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MILWAUKEE — For-profit colleges account for 10% of all student enrollments but half of all student loan defaults, according to the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization.
Additionally, Black and Latinx students make up at least half of the students attending these institutions.
Sanford Brown is known as one of the most notorious for-profit colleges in education. It shares its title with ITT Technical College and Everest College, but they are all closed.
All three had campuses in Wisconsin. Everest was in Milwaukee. Sanford Brown had one in West Alice. ITT Tech had his three campuses in the state: Madison, Greenfield, and Green Bay.
Some students who ran out of federal financial aid at these rogue colleges were able to afford to return to school, while others weren’t so lucky.
Damia Cozy said she was grateful not to fall into the latter category.
“I always wanted to be a nurse,” she said. “I thought Sanford-Brown would make a good step because she could get a degree as a medical assistant and make more money than her CNA at the time.”
Like many young single mothers of color living in low-income neighborhoods, Koji wanted a better life for herself and her three young daughters. When she applied for her Sanford Brown, she was working her third shift job.
“I looked at their schedules and they had block time, which allowed me to keep a job and go to school as a single parent,” she said. “I was working from 11pm to 6 or 7am.”
Koji kept her word and put it into action.
“I didn’t even have a car back then,” she said. “I took the bus to school and then she took two buses back.”
It has never been an easy experience. She was up for days trying to balance her home life, school and her work through the night. She was so tired that she sometimes fell asleep on the bus.
One day it put her in the hospital.
“I was awake two and a half days without sleep. My blood pressure was so high that I ended up in the emergency room,” she recalled. I was hospitalized for eight days because I was told I needed to get away from the source of my stress.”
Nonetheless, she graduated from Sanford Brown 14 years ago with a medical assistant degree. She moved to North Carolina and she wants a new beginning for herself and her children.
“I didn’t realize Sanford Brown was a problem until I moved to another state,” she said. “When I started filling out all these job applications, my employer told me they weren’t hiring anyone who attended that school.”
The more applications she filled out, the worse things got. Cozy said she filled out over 400 questions.
“There was an application that I filled out on the question where did you go to school? When I typed in that I went to Sanford Brown, the application literally stopped,” she said. “All my sacrifices were in vain.”
Cozy had no choice but to return to Milwaukee. She moved back in with her children in September 2010 and started working odd jobs to pay her bills.
And one day she is still.
“I believed this school was legit because my federal student loans were accepted,” she said. “Sanford Brown left me $51,000 worth of debt.” I checked the other day and now my debt – and I’m not done with school – is $82,000.”
In 2020, Causey decided to start over. She is currently pursuing a nursing degree at her college, Milwaukee Area Technical, from which she derives the rest of her debt.
Sanford Brown’s West Allis campus closed in 2013. All campuses were closed in the spring of 2015. This is largely due to the extremely low placement rate, a common theme in rogue for-profit universities.
“Honestly, it was all smoke and mirrors,” Cozy said, pointing to dozens of emails he sent to the Sanford-Brown leadership years ago. It went well.”
Cozy said this unexpected detour in life proved to be a learning opportunity. She gave advice to others in the same situation.
“I recommend doing a thorough investigation, but don’t get discouraged,” she said. “I tell people they should definitely come back if that’s their dream.”
Wisconsin currently has 89 for-profit universities approved by the Educational Endorsement Program. 84 of those schools are active. Sanford Brown’s West Allis campus was first approved in February 2005 and closed in November 2013.
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