CITY PAPER: Wandering Eye: Local for-profit education company gets sued

Career College Central Summary:

Doctoral students of Walden University yesterday sued Walden's owner, Laureate Education, a for-profit college outfit based in Baltimore, for unjust enrichment, breach of contract, and unfair, unlawful, and fraudulent business practices. They claim that Walden's doctoral-degree programs are structured to make obtaining a degree a far more lengthy process than necessary and advertised, thereby extracting more tuition from its students.
The lead plaintiff's attorney is no slouch—Timothy Maloney, a former Maryland state delegate with plenty of high-profile cases under his belt—and is seeking to turn the suit into a class-action claim. The complaint makes some eye-popping factual allegations about Walden's "rapid ascent"—that Walden's profits more than tripled to $101 million between 2006 and 2009, when its per-student spending on marketing, at $2,230, was much greater than the $1,574 it spent on instruction for each student—and is a reminder of the ongoing controversy surrounding for-profit schools' practices nationwide and in Baltimore. (Van Smith)

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