I am so sick of these for-profit educational companies (they are companies, not good enough to be called institutions) sucking off the federal teat, getting our tax dollars, whether they are grants or subsidized student loan money. It is criminal activity happening in plain sight.

I looked at Micropower's website and the thing that strikes me the most is that there is absolutely zero information about their faculty (if they have any). University of Phoenix, a place that I put in the same league as this school, makes only a passing mention of some.

Maybe there will be a day when University of Phoenix gets raided too. We can hope.

Career institute's Jersey City office raided in student visa fraud case: report

By Summer Dawn Hortillosa / The Jersey Journal

A career institute's office in Jersey City was raided yesterday as part of an ongoing investigation into alleged student visa fraud, reports say.

Homeland Security agents shut down all five campuses of the Micropower Career Institute, which has its headquarters in Chelsea, Manhattan, yesterday. They also searched the school's offices in Jersey City and Newark as well as Mineola and Hauppauge in New York, ABC 7 reports.

Link to ABC Coverage

The school and its officials are accused of falsifying the records of students in their English as a Second Language program to collect federal education money for them, reports say.

Federal authorities believe the school did not report ESL students with F-1 visas who did not attend at least 80 percent of their classes. Students with F-1 visas are required to attend at least 18 hours of classes a week, reports say.

The school's president, Suresh "Sam" Hiranandaney, was taken into custody. His brother, Samir Hiranandaney, Seema Shah and vice presidents Lalit Chabria and Anita Chabria were also arrested, reports say.

The school's website notes that classes are not in session and says they expect class to resume next Thursday, June 5.

From the Jersey Journal