DeVry University has entered into a settlement with the Department of Education that will lead to pulling ads that state 90 percent of its graduates find jobs in their field within six months after DeVry was unable to show evidence to back its job placement claims.
The DOE asked DeVry in August 2015 to prove the claim it has used since 1975, but the university was unable to substantiate its assertions, which have appeared in radio, TV, online, and print advertisements, NPR reported.
U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. said in a statement reported by NPR, “Students deserve accurate information about where to invest their time and money, and the law is simple and clear: recruitment claims must be backed up by hard data.”
DeVry was pleased with the settlement and stated that it would keep cooperating with the DOE. The university will be required to post a notice on its website that its claim was unsubstantiated and keep it on the site for two years.
DeVry will also be required to commit $68 million in credit toward any liabilities. “Today’s agreement settles only the issue of a single, unsubstantiated claim and does not prohibit the Department from imposing future enforcement actions against DeVry in the event of additional findings,” the DOE wrote in a statement.
The Federal Trade Commission filed a separate lawsuit against DeVry in January for deceptive advertising for the same claim and another, which stated that DeVry graduates had 15 percent higher incomes after one year than other graduates.
The scrutiny is part of an ongoing increase in investigations of deceptive and misleading claims by higher education. As of June 2016, NPR reported, 28 for-profit institutions were being investigated, the Brookings Institution said.
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