Massachusetts- Hosanna College of Health is accused of charging thousands of dollars to nursing student hopefuls without being licensed. The "school" sometimes charged up to $10,000 for nursing educations that were sub-par and rarely resulted in nursing careers.
Attorney General Maura Healey is suing the school and is alleging that the college falsely recruited students from the Haitian community in Boston with the promise of passing the NCLEX and obtaining work as a nurse.
Only 3 percent of graduates from the college actually passed the NCLEX exam, which is a requirement for working as a nurse in Massachusetts. The school is only licensed in Florida.
When the school dean was asked about their students fail rate she said “Students can cheat, cheat their way through school. On paper they look immaculate,” but then they fail the exam.
Healey is requesting that the court order the school to refund students' tuition fees, and all other payments; impose civil penalties; and bar the school from further deceptive behavior.
Her suit also accuses the school of “exploiting their shared identity with Haitian immigrants to create confidence and trust, which in turn allowed them to charge steep tuition for a course of training that was essentially worthless.” The students were allegedly threatened that if they filed complaints, including “threats to use Vodou, which in Haitian culture is akin to a death threat.”
“These students invested their hopes and dreams in this program, but instead paid thousands of dollars for an ineffective, low-quality education that failed to provide a path to a nursing career,” Healey said in a statement. “We allege that this school aggressively recruited and misled students from the Haitian community in order to generate a profit.”
Hosanna is renting a property to conduct business in South Florida, but they also rented temporary space in Massachusetts periodically to recruit students, oversee classes, and collect tuition, the complaint said.
Hosanna told prospective students that they wouldn't have any problem finding high-paying jobs and so far has held two graduations in the state; one in 2014 and another in 2015.
But only 11 of 174 nursing graduates took the boards and from them only five passed. nursing graduates took the boards and from them only five passed.
Students were required to pay a deposit of $1,000 to $3,000 and then $400 a month. They were also required to take trips to Florida for clinical training, but it's reported that this was very poor quality. One student reported that she was only required to sit in a room and watch a video of childbirth satisfy the Obstetrical requirement.
The Massachusetts Department of Education has now ordered that Hosanna cease operations in the state. The college denies ever conducting classes in Massachusetts.
“The goal, of course, was to operate a fly-by-night nursing school in Massachusetts — a school that attracted students and generated profits without having to submit to oversight and regulation,” the complaint said.
It is illegal to have face-to-face credit-earning classes without a state license. Anyone graduating from a school that lacks a license cannot take the nursing exam legally. Two nursing students from Hosanna did obtain licensure in Massachusetts. But the lawsuit states that these nurses can only practice if they first obtain licensure in another state.
According to the lawsuit, “Hosanna does not exist to train future nurses; instead, it exists to profit from each student’s dream of becoming a nurse,”
Source: Boston Globe
