Unemployed Graduate Sues College for Unemployment
First off, it might surprise you that the graduate in question was not a law graduate; on the other hand, it might not surprise you that this case is from the US (their litigation culture being a little more ‘developed’ than ours). Trina Thompson is suing Monroe College a business-oriented college in the Bronx for her $70,000 tuition fees. She contends that she didn’t get adequate career opportunities or help from Monroe’s careers service for her $70,000 in tuition. According …
First off, it might surprise you that the graduate in question was not a law graduate; on the other hand, it might not surprise you that this case is from the US (their litigation culture being a little more ‘developed’ than ours). Trina Thompson is suing Monroe College a business-oriented college in the Bronx for her $70,000 tuition fees. She contends that she didn’t get adequate career opportunities or help from Monroe’s careers service for her $70,000 in tuition. According to the New York Post , the information-technology student blames Monroe’s Office of Career Advancement for not providing her with the leads and career advice it promised.
Is there more to follow? Probably – a wider debate has erupted in the New York Times about the ‘bubble’ in US higher education. Like all bubbles, there is a feeling that it may be about to burst. Mark C. Taylor, a professor from Columbia University stated: "The next bubble to burst will be the education bubble. Make no mistake about it, education is big business and, like other big businesses, it is in big trouble." Sound familiar? Higher education is big business here too, albeit funded a little differently. Although the issue has aroused some debate here, on a recent edition of Question Time, the consensus seemed to be that education for education’s sake was a good thing.
Focusing on legal education – the recent attempts by the Bar Standards Board and the Law Society to bring some balance to the seduction of students into the legal profession met with stiff opposition . Whilst aligned with the consensus, does it ignore the realities? Law graduates might not end up with $70,000 (£41,000) of debt but law school fees of £10,000 on their own are a lot if there is no prospect of a job at the end.
We’re not sure if claims will be issued though… especially if they can do this instead.
August 5, 2009
That kind of litigation is highly unlikely here, Americans just seem to love their frivolous lawsuits.
August 7, 2009
Errmm…might the economic system have something to do with it or do all American graduates believe in perpetual sunshine for shiny happy people everywhere ?
August 8, 2009
Whether or not there is a case here it is inidicative of how the education system is evolving. Looking beyond law graduates, the whole higher and further ed’ system in the UK clearly needs a shake up. Naive 16-18 year olds are spun all sorts of tales about where their degree route can take them. The reality is that there are huge over supplies of graduates in some industries and huge under supplies in others. My experience of career advice at school and college was so far off the mark it was untrue.
Surely with a bit of forward thinking there could be guestimates of the number of jobs that will be available in 3-4 years time to suit attendees of the more popular degree routes. If you were told at 16 that there was a 1 in 50 chance of your Marketing degree leading to a job in marketing you might think twice. For example – I knew around 30 people who studied sports nutrition at degree level and only one of them is employed as a sports nutritionist. She still has the document which her career advisor gave her in 1998 saying that the average sports nutritionist salary straight out of uni was around £23k, but at 27 is still just shy of this figure. This was also after having to do another 2 years study on top of the first degree as it wasn’t even suitable for industry.
There clearly needs to be freedom of choice for students and competition for the best candidates, but giving ‘kids’ unrealstic expectations and guiding them towards a probable dead end with a large slice of long term debt thrown in to boot is just not right.