OPMs & A Class Action Lawsuit at USC

In this episode I discuss the recent class action lawsuit brought by the graduate students of USC's masters in social work online program which was outsourced to the well known OPM, 2U. This lawsuit highlights the predatory recruitment and marketing practices that the US Department of Education is attempting to rein in. 

Transcript

Eloy: 0:09

Hi, this is Zelo Ortiz Oakley, and welcome back to the Rant, the podcast where we pull back the curtain and break down the people, the policies, and the politics of our higher education system. In this episode, I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about a recent class action lawsuit against the University of Southern California, and this is in between a series of episodes focused on the recent Department of Education, proposed changes to the definition of third party servicer, and changes to the dear Colleague letter addressing bundle services that will tighten the noose on OPMs. why did I wanna take this time? Because this article specifically focused on a recent class action lawsuit filed by the graduates of the University of Southern California's online master's degree program in social work, they filed a class action lawsuit alleging that the institution misrepresented the program is on par with on-campus version. This online program was almost completely outsourced to two U, who is a for-profit education technology company, and sort of the poster child for OPMs in the United States. To you has been running this online graduate program for usc and the lawsuit which was filed in the Los Angeles County Superior Court accuses USC of misrepresentation of false advertising and other illegal recruitment practices, other predatory. Recruitment and marketing practices, and this here is the heart of what we've been talking about in these series of episodes, the kinds of guardrails and consumer protections that the federal government, specifically the Department of Education is trying to craft in order to protect learners, to protect the consumer and help them understand what they're getting into when they sign up for a program like a master's. Degree in social work that's completely online at a very reputable university like the University of Southern California. These learners feel that they were misrepresented, that they did not know when they signed up for the program, that they would be essentially under the purview of two U and not directly interacting with the University of Southern California. Now, I'm not a lawyer and I'm not going to opine about whether or not there's merit behind this class action lawsuit. I'm sure the courts will ferret that out. But I do know that the issue that has come up here is exactly the issue that my guests have been talking about. Guests like Bob Shireman, who have pointed out the challenge with these for-profit institutions is these runaway, marketing and recruitment practices that border on being predatory. And in the case that we're talking about here, before two U took over the online program, the enrollment at uscs Master's program in social work was around 300 students. After the online program was created in two U, took it over, there was more than 3000. So I suppose it's possible that two of you did a wonderful job of recruiting students, but it's also possible that perhaps they were a bit too aggressive and. Had a lack of transparency. Again, I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not going to opine of whether that was the case or not. But again, this is exactly the heart of the issue that we've been talking about. The reason that the administration has had pressure put on it to do something about OPMs and why the Department of Education is. Thinking about rescinding the language that allows these bundled services to actually exist. So what does this all mean? We will continue to talk about these issues. I have some great guests coming up, like Claire McCann, Michael Horn. Who will continue to dive into this issue and find a way to thread the needle to continue to allow innovation to take place, to continue to allow a marketplace that has. Players in it, actors in IT that are trying to do what's right, to expand access to more students. More students who have not traditionally had access. And in the case of USC, it is perfectly legitimate to think about creating more capacity through offering an online program. The problem is how they go about doing it, the kind of transparency that exists, and whether or not they are worried about the quality. Of access that they're creating and what they're selling to the consumer. This is where I hope that these conversations, the discussion that the Department of Education is engaged with, the effort that the good players in the marketplace are putting into this discussion will lead to the types of guardrails that both protect consumers and allow for the kind of innovation that we wanna see take place. So I hope that you continue to join me as this conversation continues to roll out. I had to take a moment to talk about this, uh, class action lawsuit since it was right in the middle of the conversation we've been having here on the rant, and it allowed me to have a chance to rant a little bit. This week. So thanks for joining me on the rant. I hope you stick with me and hear the next couple of episodes. I wanna give a quick plug to higher ed dive before I go cuz that's where I found this article. And so thanks for the great reporting higher ed dive. Anyway, I'll see you all soon and again, thanks for joining me on the Ran.