Students say College Misled Them | Law Office of Julie Johnson, PLLC

01:46 PM CST on Tuesday, February 22, 2005

By BYRON HARRIS / WFAA-TV

There's a long-held American belief that education is the key to a better life.

But a News 8 investigation has found that scores of young men and women claim to have been duped by a chain of private schools in North Texas.

They were fresh out of high school. They often lacked the grades or money for college. Yet, they wanted a degree that will lead them to a career, so they went to a private for-profit school called Westwood College of Technology for an associate degree.

WFAA8 Video: Byron Harris reports

What many said they got, however, were a worthless piece of paper and crippling debt.

Each morning seems bright for hundreds of students on Westwood's campuses in Euless and Dallas, because every minute spent on those campuses is based on the promise of a better life through education - a sense of promise based on Westwood's widely-aired TV commercials.

"You need to know where the really hot careers are," said the ad. "You have lots of questions, and Westwood College has lots of answers."

Westwood is expensive, from $27,000 to $34,000 for about a year and a half of classes. That's as much as a year's tuition at Harvard, or four years at UT-Austin.

A large number of the students have to borrow money to pay the tuition. They frequently come from low-income families with little experience in higher education.

Gerald Brazell Jr. was a highly paid Westwood salesman, trained to focus on their desire to improve themselves.

"We really truly believed that what we were doing was for the good of the student," Brazell said. "We were trained to make them 'feel their pain.'"

And pain is what Katrina Vargas, a single mom, felt after completing her degree at Westwood.

"Now I'm a single mother, still, and I'm in so much debt," Vargas said. "I have marks on my credit, I can't pay for my daughter's needs ... my mom has to help me."

"I got people in financial jeopardy rather than getting into a career," Brazell said. "They made bets with me on how many students I would enroll."

All of the former students who spoke with News 8 bought into Westwood's sales pitch because they were told nearly all graduates get jobs in their field of study. Today, all of them are still doing what they did before they started.

"I turned 27 yesterday, and I make $24,000 a year drawing blood," former student Robert Moers said.

"They just fed us lies just so we'd give them our money," said former student Robert Bradbury.

Westwood College recruiters use a slide show to sign up prospective students that shows the careers students can look forward to. The sales pitch said Westwood is accredited; students said that led them to believe the school has the same academic status as well-known colleges and universities.

But the sales pitch doesn't mention the fine print on the back of the contract, which said "Westwood College of Technology makes no guarantee of credit transfer."

In fact, these students found that when they presented their Westwood transcripts to other schools, the reaction was anything but positive.

"You can just keep this ... because we don't recognize this institution as a school," Moers recalled one school's representative as saying.

Westwood is headquartered in Denver, and claims it's been around for more than 50 years. However, Colorado state incorporation records indicate the current owner began business in 1986.

Kelly Coates is Westwood's executive director at its Euless campus. He agreed to talk with News 8 about complaints against the school, but when a crew got there for our scheduled interview, two representatives from the home office met them outside.

"We just received notice that we're going to be preparing for some litigation," one of those representatives said, refusing to allow the News 8 crew to go inside.

67 former students have just sued Westwood College and its parent corporation for deceptive trade practices and breach of contract. Their lawyer is Julie Johnson.

"It's blatant fraud," Johnson said. "The school sold them a bill of goods; not only do they have more debt, but they spent a lot of time wasted and they have a degree that they cannot use."

In a letter to News 8, Westwood officials said the school does not guarantee employment. They also said the college is accredited, and said the school is eager for a face-to-face interview - which has not yet happened.