File Photo of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (Chip Somodevilla/ Getty Images)
CHICAGO (CBS) — Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has filed suit against Westwood College, charging the institution with deceiving students into piling up tens of thousands of dollars in student loans for meaningless degrees in criminal justice.
As WBBM Newsradio’s Steve Miller reports, Westwood College is known for its ad campaigns, including YouTube clip showing characters in comical dead-end jobs. The man who dances around with a sign in front of a pizzeria calls his job “kind of like marketing,” while the man who picks up roadkill laments not going into criminal justice.
LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio’s Steve Miller reports
But Jessica Pierce, who graduated from the Westwood campus in the Loop in 2007, claims her actual criminal justice degree from the school is worthless. She calls it a “paperweight.”
Pierce says she is more than $54,000 in debt for the degree.
“I’m proud to say I worked full time and went to school full time, nights, for three years to get a bachelor’s,” she said. “But then comes the worst part of the question – Where did you get your degree from? I say, ‘Umm, Westwood.’ And I’m embarrassed.”
Attorney General Madigan says Westwood’s recruiters, administrators and faculty lied to students about almost every aspect of the criminal justice program.
A statement from a Westwood representative says in part: “We are proud of our legacy of helping students obtain their educational goals. We have hundreds of successful graduates working in the private and public criminal justice field throughout the state of Illinois.”
The for-profit college adds that it is cooperating with Madigan’s office to “resolve any outstanding issues.”
31 Comments
Everybody knows that if you want to be a cop – to enlist, go to Iraq and Afghanistan, where you learn to kill, beat, and torture people. Then every police department in America will hire you.
January 18, 2012 at 2:12 pm
Inalien you are over the line there bud, you have a right to your free speach but you obviously weren’t there.
January 18, 2012 at 2:23 pm
Never claimed to Afro – what’s your point? Facts do not depend upon my going to Afghanistan or the moon or anyplace.
January 18, 2012 at 3:12 pm
The point is you are making specific statements about a general populous of the military in a derogatory fashion, I am not squelching your right to free speech. I challenge your comment about learning over seas how to carry out a mission, I was taught my job right here in America then I employed my skills over seas. So now that we have established you are not fully educated on the military, and how or where they are trained. It is quite obvious that you do not know what they teach either. Which means we should throw out everything you just typed for what I call a look error (lack of operator knowledge)
January 18, 2012 at 3:43 pm
I think the facts speak for themselves. Soldiers learn to kill and break things and police departments trip over each other trying to hire ex-soldiers to be peace officers.
January 18, 2012 at 3:47 pm
I can live with that now lets push together for no gun control laws.
January 18, 2012 at 3:50 pm
Since Lisa’s dad ignores the rule of law on a daily basis and Lisa, conveniently ignore that fact it would seem their law degrees are also “useless.”
January 18, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Do you think Lisa got any help from daddy to run for AG? Who needs a degree if you have clout? Remember Todd Stroger, Blago, Bill Daly,Michael Daly,…..? How long is this list?
January 18, 2012 at 3:00 pm
HI, I went to school with Jessica and I agree. The criminal justice degree that we worked so hard for is useless. I thought as many others that this was going to be the key to my success but unfortunate for my family and myself going to Westwood was a waste of time and I too am stuck with a student loan debt that I can not pay back. I would NEVER advice anyone to go to Westwood.
January 18, 2012 at 3:01 pm
Doesn’t this tell you the market is flooded and that they can be picky in who they hire? If there was a shortage they would take you in a heart beat. Use your head.
January 18, 2012 at 9:03 pm
I am a student right now with Westwood and have been working on my bachelor degree in Criminal Justice. How do you say it is worthless in what way. Is it not looked at as an accredited college or is there more to it?
January 22, 2012 at 3:31 pm
I suggest you share your due diligence with every student there.
This could be as simple as starting a blog and sharing the URL.
Call your Blog Westwood_Inquiry or something like that.
Use the power that you have people do not squander it.
In the Internet you have for free the communications that would have cost you thousands not long ago.
January 22, 2012 at 3:39 pm
The best idea I have heard on this whole thread! :-) Put the URL on a business card size pieces of paper and on cars, taped in toilet stalls, left in classrooms, written on black boards…… shake em’ up
January 22, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Seems to me that a degree can only be as useless as the one holding it kinda like Lisa and her Father
January 18, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Ms. Madigan would know about useless ‘paperweights’ as she is one of the most useless elected officials this state has.
January 18, 2012 at 3:23 pm
I do not understand why people are complaining about Westwood College when so many Universities and Colleges across the country arent really accrediated by the National Accrediation. I think what should happen is require Universities and Colleges to explain to students what type of Accrediation the school has and what that means in relation to their education and degree.
January 18, 2012 at 3:51 pm
Cortez for the most part accreditation is a scam. It is a way for the good old boys to charge exorbitant rates for an education when you can learn just as much for 1/10th the price using an online method.
Yes there are lousy accredited and unaccredited schools. What we need is independent free market services that report about the excellence of various schools.
The minimum wage is also a way to keep people from getting an education. In the old days we had apprenticeships but now paying a low wage (often an apprenticeship ) is illegal. Perhaps bringing back apprenticeships would be a way around the minimum wage laws that harm the poor so much.
January 18, 2012 at 4:00 pm
Wow! what a blow to Westwood……ouch! If you are going to college look very carefully into the school you plan on attending. College is not free so make sure you are getting your moneys worth. Also, where you get your degree does matter, so even though we all can’t be Harvard graduates make sure the school you go to is a respectable one. Especially if your going to pay $54,000.
January 18, 2012 at 3:51 pm
I think for most occupations that going to college is the dumbest thing one could do. There are many ways to apprentice and learn vocations and if you are really on the ball self employment is the only way to go.
The system does not want to encourage this however. It wants to keep the slaves on the plantation.
January 18, 2012 at 7:01 pm
What are you talking about? You cannot apprentice most non-Union, non-minimum wage jobs.
And self-employment is one of the riskiest jobs there is. I’ve tried it…I’m on ball as you say and it sucked majorly. First off, I am not a sales person…second off the pay was worse than being out of work.
January 18, 2012 at 8:33 pm
Me… you can not apprentice them because the powers that be have but in legal road blocks you can be assured of that. Ask yourself why a 5,000 year old tradition has almost disappeared? It’s all about control just like almost everything that they do. to paint you into a corner and make you think that it’s freedom.
Who do you think you work for when you get a job Me? Self employed people.. right? It seems to have worked for someone. Again the are dozens of road blocks to self employment some apparent some not.
Can you run a business out of your home? Of course not they want you to work for someone else.
What are you taught in school from kindergarten to 4th year of college? How to be an employee not and entrepreneur.
I could list over 100 obstacles purposely set up to keep the small guy from competing with the big guys.
January 18, 2012 at 9:01 pm
5000yo traditions like… Car\plane making? Software Development?
Stock Market\Economist? For the most part, outside of farmer most vocations are not 5000 years old.
And unless you’re willing to pay through the nose, health Insurance doesn’t exist. Nor does time off or vacation\sick time.
January 18, 2012 at 9:06 pm
No “Me” a 5,000 year old tradition like apprenticeship that I am sure went through innovations such as smelting tin, smelting brass, iron and finally steel. In the building trades I am sure the idea of apprenticeship went through many similar technological innovations.
I can see why you failed in business Me. It seems that like most of the sheeple you have a hard times reasoning and even stringing thoughts together. This is not a put down. Just my honest observation. Quite drinking the fluoride and I mean that sincerely.
January 18, 2012 at 9:16 pm
“building trades”…right back to the non-Union jobs comment I wrote earlier.
January 18, 2012 at 9:26 pm
All I know is that I live in a world of fluoride drinking zombies who’s minds have been so dulled by the poisons in the food and water that they can not reason and have no clue as to how the world really works.
Not entirely their fault but the absolute truth.
January 18, 2012 at 9:31 pm
Regional accreditation means that you can transfer your credits to other regionally accredited schools like DePaul, UIC, Loyola. Most of the career colleges are under sometype of national accreditation, which means that they can get federal financial aid, but their credits do not transfer because most of the students do not have to take English Comp and College Math. They only have to take courses in the program that they are in. In addition, many employers will not hire them because of professionalism issues and the length of the program, which is between six to nine months, less than a program at a regionally accredited college. I had a friend that completed a paralegal degree at a well known career college and basically got told not to apply for a paralegal job because none of the law offices in Chicago would accepted it.
Career Colleges are now being scutinized because of fraud issues included high school transcripts from unaccredited high schools, cheating on placement tests, and lying on the FAFSA form (not a good idea).
So there is your answer about regional and national accreditation.
January 18, 2012 at 4:29 pm
Smart enough to get into a worthless college. Is the Post Office hiring???.
January 18, 2012 at 6:30 pm
Westwood? The last of the proprietary schools. One of the worse was a place called Professional Career Center. They scammed thousands of people with a school for PRIVATE SECURITY and Investigation. Westwood should be SHUTDOWN!
January 19, 2012 at 5:53 am
On what grounds? Because you don’t like them?
I think the real issue here is that no one does due diligence because everyone thinks that it is governments job to protect us and advise us and make sure everything we do is safe and act like our mommy.
How about some self responsibility? How about a little skepticism, due diligence, and some free market services to inform consumers about schools?
January 19, 2012 at 6:10 am
Amen inalienablewrights….
Centurion…I was under the impression most private colleges were out to make money, or at least not lose it.
January 19, 2012 at 7:35 am
Amen inalienablewrights….
Centurion…I was under the impression most private colleges were out to make money, or at least not lose it.
January 19, 2012 at 7:35 am