Montreat College takes the Ethical High Road.
Montreat College takes the Ethical High Road: Administrators at Montreat College, according to The Asheville Citizen-Times, said this week that they would help cover student loans taken out by more than 50 master’s-degree students at the North Carolina institution who were told by outside recruiters that the federal government would forgive their loan debt up to $17,500 each.
Many of the students whom the recruiters said would be eligible for loan forgiveness were in fact ineligible because they were neither secondary-school mathematics and science teachers nor special-education teachers at elementary and secondary schools. The recruiters, who worked for a private company hired to recruit for the college’s adult-education programs, had told the students that they would receive government help if they pursued an M.A. in education at Montreat.
President Dan Struble, Montreats leader, met with teachers Monday night telling them the college would aid them with the costs they’ve incurred in the program. “Clearly, this is a challenge to our reputation,” Struble said. “We want to be who we say we are and that means meeting every student’s situation.”
According to the Asheville report:
Montreat contracted with Arizona-based Institute for Professional Development in 1994 to build its adult education program.
IPD recruiters representing Montreat have visited numerous schools in Western North Carolina in recent years advertising a masters program in K-6 education.
Many teachers who enrolled said recruiters told them they were eligible for loan forgivenes because they were highly qualified math, science or special education teachers at Title I schools.
Neither Struble nor officials at IPD’s parent company, the Apollo Group, have said why recruiters distributed material suggesting students in the K-6 program qualified for loan forgiveness.Sara Jones, a spokeswoman for the Phoenix-based Apollo Group, said her company would work to resolve the students’ complaints and review the recruitment issues.
While the final loan forgiveness assistance help is not fully finalized, positive moves are being put in place to hear the students concerns and take appropriate action. This is ethics in action…and as a business ethics speaker to colleges and universities I find joy in reporting on positive applications of ethics vs. reporting on ethical breaches.
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