Saturday 28 May 2016

Appreciating Everything About Ashford Settlement

By Rebecca Bell


According to the Attorney General of Iowa, Ashford University used sales practices that were unconscionable in the recruiting and enrollment of students in 2014. The University violated several provisions of the Fraud Act of Iowa. The school together with its parent company, Bridgepoint Education Inc., entered into a settlement deal popularly known as Ashford settlement.

This deal involved the appointment of a settlement administrator who would be both independent and neutral in their role. His obligations were clearly spelt as investigating, observing and compiling a report that will capture the compliance depicted by BPI and Ashford. This report would then be forwarded to the AG, the school and its parent company, BPI.

The Iowa AG was paid $7,250,000 as part of the settlement deal. This money would be used for a variety of purposes at the discretion of the AG. Some of the money will go towards reimbursing certain Iowa residents who had enrolled at the Ashford University either before or at the time of entering into the agreement in May 2014.

The settlement administrator was to have no say in the residents that were to be reimbursed. In addition, it is important for you to note that not every former student was to get reimbursed. The office of the AG of Iowa would bear the authority to decide who got reimbursed or not and hence you should contact this office and speak to a paralegal known as Cari Sagar.

If you are a current student at the University, you stand to benefit a lot from this agreement. You will be able to receive information touching on your education that is complete and accurate from the University as the agreement binds the school to do this always. This will cushion you from any unfair practices that your school was previously engaged in.

There are also some closures that ought to be made by both the school and its parent company regarding the teacher certificates and license issues. You will also be informed of the graduation rates and the debt owed by graduates in the median loan. The school will also offer further training to the personnel working for it and take measures to ensure high graduation rates and retention of students.

If you have any concerns or information that any of the employees in either the school or BPI have violated or misled you, you can contact the Settlement Administrator. It is also possible to share this information with the state Attorney General if you have any viable concerns or complaints to make regardless of whether the incident occurred either before or after the agreement was entered into in May 2014. There are various links that you can use to contact this two important offices that are available in relevant websites.

The Iowa AG is on record warning people not to fall prey to some websites that charge for answering queries on the reimbursement. It is only the office of the AG that is privy to such information and therefore you should not be misled. You should note that it is the same office that will contact you directly about the payments.




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