Globe University and the Minnesota School of Business engaged in systematic fraud and deception in marketing to students, making claims that credits transferred to other schools and in overstating the success rates of its graduates, the Minnesota Attorney General's Office argued in court Monday.
But the schools' attorney painted a different picture in opening statements of a civil trial in Hennepin County District Court.
The schools' success claims are no different from those of other schools, and its sales and marketing personnel were given strict instructions in manuals and in training on how to portray the schools to potential students, many of whom were poor, working class, or single parents — in other words, students for whom traditional educational institutions already had failed, the attorney said.
The trial, which is expected to last four weeks, could lay bare many of the inner workings of the for-profit education business, which has come under fire nationally over high-pressure marketing and inflated graduation and job placement rates.
It could also get personal. The schools' longtime owners, Terry and Kaye Myhre, and several other family members associated with the schools sat in the courtroom Monday morning and are expected to testify.
The trial is likely to feature former sales employees, known as admissions counselors, testifying about how they were pressured to sign students, who were known as "leads," regardless of whether the students were qualified to enroll.
The schools are expected to counter that the former employees were disgruntled and that any misunderstanding of expectations would have been more likely caused by a few mistakes from individual employees or potential students who were confused.
"Human error, not fraud, is the source of much of the misunderstanding," Joseph Anthony, an attorney for the schools, said in an opening statement. "The complaints are statistically insignificant."
