Student Sues Walden

She might have a good case

student sues university | $224K in debt | still no degree

 

I would have to say she doesn't seem very sensible. Four years shy of a retirement pension as an officer, and she becomes a grade school teacher? Used all three years of the GI Bill and still managed to acquire that much debt?

 

Somehow, I'm not surprised.

 

She is "only" six years in, though. First result that comes up on Google:

12 reasons not to get a PhD - CBS News

I assume that she has some more compelling arguments, but if not, this class-action suit is going to extend to every university in America!

 

I guess the thing I'm thinking about is this idea that the school switched her dis supervisor a bunch of times (?people leaving their employment?) and so she was forced, essentially, to start over her dis several times. That seems a valid complaint, to me.

 

It does seem like a valid complaint, although the article doesn't articulate her exact complaints. I can also see how she could feel like she had so much invested that she just "had" to pony up for another year, until she finally threw in the towel. Easy to criticize in hindsight.

 

The article doesn't say if she was a captain or a major. However, in the military Officer Corps, an officer must:
- move up in rank
- or be forced out of the military.

For example:
- Retirement occurs after 20 years.
- An officer must achieve the rank of major to be authorized to stay in for 20 years.
- If a captain does not get promoted to major after 16 years, then they are forced out of the military and they do not receive a pension.

Congress will occasionally grant "early retirement," but it's not a guarantee for everyone and it usually only happens when the military is being downsized.

 

This is not 100% accurate. I know of many prior Enlisted service-members who have and will be able to retire as a Captain/Lieutenant due to their Enlisted time. Your statement would be correct if it said "In most cases....".

 

Also not entirely accurate.

If an enlisted person receives a commission they can't just swoop in and retire as an officer if, say, they serve 16 years enlisted and 4 years as an officer.

You need 10 years of service as a commissioned officer in order to retire as an officer. So if you were prior enlisted, that's fine, but if you don't get in your 10 years then you have to retire at your enlisted rank.

SOURCE: Former PN and articles like this.

Accumulating $224k in student loan debt, especially as a grade school teacher, is dumb.

But we don't have nearly enough information to draw any conclusions about this Marine's service. Her departure could have been due to:

1. Being passed over for officer promotion
2. Not being retained due to poor performance
3. Disciplinary reasons
4. Just got tired of being Active Duty (some ride out their last four years in the reserves. If you accumulate 4 full years of active duty as a reservist you can still retire at 20 even if you spread it over a longer period of time. Others just get tired of being in the military and jump to civilian life).

5. Medical issues
6. Family issues which interfered with her ability to deploy

And many, many other possibilities. I've seen guys who reached a tipping point with their families between years 12 and 16. Some tough it out. Some walk away and choose to spend time with their families. Some of those who tough it out end up with estranged spouses and kids who don't know them. Some who walk away end up underemployed and wishing they stayed in.

Pluses and minuses. YMMV, as they say.

So it doesn't do much to criticize her for not staying for the full 20. It may not have been her choice. And if it wasn't it still might not have been her fault. At 16 years of service in the USMC she should have our admiration and we should have the respect to acknowledge that her choices are her own and accept that her reasons for leaving at 16 years are none of our business.

But we can absolutely have a field day criticizing her crappy educational choices.

This doesn't sound like she was gunning for a promotion or wanting to move up in the administration. This looks an awful lot like she wanted to be called "Doctor" while her parents could still be proud.

Considering she was unable to find a cheaper and/or more respectable doctoral program I can't say I'm shocked by the fact that she isn't cranking out doctoral level research. I also feel like around the point when she hit $80k in debt she, perhaps, should have started to tap the brakes a bit.

"Bad at decision making" shouldn't be a defense to avoid paying your bills.

 

On the other hand we have this student, who's lawsuit against Oxford would seem to rest of shakier ground

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/dec/04/graduate-sues-oxford-university-1m-failure-first-faiz-siddiqui

 

Googling these things brings back many, many soccer websites.

Does anyone have a quick and easy translation as to what a "first" versus a "2:1" is? Is this like the difference between Summa and Magna Cum Laude or is there some other dimension to British higher ed I simply haven't encountered before?

 

The entire thread will focus on the stupidity of the woman and deny the possibility that Walden plays any part.... which is funny because if anyone here said they were pursuing a degree at Walden, they'd receive immediate caution. Just because members of this forum are smarter than the average bear......

If one person is duped, that person is stupid. When entire categories of people are duped, it's excellent marketing.

 

I am willing to say that Walden might be complicit in all this. Clearly the devil is in the details but we've heard for years about the transient nature of faculty in these schools and so it's easy for me to imagine her going through several supervisors, each of which wants her to revise all this stuff, costing much time (and money). All the other stuff about why she left the military, what was her occupation, would seem to be irrelevant to the main point.

 

Neuhaus, I'm going to call BS on you for this. My original statement is 100%, unequivocally accurate. I said "I know of many prior Enlisted service-members who have and will be able to retire as a Captain/Lieutenant due to their Enlisted time. Your statement would be correct if it said "In most cases...."."

That statement is correct. How can you even said it is not? I know these individuals first hand. I made no mention of the details or how many years they served. I posted this because the prior statement about having to make O4 - Major/Lt Commander was not accurate.

Your additional information is interesting BUT does not give any standing to say MY statement is "not entirely accurate".

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Officer_Personnel_Management_Act

This is what I was looking for:

DOPMA was designed to apply to "line" officers and made specific exceptions for military lawyers, doctors, nurses, and other professionals. Non-line officers tend to be managed in significantly different ways based on custom requirements.[12]


@nosborne

 

One issue with Walden and other for profits is they that they have an open admissions policy for their PhDs. It is easy for someone to do a BS and a MS at a for profit by submitting essays and then hit a wall when it comes to the dissertation.
Walden and other similar schools know the risk of the open admissions policy but they take it because this optimizes revenue.
The assumption that you should graduate because you were admitted makes no sense in particular if the open admissions policy is in place.
In any case, this is not new for Walden, I am sure that they have a good lawyer that is familiar with similar cases and they will settle. The lady in question is most likely trying to get some of her money back by using this desperate attempt as she knows that Walden most likely would want settle instead of going to court mainly because the bad publicity.

 

To say that she's trying to get some money back is stating the obvious. It's not clear that her methods are "desperate." To me it seems a standard legal remedy when you feel some sort of damage has been done. The fact that many suits are settled out of court is also nothing new. Avoidance of bad publicity is one possible motivation for the school. Simply losing the suit in court, along with a potentially larger award to the student, would be another. If, on the other hand, the school felt they had a clear path to victory in this case, they wouldn't settle, would they? They would just stomp on her in some big corporate way and discourage others from similar actions.

 

So what happens if Walden is able to "produce" a number of PhD graduates who made it through in a relatively timely manner and there isn't too much of the changing of advisers, etc. that some others had mentioned? Although no circumstances are the same, it seems like it would be a bit more difficult to form a case if others are making i through at a regular clip. However, if they're able to find more students in similar situations, the law suit could continue to grow.

 

I agree. I would think their case would be strengthened if those other students were from the same academic department. They don't need to show that this problem is pervasive to the entire university, only that it was true for them.