The training manual for recruiters at the Globe Education Network is stamped "Confidential and Proprietary." But this week, it burst into the spotlight when Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson filed a lawsuit against two for-profit colleges, accusing them of consumer fraud.
The training manual provides a rare inside look at the strategies that members of the Globe network, a consortium of for-profit career schools, use to recruit students.
To Swanson, who handed out excerpts at a Tuesday news conference, it's more like a blueprint for a "high-pressure sales boiler room."
Swanson accused Globe University and the Minnesota School of Business, both part of the Globe network based in Woodbury, of luring students into their criminal-justice programs with false promises and questionable sales tactics.
The schools issued a statement saying the allegations "could not be further from the truth."
But Swanson pointed to the training manual as Exhibit A.
"The training focuses around 'don't take no for an answer,' " said Swanson.
The manual notes that recruiters are hired for their sales expertise, but you can't tell from their job titles. "If you look at our business cards, they don't say sales representatives," it says. "You are an admissions representative or a career advisor."
