Woman Sues Her College After She Can't Find A Job

I found this when I was on the Internet a couple of days ago, but some woman is suing her college after she graduated because she has $70000 in student loan and career services ignores her. I might send this to my two cousins that have a ton of debt, but no jobs. So, if you have ton of debt and no return on investment you might be able to sue. Check it out here: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/03/new.york.jobless.graduate/

Here's the text:

A recent college graduate is suing her alma mater for $72,000 -- the full cost of her tuition and then some -- because she cannot find a job.

Trina Thompson, 27, of the Bronx, graduated from New York's Monroe College in April with a bachelor of business administration degree in information technology.

On July 24, she filed suit against the college in Bronx Supreme Court, alleging that Monroe's "Office of Career Advancement did not help me with a full-time job placement. I am also suing them because of the stress I have been going through."

The college responded that it offers job-search support to all its students.

In her complaint, Thompson says she seeks $70,000 in reimbursement for her tuition and $2,000 to compensate for the stress of her three-month job search.

As Thompson sees it, any reasonable employer would pounce on an applicant with her academic credentials, which include a 2.7 grade-point average and a solid attendance record. But Monroe's career-services department has put forth insufficient effort to help her secure employment, she claims.

"They're supposed to say, 'I got this student, her attendance is good, her GPA is all right -- can you interview this person?' They're not doing that," she said.

Thompson said she has fulfilled her end of the job-search bargain, peppering companies listed on Monroe's e-recruiting site with cover letters, résumés and phone calls. But no more than two employers have responded to her outreach, and those leads have borne no fruit.

Her complaint adds, "The office of career advancement information technology counselor did not make sure their Monroe e-recruiting clients call their graduates that recently finished college for an interview to get a job placement. They have not tried hard enough to help me."

She suggested that Monroe's Office of Career Advancement shows preferential treatment to students with excellent grades. "They favor more toward students that got a 4.0. They help them more out with the job placement," she said.

Monroe College released a statement saying that "while it is clear that no college, especially in this economy, can guarantee employment, Monroe College remains committed to working with all its students, including Ms. Thompson, who graduated only three months ago, to prepare them for careers and to support them during their job search."

Thompson says she has not hired an attorney to represent her because she cannot afford one. When she filed her complaint, she also filed a "poor person order," which exempts her from filing fees associated with the lawsuit.

Asked whether she would advise other college graduates facing job woes to sue their alma maters, Thompson said yes.

"It doesn't make any sense: They went to school for four years, and then they come out working at McDonald's and Payless. That's not what they planned."

She should have taken a degree in Gender Studies and made a career of asking people for money on Tumblr for being offended by the Patriarchy. Apparently that's quit an effective way of making money these days.

Well if they do give people with better grades better treatment then that is not fair. They're probably just doing that to get got numbers.

lmaaoooo she is gonna lose that lawsuit so badly

I have a feeling that this is going to become about feminists.

Damn she has a 2.7 GPA AND a perfect attendance record? She also wants career services to push her resume to companies. Damn, where can I hire this girl she seems like a real superstar. Not to mention she sued her Alma Mater. Thats taking initiative.

Lol that's not how it works.

Frivolous lawsuit.

Man, people in this country are getting dumber and dumber.

This is a really bratty and weak thing to do. If I were a prospective employer and I found out about this, I definitely wouldn't hire her for any position. She isn't hungry for success, she feels she is entitled to it.

Only in America...

@sophia89: that's honestly probably what will happen

LOL no they won't. It's not bad publicity that a below-average student feels entitled to a job because she went to college. I'm certain that the university's Career Services department makes no promises of employment because that would be stupid. Career Services do things like coach you in how to interview, they help you make a resume in the format that is trending at the moment, they have job fairs, and some have relationships with businesses where they share information on job openings and that information is forwarded to students and/or CS will send employers information on students. I have never heard of a Career Services department that gets the job for you. I work at a university alongside the CS department and they have never done what this person is claiming they should do.

It is the businesses that choose to hire 4.0 students, not CS.

....................

Welcome to america, you need to have a mouth to feed to get a job, so poke holes in those rubbers children or fake being on the pill.

I've heard of this case.

I wish I could do that. Colleges get away with so much crap with all of the fees.

No kidding. Colleges are so much worse than any "greedy" corporation.

OOOOHHHH!!!

@noone301994 said:

@ryagan said:

@noone301994 said:

I wish I could do that. Colleges get away with so much crap with all of the fees.

No kidding. Colleges are so much worse than any "greedy" corporation.

"Oh, what's that? Tuition already costs $3,000+ per semester? Don't worry, we'll add a bunch of fees and make exclusive textbooks so you pay even MORE for school and get deeper in debt!"

I'm one of the lucky few who has not gone into any debt for school so far, and I plan to keep it that way.

@ryagan said:

@noone301994 said:

@ryagan said:

@noone301994 said:

I wish I could do that. Colleges get away with so much crap with all of the fees.

No kidding. Colleges are so much worse than any "greedy" corporation.

"Oh, what's that? Tuition already costs $3,000+ per semester? Don't worry, we'll add a bunch of fees and make exclusive textbooks so you pay even MORE for school and get deeper in debt!"

I'm one of the lucky few who has not gone into any debt for school so far, and I plan to keep it that way.

What college do you go to that only costs $3000 per semester?

lol

She's a moron. Did she really expect to have a nice paying job right out of college? And she has a 2.7 gpa. I think employers would rather take people with uh better gpas. Did anyone tell her this. My aunt waited an entire year until she got a job offer or interview and was hired.

@saren: Actually, my college only costs $2,700-2,850 per semester. I go to school in Utah. Utah tuition is much cheaper than that of other states.

I see. I don't know what your personal situation is, but that much per semester means at the end of 4 years, your total tuition would actually be less than what I'd have to pay for one semester in New York.

I meant to put "college tuition," but due to some bugs this site's currently having, I wasn't able to edit it. But yeah, Utah tuition is cheap, and that's crazy that tuition in New York costs so much. Even if you're an out-of-state student in Utah, you're still going to pay a lot less for tuition than you would pretty much anywhere else. There are tons of students here who are able to pay out of pocket each semester.

She's living the American Dream!!!

Yea, I know BYU is one of the cheapest schools in the country and the education quality is pretty good (at least for law and business). If you're not Mormon, you might be a little out of place.

I also know that University of Utah has produced a couple of famous Computer Scientists and innovators. Nolan Bushnell, the creator of Atari, went there. There are other famous scientist that came out of UU, too. I have been to Salt Lake and I was really impressed with the city, there is plenty of stuff for Non-Mormons to do--bars, clubs, etc.

At first, I figured the OP was pulling one on us and this actually came from an Onion Article.... (But no, this is real lol).

Second thought: about 72K for four years of college? That's barely anything..... Two years of tuition at my undergrad cost more than that and two years at my current school will cost more (fortunately, I only graduated from undergrad with 40K debt--not bad since its 200K overall).

@algorhythm511: Yeah, people who aren't devout Mormons don't fit in entirely well at BYU. And Salt Lake does surprisingly have a lot to do for people who aren't Mormon. It has a surprisingly high gay population, too. And even for people who aren't Mormon, Temple Square is still a neat place to check out because of its uniquely designed fountains and reflection pool. It's an especially cool place to go during Christmas time. I think Salt Lake is where a lot of the non-Mormon, artistic people flee to once they have a chance to move out, and as a result, it has a surprisingly unique culture.

I agree with the law suit. With the amount of money we pay for college, they do need to help advance thier graduates into the fields they studied for. Her main complaint is that the college said they would help advance her career like they do to students with better GPA. They call employers and ask them to give this student a interview, yet they are not doing that for her. I'd sue in a heart beat as well. And this isn't a gender thing like some people said, I'd sue the crap out of my college if they show no interest in helping me find a job after I paid a 4-year tuition.

"Fight against the Patriarchy. All white males are oppressors. I AM A FEMINIST!!!"lol.

This woman lives in a world where people eat lollipops and crap rainbows.

She is also an example of many college kids who did absolutely no planning in their college career.

Here are the mistakes she made:

1. I have never heard of Monroe College until now so it is a private for-profit college in New York. First thing, she could have gone any of the SUNY/CUNY colleges, saved a lot of money and got just as good of an education for a fraction of the price. Furthermore, she could have gone to a Community College and saved even more. Not to mention for-profit colleges do have a bad reputation (not deserved, IMHO) in the eyes of the public and employers.
2. She says she has "a 2.7 and a perfect attendance record", lol. Sorry, 2.7 is pretty mediocre and no employer gives a rats ass about a perfect attendance record. One thing I DON'T see are internships and relevant work experience. What the hell was she doing those 4+ years? She could have been taking part time help desk jobs, or doing some volunteer freelance web design work if she couldn't find an internship. Also, a 2.7 would indicate to me, as an employer, that IT might not be her strong suite.
3. There are other ways to pay for school without going deeply into debt. With a 2.7, she probably wouldn't get any scholarships. However, there are work study programs, CO-OP's, military, companies that do tuition reimbursement. She could have done any of those and graduated with a lot less debt (especially if she chose to go to a cheaper college and possibly a community college her first couple of years.) Many departments also give grants and have department scholarships. Hell, at my grad school, the department had a surplus of scholarship money, funny enough, hardly anyone ever applied.
4. I don't see her taking any initiative to find a job. No Career Services department is going to 'pimp' your resume to employers. They will give you the tools to help you get a job--resume writing, interview coaching, posting up job openings, etc. You can't sit on your butt and have career services do all the work for you. She could have been networking, joining trade groups, applying for job openings on her career board, joined Linkedin, and gone to some technical recruiters.
5. As for her degree, Information Technology degrees varies from school to school. So, I am not sure how practical this degree was.

So, there you have it. Another person that thought college = automatic high paying job. If she had planned better she wouldn't be sitting on $70,000 in student loans and no job prospects.

Right, she is suing over her own inability to find employment after just three months? Guess I should have sued both my old school and my union because I didn't have a steady job after 8 months.

@ryagan:Yeah, I was surprised at the gay community and the artistic eclectic culture there. Another awesome thing is it has a strong start up community. I even read UU has the most startups coming out university research (18 in 2013)--beating out MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford, Cornell, and UC Berkeley. :O

@jezer: Most expensive private universities have pretty good needs based financial aid. I know at my Alma Mater, they would look at your families expected contributions and then calculate a financial aid package. Many times kids from middle class families would have most of their expenses covered (maybe having to pay $5-10K/year).

There were also kids from rich families where they didn't get any financial aid, but their parents could afford it.

There were some other kids who did ROTC scholarships, too.

I didn't know of anyone that actually took out huge loans. It might be different at other colleges. As for professional school (MBA, Law, Medicine) that's a different story.

I get 200000 million dollars per month

@ryagan: Wow, Utah tuition sounds awesome.

@saren said:

@ryagan said:

@noone301994 said:

@ryagan said:

@noone301994 said:

I wish I could do that. Colleges get away with so much crap with all of the fees.

No kidding. Colleges are so much worse than any "greedy" corporation.

"Oh, what's that? Tuition already costs $3,000+ per semester? Don't worry, we'll add a bunch of fees and make exclusive textbooks so you pay even MORE for school and get deeper in debt!"

I'm one of the lucky few who has not gone into any debt for school so far, and I plan to keep it that way.

What college do you go to that only costs $3000 per semester?

Crowder.

@ryagan: Lucky man.

What an entitled dick.

Dear Rich White Kids,

Nobody owes you shit

Perfect description of my college situation, though my family was like lowest end of middle class during my college years.

Lol I will graduate with somewhere between 60-160K from my professional school. The best part is my job prospects might end up the same as the women in the OP. Haha. Its like playing cards but gambling with your future!

The women in the OP should have went to pharmacy school or become an actuary(or do something IT related).

This better get thrown out of court, or it opens an entire new can of worms.

Lol...Yea, Law School is feast or famine. Most people think everyone in law makes good money. It's usually the one in the T14 law schools and the ones that get top grades in other law schools that get the big jobs. However, these days I don't know. IIRC, Cornell Law is barely in T14 and it has a 50-60%-ish placement rate, at only ~60K/year tuition. :O It's also the same way at UC-Berkely from what some law students there told me.

Actually, this thread reminded me of something... There have been a couple of lawsuits against law schools just recently. It was a class action against a couple--like Thomas Cooley, Brooklyn, etc. Apparently, they made up some employment figures.

Yea, Medical, Actuarial, Some Engineering Fields and Comp Sci/IT are the way to go. Though at one time I considered becoming a patent attorney.

I hope she wins she deserves every penny of that. I mean college destroyed her life. Just like it destroyed my two cousin's lives. One's has her MBA and the other has his Law Degree, but no one will hire them.

See here is how I see it. If I drop $75,000 on a car...it better not break down the next day. That's what happened to her.

Dropping 75K just to hear a bunch of people give her some outdated info she could have learned from the library. Man, my cousins talk all the BS they went though so they could live a nice life. Now they are worse off than they would be if they didn't go to college.