Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 13, 1994 TAG: 9401130174
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"Education doesn't cost . . . It pays."
But Judith Pugh of Roanoke says she paid dearly - not in money, but in lost opportunity.
Pugh is one of about 200 Career Training students statewide who were left hanging when the school - fraught with financial problems - closed its three campuses this week. What had been described to students as an extended holiday break - Dec. 16 to Jan. 10 - was actually a last-ditch attempt by school administrators at financial reorganization.
"I don't see why they started new classes when they knew what was going on," said Pugh, who started nursing-assistant training at the school's Roanoke campus in September. The school also had campuses in Lynchburg and Richmond.
"They could have given some kind of warning. I think what they did was dirty."
Pugh donned her white uniform Monday morning and walked the quarter-mile from her home to the campus on Brandon Avenue, intending to resume her course work. She was greeted by a Virginia Department of Education notice taped to the school's front door, informing students that the school had closed.
Pugh, 21, was two months shy of completing her training. She said she was guaranteed a $5- to $7-an-hour job at a Roanoke-area mental-health facility after she completed course work and received certification.
Getting a job would have meant getting away from government handouts. It would have meant improving her chances of regaining custody of her 2-year-old daughter, she said.
"I'm trying to get off welfare and get a better place to live," she said. "Now I have no idea what I'm going to do."
Career Training Center's financial woes were tied to its heavy dependence on federal student loans. A majority of the school's students - more than 90 percent at its Lynchburg campus - received federal loans or grants.
But the school was identified by the U.S. Department of Education last year as subject to possible limitation, suspension or cutoff from all federal aid programs because of its high student-loan default rate - 57.7 percent.
The high rate caused a cash flow problem for the school, said Carol Buchanan, associate specialist for proprietary schools at the state Department of Education.
Banks began declining to loan money to Career Training students. The U.S. Department of Education imposed a 30-day reimbursement action against the school, meaning students had to be enrolled for 30 days before their loans could be approved.
"It pretty much crunched their cash flow," Buchanan said.
Robert McGinty, Career Training president, said last month that the high default rate made it difficult for the school to get student loans. That mean lost finances and eventually affected the school's ability to meet its financial obligations.
Those obligations included rent. The school was evicted from the building that housed its Lynchburg campus last Wednesday. Two days later, the school was locked out of its Roanoke campus for failure to make more than four months' worth of rent payments.\ Rug pulled out again
For 15 years, Sheila Simkins, 35, has tried to jump-start a career.
She entered a nursing program at a Washington, D.C., hospital but dropped out after a year.
In 1986, Simkins, pregnant, moved to Roanoke with her husband. The couple divorced in 1990. Simkins went on welfare.
Determined to survive "without a man" and without welfare, Simkins turned to National Business College in Salem. In 1991, she earned an associate's degree in office management.
Without a car, job opportunities were limited, Simkins said. She ended up working at a fast-food restaurant.
Simkins is back on welfare.
"I was always trying to believe things would get better," she said.
A friend, Judith Pugh, referred Simkins' name to the Career Training Center. With a year of nursing school, Simkins seemed a likely recruit, Pugh said. Plus, a successful referral meant $30 for any Career Training student.
Simkins enrolled in the school's 20-week nursing-assistant program in November.
The school suited her needs. It was within walking distance from her home. It had day-care service.
And it offered Simkins a chance for a career - "not something you do just for the money, but because you like to do it," she said.
Now that the school has closed, Simkins says, she will simply write off the past two months as "a waste." But she is ready to start over somewhere else.
Simkins has inquired about a 16-week nursing-assistant program at Virginia Western Community College. Tuition is about $700, which Simkins says surprised her.
Career Training Center's nursing-assistant program was $3,149.\ Help for some
The classroom at the Dominion Business School in Northwest Roanoke filled quickly Tuesday evening with Career Training Center students, there to talk with Carol Buchanan, of the state Department of Education, and Donna Barrette, director of Career Training's Roanoke campus.
The students were upset. And they wanted answers.
"You mean they didn't know they had financial problems when they were enrolling students last fall?" asked student Tanya Cooper, who had a few weeks left in her nursing-assistant course work.
"To me, that's fraud. I have hopes, plans. I'm upset. I put everything into this."
Buchanan and Barrette eased some concerns with news that Dominion had agreed to carry some students to course completion through its programs.
There was one snag. Dominion does not offer a nursing-assistant program.
Jackie Flurnoy - who was one month into his nursing-assistant training before Career Training closed - walked out of the meeting.
"According to them, the month I went was no big deal to them," he said later. "That's what it sounded like to me. There was nothing I could do about that month."
Debora Chattin of Vinton fared better, though she has lost the two months she put into Career Training's 15-month medical assistant program.
"Thank God it was only two months," said Chattin, 34.
Chattin intends to start over at Dominion as soon as she can enroll.
"I'm not going to give up," she said. "I've still got my goal. This may bring me down a couple of notches. But that's OK"
by CNB