Vantrell Echols, a 36-year-old from Georgia, wishes he never received a phone call from for-profit Lincoln College of Technology back in 2008. He said the school spent six months convincing him to enroll -- promising to provide all the training and help he needed to find a high-paying computer science job. He had been unemployed for more than a year and he was desperate, so he gave it a shot.
But upon enrolling in the computer science program, he said the quality of education "was a complete joke" and job assistance was nonexistent.
"They sold many of us dreams about helping us, getting us qualified to work, to help us with jobs, (but) I had to ask fellow students to help me because the teachers wouldn't. Many of us graduated with honors but didn't learn anything in our fields," he said.
Lincoln Educational Services president Scott Shaw defended the school's reputation to CNNMoney, touting its 75% job placement rate and pointing to examples of successful graduates like the CEO of VMWare (who graduated in 1979).
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But Echols said that after accumulating more than $20,000 in debt to attend the one-year program, he wasn't able to find a single job in computer science. He's still unemployed, is now homeless -- and he is convinced he'd be better off without the degree even listed on his resume.
He says multiple employers have told him that they don't view his degree as credible because of the for-profit industry's reputation and because other people they've hired from the school haven't had the necessary skills for the job.
"They've ruined my life and the lives of many of my classmates," he said.