http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/10/19/high-debt-unfulfilled-dreams/KuDKIWiyRO5E5HDpRpSLRO/story.html
Brittney Patient was only 18, living in a homeless shelter for teens with her infant son. Her mother was in jail.
Brittney Patient of Lynn attended a for-profit private school in Chelsea.
The Everest Institute seemed like a way out. After talking to an admissions counselor at the for-profit school’s campus in Chelsea, she was convinced that training as a medical administrative assistant would land her a good-paying job while grants would cover most of the cost.
She signed the paperwork without reading it. “I felt like here’s the answer to all my problems,” said Patient, now 24, of Lynn.
But the grants turned out to be loans, and the $22-an-hour job that she said school officials promised proved to be unrealistic. The best job she could find paid $12 an hour.
Everest is part of Corinthian Colleges of Santa Ana, Calif., which the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has sued, alleging predatory lending. Attorney General Martha Coakley is investigating Everest, alleging deceptive enrollment practices.
Kent Jenkins, a spokesman for Corinthian, said the school disputes the claims made by both Coakley and the federal agency. He said there was a brief period when the chain offered student loans at “market rates,” but more recently, Corinthian stopped lending directly to students.
He also disputed Patient’s account, estimating that she borrowed just $8,000 in federal loans toward the tuition of $14,300. And he called her story a success. “She got the job skills the program was supposed to give her,” he said.
Patient got her general equivalency degree after dropping out of high school.
It took her three years to finish the Everest program. She said she needed time off for various reasons, including having to work to help support her child. She also delayed her course work after having a second baby.
But she persevered and finished the program in 2011, believing a good-paying job as medical administrator was coming. Instead, she found herself filing medical records at about half the pay she said she had been told to expect.
Patient said Jenkins’s estimate of her borrowing is wrong. She says she owed most of the $15,000 cost of the program. It proved a heavy burden.
She managed to stay current with her loans for about a year after graduation, struggling to pay the $109 a month, along with other bills. She tried to make ends meet by going to a local food pantry and signing up for food stamps.
But eventually she could no longer make loan payments. Collection letters and phone calls streamed in. She looked for a better-paying job and ended up working at a private medical practice for $12.50 an hour