In the Midst of a Student Lawsuit, One College Tries to Argue It’s Not a Waste of Time and Money

By Giulia Pines • August 3, 2009

Newcastle, England, Student Protest or Increases in Tuition Fees.

Exactly one month ago, FICRY published a piece asking one hotly-debated question: Is College Really a Waste of Time or are the Right-Wing Pundits Trying to Make Us Stupid? Now from the BBC comes the shocking story of one woman who sued her college for being a waste of time. According to the article, 27-year-old Monroe College graduate Trina Thompson has sued the Bronx-based school for taking $70,000 of her money and giving her what she considers a useless information technology degree in return. “They have not tried hard enough to help me,” the BBC quotes from her lawsuit. Ms. Thompson’s mother also said that her daughter was “very angry at her situation” because she had “put all her faith” in her college.

Thompson may not have a case, (just as wealthy parents cannot sue their child’s college advisor when he or she doesn’t get into Harvard, not-so-wealthy parents cannot sue their child’s mediocre college when he or she cannot find a job), it does raise a series of questions about the expectations colleges instill in their students. Yes, there is a part of each and every unemployed child of the FICRY that wishes he could get his tuition back from the school that has seemingly bilked him out of so much money. But how much of what we do in our post-graduate lives can be attributed to our school, and how much of it can be attributed to our connections, or, even worse, dumb luck?

"Students in the Red"

Colleges are not charities, and they certainly do not take in students out of the goodness of their hearts, but they do have a responsibility to their graduates, and that responsibility, as any successful school knows, is one that translates directly into profitability. That is, schools should, and do, want their students to become successful and grateful members of the workforce who have the means to donate a chunk of their success back to the institution that helped them. Grateful graduates translates into donations, more students attributing their lack of success to their schools translates into unsatisfied customers who want their money back, a public relations nightmare.

So a word of advice to colleges and universities everywhere: either lower your graduate’s expectations or start fulfilling promises, because Trina Thompson may only be just one pissed-off ex-student, but this is a FICRY people, and you don’t want hundreds of them showing up on your doorstep.

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Categories: Higher Education, Lifestyles
Tags: BBC News, Monroe College, Trina Thompson, Universities & Tuition

3 Responses to “ In the Midst of a Student Lawsuit, One College Tries to Argue It’s Not a Waste of Time and Money ”

Ventego Aug 4th, 2009 at 9:53 am

I really like your blog and i respect your work. I’ll be a frequent visitor.
Erik Aug 5th, 2009 at 12:36 am

Ahh yes. I’m gonna say a bunch of stuff un-eloquently and free in form. Forgive me.

Well, this woman is obviously not going to win her lawsuit, but the great thing is that at least she’s drawing much needed attention to this serious issue.

Higher education has become yet another spoke in the commercial wheel. Their mission statements have gone by the wayside. They are more concerned with endowments, stadiums and celebrity commencement speakers than providing anyone with a real and relevant education. And it shows. An undergraduate education has lost most of the gravity and credibility it carried not so long ago.

That said, its not all the school’s fault. For a lot of students, college is little more than a long and extended vacation. Insane drinking, hooking-up, facebook and stupid clubs have become the center piece of of lot of young people’s educations, and by their own choice. I know I sound like I’m being all ‘kids today,’ but 50 years ago, no one at MIT died from pounding 21 shots of Tequila or eating MDMA, valium and drinking a bottle of whiskey before passing out and choking on their own puke. There was a time when Spring Break didn’t mean idiot frat boys drinking 37 Coors Lights and fucking girls on South Beach (literally on the beach). There was a time when college was taken very seriously – because, as a student, you didn’t expect that just because you got the piece of paper you were going to get a job. I sound like an old man, but a lot of college-age students these days have a false sense of entitlement, because they’ve been given everything before, because their parents bought them their educations, because in college their professors told them they were brilliant (after all, students are their paying clients and they want them to be happy), because in college someone cooked for them, cleaned for them, etc. A college degree doesn’t guarantee you a job – it never has. I know loads of ivy-leaguers who are unemployed, living off their parents, etc. This can hardly be blamed entirely on the school.

This particular case raises a different issue than ‘education isn’t getting people employed.’ It raises one about equality across generations, the ethics of the financial sector and the practices of many businesses. This woman made what she thought was a personal investment in her future, only to find out that it didn’t yield the return she was told it would (sound familiar?). What she wasn’t told – and didn’t realize (like most) – was that upon graduation she’d be competing against all of the kids without student debt, without the need to pay for their own rent, without, essentially, the real need for a job. Kids whose parents can afford to keep footing their bills while they take that (increasingly ubiquitous) unpaid internship that gets their foot in the door, or spend 40 hrs a week doing nothing but job hunting and networking that lands them a decent gig, or sit at home and work on their novel or their directionless non-profit start-up, or volunteer for USAID or some similar organization. Essentially, its the same old story that America ignores because we pretend this is the land of rags to riches: if you’re born rich, you stay rich; if you’re born poor, you stay poor – and an education really doesn’t do much in the way of changing this. Oh sure it happens – look at our President. But its not the norm. If it were, every poor kid who went to college would be as successful as Obama (I prevaricate, but you get the picture).

Higher Ed – including costs – needs complete reform, and I don’t think this is a huge surprise to anyone. And at the end of the day, the fact that humanities types can’t get jobs isn’t such a bad thing – after all, the world could benefit greatly from more doctors and engineers (who, btw, rarely find it difficult to get a job) and less lawyers, journalists and Proust-wannabes.

Personally, I like Mark Taylor’s ideas (found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27taylor.html?_r=1). Ironically, he’s a professor at my alma mater – which forever jaded me about the university.
Pay to Play: Young People Pony up for the Privilege of Working for Free | FICRY Aug 12th, 2009 at 11:09 am

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