Education Department fines Baker College $2.5 million

The Department of Education is fining Baker College $2.5 million as part of a settlement reached Tuesday following a yearlong investigation into the institution’s marketing and recruiting practices.

The Office of Federal Student Aid, which conducted the investigation, determined that the private institution in Michigan misrepresented the job placement rates and salaries of its graduates on its website, harming prospective students and violating federal policies.

Specifically, the department found that Baker would base its data on surveys without disclosing how many graduates responded and would tell prospective students that it had an overall “career outcomes rate” of about 91 percent, without defining “career outcomes.” The figure gave the impression that nearly all Baker graduates earned employment in a paid position, but the college was including unpaid options like continuing education.

The department also found that Baker would highlight employers that had hired students before they enrolled rather than after they graduated from the institution and used national average salary data from the Department of Labor rather than data from its own graduates.

“FSA determined that these misrepresentations constituted substantial misrepresentations because they could harm students, who may reasonably rely on this information when considering their higher education options and potential outcomes,” the department wrote in a news release about the agreement.

In addition to paying the fine, Baker agreed to provide copies of all marketing materials to FSA to review over the next three years, and to send information to all current students and employees about how they can submit complaints or provide information about future misconduct to the department.