Good morning. My name is Valerie Scott. I served for ten years in the US Army and the Army National Guard. I want to share my experience with Argosy University, a school that systematically targeted veterans and military spouses. I attended Argosy for six years with the goal of becoming a Licensed Clinical Psychologist. However, Argosy told me lies, and I am now saddled with enormous debt.
I signed up for the school after being told that my cost would be around $80,000. Instead, I had to borrow $267,000 to earn my degree. I couldn’t even support myself by working while I was enrolled – on the first day of class, Argosy informed us that we were not allowed to have outside employment while we attended the program. Conveniently, they had GradPLUS loan applications on hand for us when they told us, a type of loan that will soon no longer be available. They had promised veterans that their GI Bill benefits would cover the whole cost and those without GI Bills would receive substantial discounts, and that could not have been further from the truth. I have spoken with hundreds of other Argosy alumni who were lied to and are saddled with loans they took out to cover the exorbitant cost of attendance.
On top of lying about the cost, the school also failed to live up to its promises about my education. I was not given the promised supervision by clinical supervisors. In addition, they were pushing out so many students that there were not enough internship placements available for all of us.
Graduating didn’t mean an end to the problems Argosy caused me. When I applied to serve in the US Air Force, I was told that it wouldn’t consider my application to commission as a psychologist because I attended Argosy. The school had earned a reputation that impacted the employability of its graduates.
Despite making regular payments beginning in 2012, I have watched my student loan balance grow and grow. My debt is now over $400,000. Psychologists do not earn the type of money that would make repaying this loan viable, failing any semblance of gainful employment. The salary for people in this field typically ranges from $60,000 to $80,000, a far cry from what I would need to earn to pay off this massive debt. For the majority of Argosy graduates, our only hope of paying off this debt is through Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Income Driven Repayment Plan loan forgiveness, programs that are now being threatened with significant cuts. Schools like Argosy should not be allowed to exist. I have made it my mission to speak out against schools that make misrepresentations in order to enroll students. I continue to advocate for the Department of Education to provide relief to the students who were wronged by schools that they approved.
I am concerned that cuts to the Department will leave students like me without any help, and I encourage you to remember experiences like mine while you consider new regulations. Thank you for your time.
Valerie Scott Remarks