enrolling. Besides school is fully addreadeded! Isn't that close enough?

 

I would think that its highly dependent on what the school advertised to get the students to enroll. I'd not be surprised if they were misleading.

 

Is the school Regionally Accredited?

Don't they have to be RA before they apply for professional accreditation?

If this is the case then the Degrees are accredited but not by the PA.

I know in some professions professional accreditation is very important for persons that need to become licensed and practice in their field.
Learner

 

No, Learner, it's not RA or anything A.

See here: http://www.hicp.org/

Furthermore, Dean Hasan was a special education teacher in a high school. With all due respect (no more, no less) how in blue hades does THAT qualify him to run a pharmacy college?

Also the name of the school is trademarked. Wow. Were they afraid the real University of Hawai'i pharm school would steal it? What a sorry mess, bra.

We await the communique from Brunton.

 

Bill,

Good point. Students though have to be a bit more diligent than this I would think.
Too many maybes in this case. Might this be an example of B&M mill?

 

The State of Hawaii, by its Office of Consumer Protection, filed suit today against Pacific Educational Services Company, a Nevada corporation dba Hawaii College of Pharmacy and its principals Denise A. Criswell and David C. Monroe. The suit alleges that the defendants violated various provisions of Hawaii's Unaccredited Degree Granting Institutions Law (Hawaii Revised Statutes Chapter 446E) as well as the state's unfair and deceptive trade practice law. It seeks injunctive relief, restitution, civil penalties and other equitable relief.

An electronic version of the Complaint will be online in the near future at our website at http://www.hawaii.gov/dcca/areas/ocp/udgi/lawsuits/

Jeffrey E. Brunton
Staff Attorney
Office of Consumer Protection
State of Hawaii