Increased oversight of private career colleges needed to protect students, report says

A Calgary non-profit is calling for more oversight of private career colleges after a report uncovered unethical treatment of students, misleading advertising practices and high-pressure sales and recruitment tactics. 

Momentum, which offers employment and skills training programs to low-income Calgarians, says its report marks the first time the private career college industry has been studied from the perspective of students.

There are 1,300 private career colleges across Canada and 190 in Alberta. About 170,000 students attend the schools across the country, seeking a range of careers, including truck driving, hairstyling, long-term care and office work. 

Courtney Mo, report co-author and manager of public policy research and evaluation at Momentum, said the students are predominantly women, older, have dependents and are more likely to have been born outside of Canada. 

"So, much more vulnerable learners, and we learned that private career colleges can be a real gamble," she said. 

In one example, Mo said a newcomer refugee couple were recruited. They signed up at a college and took on about $85,000 in student loan debt without realizing they had enrolled in a program or a student loan in the first place.

"Their English skills are so limited that they didn't understand what was happening during these really exploitative, high-pressure sales tactics that were used on them and many other newcomer families," she said. 

Mo says that while many of these colleges are providing education that's vital to communities and local economies, there are also many that students say use strong-arm sales methods, offer poor quality instruction and provide lacklustre job opportunities upon graduation because of the college's reputation. 

"That's part of the problem. We don't have verified information on which ones are graduating people successfully and on to a good quality employment," she said. 

Mo said that while recruiters will often vocalize that information in a pitch to prospective students, it's not verified or provided publicly anywhere. 

"This is one of our recommendations, to see that type of information verified and publicly accessible to potential students so they can make a more informed choice about the quality of the college that they're considering," she said. 

Single mother Kim Keeler attended one of these private career colleges in Calgary in 2015-16. She spent nearly $20,000 on her 10-month medical office assistants program — but she's yet to secure employment in the field. 

"They did tell me there were lots of jobs out there, but there's thousands of applicants into each job," she told CBC News. 

"I wouldn't want to spend that much money for only 10 months ever again."