Student Sues Walden

Okay, kids here's an experiment you can try at home!!!

If you want to find out the negatives about a school, do a Google search on the school name with the word sucks. Yes, as in, Walden University Sucks. This works for all major schools, both traditional and distance, and is guaranteed to find lots of whiners.

In the case under discussion here, a lawyer could find several potential plaintiffs who feel that, um, Walden University sucks.

 

Yeah, it's kinda like that guy I referenced in post #10, the guy who is suing Oxford, 'cause we all know that Oxford sucks.

 

You have a point here, from the legal perspective, it would set a precedent for any PhD student to sue because they cannot get the degree. I know few people that graduated after 7 years of full time work and debt that could be good candidates for a similar law sue.
Given that most PhD graduates from Walden work as adjuncts or full time faculty at small colleges, it looks like a very bad investment to me.

 

I still do not understand how she ends up $224K in debt for her PhD studies at Walden University even though she has GI Bill. Was she taking a taxi to her program residencies or something?

Was she ever a Marine Corps officer? She is an enlisted in the photo, maybe she could not make E-6 in 16 years? I don't know, but her case seems to be odd. Another thing since she is doing Doctorate in Education; there are plenty of schools offer distance education. She can even get a Doctorate in Education from Johns Hopkins and University of Southern California for less than $100,000.00

 

I didn't say you don't know former enlisted people who will retire as officers. Here, let's break it down...

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.

Firstly, again, I'm not saying your account of the individuals you know is inaccurate. I'm saying that the picture you are painting of the retirement system concerning enlisted service members who receive officers commission is not 100% accurate. Yes, it's true that there are people who retire as an O-3.

However, there are many others who are enlisted, retire upon reaching O-3 but, because they lack 10 years of service post-commission are retired at their enlisted rank. Thus you can have a captain/lieutenant (O-3) who actually retires as an E-7.

If a person puts in 16 enlisted, 4 years as an officer, they are still eligible to retire at 20 years. But they are not eligible to retire as an officer until they hit their 26th year (16 years enlisted + 10 years officer). I know a few people who got out at 20 and took the lower pay. The reason why this is a big deal is that they did, indeed, earn their officer rank. But they didn't retire at that rank.

 

I'm not going to deny any possibility that Walden was at fault. But I highly doubt they misleadingly placed a blank check in front of her and asked her to sign. As I'm sure you are aware you don't just open up a tab on day 1 of a program and then, years later, see the final tally. She had to sign for these loans. She had tuition statements available in her online portal. Were she 23 and "just didn't know any better" then, well, I could understand a bit of sympathy. But seriously, how did she surpass the $80k mark without scratching her head?

Also, that's a very high cost. One that exceeds the cost of the program quite a few times. Did Walden get all of that money or did she tap into her loans for living expenses? Because if all of that went to Walden then, perhaps, we need to look closer. If there is a new car in her driveway that came from the magic checks that the Walden Bursar sent her at the beginning of each quarter then, no, she handled herself stupidly.

She's an adult and it was her job to monitor her expenses. If she was receiving big huge checks from Walden every semester then she should have realized that this wasn't free money. If she wasn't receiving big checks then she should have been keeping tabs on the debt she took on.

She would receive caution because, for the cost of Walden, she can do better. She would be cautioned that having a for-profit college on her resume might raise some eyebrows or close off a few avenues. And we would have encouraged her to explore other options that were either the same price or cheaper. I have yet to see a thread where a person considers a for-profit school and we, the helpful strangers, advise them not to max out their loans and live off of private loans. I have yet to see us advising a person to that granular level over the finer points of student loan management. That's probably because we, at a certain point, expect people to act like adults and make adult decisions and take responsibility for said decisions after the fact.

On matters of accreditation, credit transfer and non-traditional learning I'd say we are, indeed, smarter than the average bear. But reading documents before you sign them and taking care before embarking on major financial commitments has not really been the focus around here. Had she amassed that debt load by attending medical or law school then I think we could all understand. But for a Walden Phd? The total cost for the PhD in Education, per their website, would be $62,680. It was presumably lower six years ago.

But yes, had she come here I think we all would have told her that was a lot of money for a degree from a school with a limited reputation. What was her goal? Occasional adjunct work? It might work for that. But it would never recoup the tuition. Tenure track position? Possible but not probable with a degree from Walden.

The funny thing about a people is that it is composed of many different persons. Not all duped people are stupid. Not all stupid people get duped.

But I'd need to see something that showed that Walden received the bulk of that loan money and that it didn't make it's way back to her before I began even entertaining the possibility that Walden did something other than what public and non-profit schools do every day. Having a whiny student complain about the debt they accumulated by spending loan money on living expenses and vacations is not, perhaps, stupid. But it is incredibly short sighted.

 

I wasn't doing any painting. I was not trying to explain how military retirement works. I was providing counter evidence that one need not be an O4 to retire. PERIOD. You blossomed it into a lengthy discussion.

Now, let me get back to some real painting, Boss Ross style:

 

Those are some happy little trees there novadar.

 

Ha ha! I just noticed I screwed the post up and wrote "Boss Ross" instead of "Bob Ross' but it does work cos he's fo sho Boss!

 

Sometimes non-Military folks will see or hear the words "Non-Commissioned Officer" and only process "Officer". That could be what happened in the original article. I recall reading once about one of those knuckleheads who defected to North Korea in the 60s from South Korea deserting their US Army assignments. The North Koreans made a big deal about one of them being an "Officer" - he was an E5 Sergeant -- Non-Commissioned Officer (Jenkins was his name).

 

My guess is that her undergrad degree included loans too. Tuition Assistance through the military is about $166 per QUARTER HOUR, but Walden's undergrad tuition is double that. So, throw in add'l money to fund books, etc. and she's probably $50k in before starting her Phd. Does she have a masters? Who knows- but that of course blows the budget too.

I think the thing that KEEPS people borrowing is the issue of student loans being deferred until graduation. While I'm glad it's not my problem to fix as a society, the truth is, if deferment *as it is now* were not an option, people would see the reality of the situation very clearly long before they accumulated more. But, the carrot is that you have to keep going until you get the degree, because at that point, you're somehow able to command a higher salary and won't have to worry about paying back money - because you'll be rolling in it. It's a myth of course, but again, it's so easy to entice people into borrowing.

 

She was already a teacher when she embarked on the PhD program. And, according to this article which is scant on details, her issue is over the six years she "wasted" on the PhD program. It isn't stated but I am inferring that the full loan amount is tied directly to the PhD program.

If she earned her bachelor's degree at Walden (we don't know if this was the case) and she landed a teaching job then mission accomplished.

But she's a teacher in a school district. What increase in pay she would receive for advanced degrees should be publicly available knowledge to her as it is to all employees of these districts. So if she wanted to plunk down $62k for a $3k pay increase then hopefully she saw why that was just a very bad idea.

Is it possible she thought this would be a way to fast track herself into administration? That by getting the PhD she was positioning herself to potentially double her salary as a Principal in a highly paid school district in CA? Possibly. But that's a massive gamble that, even then, might have only caused her to break even given her age.

But let's say she just stayed at Walden throughout her education...

Bachelor's with no transfer credits: $60,825
Masters: $18,000
PhD: $62,680

A total of $141,505. That's assuming she went to Walden with no transfer credits and stayed throughout.

Based on her years of service she would have qualified for both the Post-9/11 GI Bill and the Montgomery GI Bill. Yes, you get both if you signed up under Montgomery and had service that fell in the qualifying period for Post-9/11.

So, for Montgomery, take $36k out of that total. For the Post-9/11 she would have qualified for a max of $21,970 (today's rate) each year for one year (3 years if she didn't use Montgomery) while attending a private university.

So out of a total tuition cost of $141,505 she would have been eligible to receive (assuming no adverse discharge is at play and she fully participated in the GI Bill) $57,970 PLUS her annual book allowance and the off-site housing allowance. For fully online training, that housing allowance is $805 per month, for an additional 12 months or $9,660. So let's add that into the total since she was gainfully employed during hte course of her doctoral studies (and presumably didn't need the housing allowance to pay her housing expenses since her regular salary did that). She received a total from the VA of $67,630.

That's assuming she entered the program after her separation and had no transfer credits. That's assuming she never earned a single credit while on AD using military TA. That's assuming she completed ALL of her studies at Walden.

But no, she has $240k in debt associated with her studies at Walden. She has $100k more debt than the total tuition cost (granted, PhD expenses can increase if you take longer for the program).

TA only applies while studying on active duty. You complete ignored the VA programs she would have tackled this with. We know she was a teacher at the time she enrolled in this program. So she had to have at least a bachelor's and a teaching credential (even if provisional) prior to enrolling. She only speaks of 6 years wasted with Walden and confines those comments to her failed doctoral program.

But even if she approached Walden with education provided elsewhere that doesn't account for how the hell she racked up debt that equals 4 times the tuition rate for that program.

 

He wrote a book called The Reluctant Communist which is a really interesting book.

The short version is, he was expecting to be shipped to Vietnam, he didn't want to go to Vietnam, he was depressed, he was drunk, he was expecting punishment for a brief AWOL he had in South Korea and he felt kind of trapped so he decided to give it a go.

NOrth Korea was bombarding the south with propaganda trying to convince US service members to defect. It sounded enticing. It sounded exotic. He went and there was just no way for him to come back.

One of the guys who jumped the fence before him had many disciplinary issues and had a pattern of impulsive and generally aggressive behavior.

To Jenkins credit, and the reason I was willing to put cash in his pocket by buying his book, is that he was released and able to settle in Japan. He could have just given the US the finger. But he turned himself in and faced court martial and basically asked for mercy and owned how stupid, selfish and unamerican his behavior was and he took his punishment.

He made a really stupid decision as a young man and was willing to settle his tab as an old man.

 

keep in mind that interest (8%) starts the second you borrow the money and goes from there. Adding to the pile, 8% of more is a lot more.

Of course all this is just in fun - and this math isn't saying what happened in what year and what rolled.... plus we don't really have the true details, but using Neuhaus' numbers

Bachelor's with no transfer credits: $60,825 @ 8% over 10 years = $87,500
Masters: $18,000 + 87,500 @ 8% over 10 years = new balance $152,800
PhD: $62,680 + $152,800 = $215,500

after repaying the $215,500, if she can do so perfectly, she's all in at $315,000

 

$315,000 in a 401k at 5.5% will yield 17k annually or $1443 monthly (before taxes).

Before spending money on education, it's important to weigh:
- a ROI of present and future earnings (that are invested)
- verses spending that same money on educational endeavors.
The former provides an almost guaranteed yield (big or small), while the latter is potentially a money pit (especially if "forever ABD" is encountered).

 

Apparently, it is sad that she is an educator when she could not educate herself the pro's and con's for her continue education. Honestly, maybe she took out the money for living expenses. But you cannot sue the school to taking loans for living expenses, I do not think she has the case.

 

Having seen some of these discussions from the other side I can say that there is no simple answer. There are times when you are absolutely 100% in the right and you end up settling because the cost of litigating exceeds the cost of the settlement. Happens all the time.

And I think people would be surprised how often someone sues a company demanding six or seven figures and then is willing to walk away for $10,000 - $25,000. Just getting to trial would cost that much in some cases.

 

FWIW: TEXT ONLY ENTRY: ORDER granting6 Motion for Admission Pro Hac Vice of Attorney Marnie C. Lambert for Kelli Callahan, Kelly Gardiner, Janet Harrison, Pete Holubz, and Jennifer Wright. Approved by Magistrate Judge Katherine M. Menendez on 12/5/16. (MAM)

https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/20043076/Wright_et_al_v_Walden_University,_LLC_et_al


IOW, she's not alone in this.