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College Graduate Sues School Cause She's Unemployed

2009_08_realitybites.jpg One recent college grad in The Bronx is taking the well-trodden path of looking for a paycheck from her alma mater in the face of a job market that has quickly revealed how little a bachelor's degree actually qualifies you for. Except for 27-year-old Trina Thompson, she's not simply hitting up Monroe College for her first post-collegiate job—she's suing them to get her tuition back, saying that they have not done enough to help her find work. Thompson is suing Monroe for $70,000, claiming that the staff members at their career services department "have not tried hard enough to help me" since she graduated in April with an Information Technology degree. Thompson's mother told the Post that she supports the suit. She said, "She's angry...She put all her faith in them, and so did I. They're not making an effort...We're going to be homeless, and we'll still have a student loan to pay." A spokesman for the school laughed off the lawsuit, saying it "is completely without merit" and "does not deserve further consideration."

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  • Nic

    This woman needs to wake up. Goodness knows how someone so deluded ever managed to get a degree. Graduate careers do not just fall into your lap, there's a lot of hard graft involved. It sounds to me like she isn't willing to put the work in.



    By getting her name out there, I'm guessing all she's done is to get herself blacklisted by a fair number of companies. Who's going to employ a sue-happy graduate with a sense of entitlement? I know I wouldn't.

  • blondeinthecity

    get a clue trina, ivy leaguers and people with 10x more experience than you arent getting jobs right now.

  • robingee

    >> Thompson's mother told the Post that she supports the suit. She said, "She's angry...She put all her faith in them, and so did I. They're not making an effort...We're going to be homeless..."



    Why would the mother be homeless?

  • starrygordon

    Unfortunately this sense of entitlement doesn't seem to come from people who have grown up with the expectation that a degree is the natural extension of their educational path.

    If you make a vacuous but high-priced credential the condition of getting a job, then of course clever people are going to see if they can't find some way of producing that credential more cheaply and selling it slightly under market. It has nothing to do with an educational path, if there even is such a thing. The customers are not on a path; they're just trying to get through a door to a place where the wage slavery is supposed to be better.
  • teany

    I kinda, sorta feel bad for her. Now she's getting fleeced by her lawyer for a case that she'll never win (um, precedent, anyone?). She should have gotten the AG's office to go after schools like Monroe for false advertising.

  • Irish_up

    Unfortunately this sense of entitlement doesn't seem to come from people who have grown up with the expectation that a degree is the natural extension of their educational path. Unfortunately diploma mills like Monroe and University of Phoenix cheapen traditional, hard earned degrees from people who actually do attend college to learn, not just clock hours. Part of the failure in the system is that we let students enroll in any course of study they choose, regardless of the availability of jobs in that discipline or allow study at a level that would never be accepted in the market.

  • snickerdoodle

    I'm happy to see somebody taking the schools to task. From the Boston Globe site:



    "I see nothing wrong with bringing the schools to task. The purpose of higher ed is to get good paying jobs. But all the schools want is tuition $$. Both of my kids went to higher ed at an enormous cost to us. The schools could care less about where their grads end up. I've seen it first hand. Anybody buying "in" doesn't realize until grad day that the only one who truly benefitted from the experience was the schools bank accounts."

  • T

    If you were great at getting a job then you wouldn't work in career services office at a college. Mean but true.

  • Matt Joyce

    There are countless schools offering courses that they simply do not have the teachers or the necessary facilities for. There are countless schools handing out degrees that are rapidly devaluing all the other schools around them. And yet, if it wasn't for human resources drones following formulas for resume sorting defined in the 1950s this system would have collapsed 20 years ago.



    Interestingly, I wonder if a mandatory draft would change people's attitudes towards collegiate education. If every student left high school to serve in the military for a few years likely the value of higher education would return to what it once was... a method of supporting the growth of academia, and not a debtors prison for those hoping for corporate serfdom.

  • Brooklynbobby

    I know people with graduate IVY LEAGUE degrees that have been looking for work for over a year. Gimme a break!!!

  • Manitoba

    That's probably because they were English Lit majors. A humanities major from an Ivy is more useless than a science degree from the worst state school, unless you are the top of your class.



    Why people go to college and spend 100-200K and don't major in math, c.s., chemistry, medicine, etc. is often beyond me.

  • GREGORYABUTLER

    You



    Need



    Help

  • valeriob

    Yes, save all your poop. Good job Greg.

  • Bort

    If she somehow wins, the entire CUNY system is FUCKED.

  • franz

    she must be living in an alternate reality..if she won this lawsuit, 10% of the unemployed population would be suing their schools, parents, teachers,...hrmm, who else can we shift the blame onto...

  • Scout1

    Monroe insists it helps graduates in their careers.



    "The lawsuit is completely without merit," school spokesman Gary Axelbank said. "The college prides itself on the excellent career-development support that we provide to each of our students, and this case does not deserve further consideration."



    The college's Office of Career Advancement advertises lifetime free service for graduates, and boasts on the school's Web site: "We have many resources available for students at any stage of their college career, and even after graduation."



    Actually, if this is a selling point of their system, which it clearly is, she may have a case. It depends if they really did anything to assist her in getting a job or not. They clearly are obligated (and claim) to provide some type of services and/or support to graduates. I wonder if she tried availing herself of any of them?

  • ANGRYGOD11

    Part of any such lawsuit is if she mitigated her damages.

    Even if they failed to do anything to get her a job, as if a job is a thing or procession, she must go to court and proved she did what she could to gain employment. Did she volunteer? Did she try to network? How many interviews did she set up for herself, etc. At 27, she better have one hell of a list before making a fool of herself.

  • babyfishmouth

    She's not even on LinkedIn, so I can't imagine she's done even half the things you suggested.

  • valeriob

    I can't find her resume anywhere, she probably doesn't even have one. Without merit isn't even the word for it.



    I hope she never gets a job. Ever.

  • ckl

    her knockers weren't on facebook, i bet she's not even real!@!!



    . . .

  • Contrapposto23

    Why didn't I think of this...

  • This is a perfect example of the entitlement issue with the iGeneration, they feel as if everything should be handed to them on a silver platter. E.g. I was in line the other day with a friend and an iGen came up to us and asked us to save "their" spot while they went off and did other things. No! wait like everyone else or leave.



    Suing your college/iniversity for back tuition because they haven't done enough to find you a job, isn't going to help your job prospects, if any.

  • SeasTooFarToReach

    It's only been three months! Doesn't she read the news? It's tough for everyone out there, even ivy leaguers.



    Just because you graduated doesn't mean you are good at what you studied or have the necessary skills to nail a job/keep a job/impress someone after 15 minutes with you. In the meantime, you have to do what you have to do.



    Maybe her aspirations are too high... so many possibilities for failure.

  • freddynyc

    Trina, just stop whining and get out the stilettos and halter top and start hustling. Those are some heavy bills you got and you'll just have to suck it all up - literally....

  • NannyState

    Maybe she's just hanging around under the wrong lamppost.

  • interlard

    Trina Thompson. Remember that name. She'll never get a job now. What a LOSER.

  • silver

    TV or subway ad school? Your a fool. Watch this and learn something.



    IT? Didn't anyone tell you they all were outsourced to india? The most you'll qualify for is a job at bestbuy plugging in computers to the network for techs in india to repair them.



    Your daddy's money and your DeviantArt portfolio or sucking professor **** at art school isn't going to get you a job, when I can replace you with a 16 year old intern from 4chan to do art tasks for my company for free. Get a real job that requires physical skills and can't be outsourced, and isn't from your popularity with a bunch of self labeled "critics". Unless your degree is trash so you can brag to your fellow elitest housewife friends your "educated" when you marry your Bernie Madoff and never have to work again in your life.

  • GothamGirl

    "Your a fool"?



    Ironic.

  • starrygordon

    Most people go to college, not to learn something, which they could do anywhere, but to get a degree, a credential, which they think will help them get a job. After they graduate, many of them will find out that the degree is worthless. They will then have learned something.

  • alexisriley

    Colleges are for learning. If you expected a job upon graduation you should have attended a trade school

  • GREGORYABUTLER

    You can learn for free in the public library or on the internet.



    College is for getting a credential - AA, BA, BS, MA, MS, PhD, JD, MD ect - so you can get a job



    Nobody in their right mind would pay all that money just for "learning" (unless they are a trustafarian with rich parents to whom money means nothing because they don't actually work for it).

  • grizzzly

    I agree that everyone at college needs to think about what it's doing for their job prospects and that the credentials are important, but I disagree that colleges aren't for learning or that learning isn't important for finding a job. I was recently hiring for an internship and I cannot express how much of a placement benefit it is to be well-read and a good writer, and a good college should help you become those things.



    That said, Monroe ads are basically saying "go here, get a job!" Predatory schools, combined with "just sign this and go to class" education lending land a lot of people in debt they don't understand going in.

  • suepart

    stop begging

  • felixthecat2

    Monroe doesn't train students well and scams the federal to pay tuition for low income students . Monroe college should be shut down. Monroe college is a fraud and perhaps her case has no merit but i hope it would shed light on their practices which borders on fraud.

  • GREGORYABUTLER

    I hope Ms Thompson wins her suit - and all the other folks who were ripped off by schools that promised "job placement services" call their lawyers too.



    $ 70 K is a hell of a lot of money for a working class person!

  • angry_pickle

    I completely agree with you. University of Phoenix is notorious for this. Probably true for other "for-profit" private schools such as Monroe College. They're such scams.

  • Peter

    Here is a student loan horror story from Pennsylvania. $120K in loans, a $7.25/hour job.

  • roe

    Yep. I'd love to see these schools' financial aid offices held more responsible for the horrible advice they give students. They encourage students to run up debts they will never be capable of paying off.



    I very much remember a FA officer at my college trying to talk me into taking $5000 more a year in loans so I could live on campus. She told me "everyone takes out these loans, when you get out of school you'll get a good job and pay them back right away!" It's a damn good thing I didn't listen to her; there's no way I would have been able to survive after school if I'd had to pay back an extra $20,000.

  • Mr Mel

    She doesn't have a prayer. Maybe she's unemployable.

  • valeriob

    She is definitely the problem. Complaining about it will only make her less employable.



    I wonder if she ever picked up a book and read it. Like, for fun.

  • unregistered_wiseguy

    Put me on that jury and I won't find the case "without merit."

  • David

    City to Trina Thompson: "Drop dead!"

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