SANTA CRUZ — Makenzie Vasquez, 22, a server at Kianti’s Pizza and Pasta, owes $30,000 in student loans at an eight-month medical assisting program at Everest College in San Jose that she says locked her out before she could finish.
She’s one of “the Corinthian 100,” former and current students of Corinthian Colleges Inc., which was one of the largest for-profit colleges in the U.S., operating Everest College, Heald College and WyoTech.
They are refusing to pay their student loans, taking advantage of a little-used provision in the Higher Education Act that says borrowers can fight federal student loan collection if their school violated state law.
“They sold me a dream for a nightmare,” said Vasquez. “I shouldn’t be 22 and be in this much debt and have nothing to show for it.”
Vasquez signed up for her student loan two years ago.
She said her debt includes $6,500 in a federal government student loan and $23,500 in a private Genesis student loan. Her payment is $126 a month.
She said she hasn’t heard from Genesis since she changed her phone number and nothing from the federal government since November.
She is not sure what her interest rate was, but a 2014 lawsuit filed by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau alleged the Genesis interest rate in July 2011 was 15 percent when the federal student loan rate was 3 to 7 percent.
The agency alleged the chain of 97 U.S. locations lured tens of thousands of students to take out private loans, known as “Genesis loans,” for costly tuition “by advertising bogus job prospects and career services” and using “illegal” tactics to get students to pay back those loans while enrolled.
Despite a February announcement from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for $480 million in debt relief for those with Genesis loans — a 40 percent cut — the online site where Vasquez checks her student loan account shows her debt total has not changed.
“She, like many others we’ve talked to, have not yet seen that relief,” said Luke Herrine of the Debt Collective, an Occupy movement offshoot that is supporting the Corinthian 100.
It’s unclear whether Vasquez will see any relief.
After she stopped attending, the Everest College San Jose campus was sold and after a year-and-a-half shuttered.
Her plight raises the question: Why did she sign up for such an expensive program?
Vasquez said she thought the cost was $18,000 to $20,000.
She said she came to Santa Cruz after graduating from high school in Oregon and got a job at New Leaf Community Markets making $12 an hour.
At 20, she realized she needed additional education to get a higher-paying job but knew little about college because no one in her family had attended.
She had seen commercials for Everest College, which had locations in Oregon as well as California, looked at it online, and found the idea of a short program attractive.
“They said they would work with you and your schedule,” she said.
So she drove to San Jose to check out the campus.
“I never thought this education system would take advantage of me,” Vasquez said. “The Education Department is supposed to protect you. Why was nothing done?”
At the Everest College campus on Winchester Boulevard, Vasquez met a staffer who she says pressured her into signing up for the program that day.
“The lady that signed me up promised a ton of things,” Vasquez said. “I’m the first one of my family to go to college. She wanted to know how poor I was, how much I made… . She pulled out this form filled out with all these numbers. She said, ‘These are all the people who graduated. Think about it . You could be making this much money.'”
Vasquez said she told the woman she could not attend the college without financial aid.
“She promised, ‘That’s what you’ll get,'” Vasquez said.
Next Vasquez recalls the woman asking, “Don’t you want to change your life? Don’t you want to be making good money?”
She envisioned herself making $18 an hour.
“She was telling me everything I wanted to hear, so I signed,” Vasquez said.
Her program started in January 2012, but soon she was disillusioned.
Instead of small classes taught by “teachers who know what they’re doing,” she said she was taught how to draw blood by a student who started class one week before she did.
She said she saw students cheating yet get passing scores from the teacher.
A month into the program, when she was expecting a financial aid check that did not arrive, she went to the financial aid adviser.
“She told me that’s not how it works,” Vasquez said. “She walked out on me.”
Then she learned in class that all the students must start paying $50 a month.
She’s still not sure why.
She asked if she could shop around for a loan but was told she had to get the loan through the college.
She said she was called in to sign loan papers making a change that the college staff said they took care of for her.
She asked if could do her externship in Santa Cruz to save on gas and the wear and tear on her car, but was told that was not possible.
She was living paycheck to paycheck, working at the market but not as much because of the classes, squeezed as gas prices topped $4 a gallon.
“I didn’t have the money to buy food,” she said. “I was told I needed to get my priorities straight.”
Five or six months in, she didn’t make the $50 payment and discovered the ramifications.
“You’re not allowed to come back to class,” she said. “When you’re out for more than two or three days, they drop you. You have to appeal to come back.”
She knew one graduate who got a job making $12 an hour, which was what she earned at the market, and she gave up on Everest. —— (c)2015 the Santa Cruz Sentinel (Scotts Valley, Calif.) Visit the Santa Cruz Sentinel (Scotts Valley, Calif.) at www.santacruzsentinel.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC AMX-2015-04-14T05:16:00-04:00
