Thinking of photo school?

[Al Seyle]

For anyone interested in Brooks Institute:

Brooks students express frustration

By John Scheibe, jscheibe@VenturaCountyStar.com
July 29, 2005

Brooks Institute of Photography students met with the school's president Thursday afternoon at the Ventura campus and demanded that he be more upfront with them about a threat by state regulators to close the famed school.

"You need to level with us and stop treating us like children," one student told Brooks President Greg Strick after he told some 350 students he was sad that the report by state regulators might make them less focused on their studies.

Inspectors from the Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education alleged in a report released earlier this month that Brooks' recruiters have consistently lied to prospective students about the type of jobs they could expect to get after graduation as well as the amount they would be paid.

Regulators say recruiters told students they could expect to earn $100,000 or more during their first year out of school. In fact, graduates earn an average of about $26,000 and leave the school owing $70,000 or more in loans, according to the report.

The bureau is threatening to shut down the for-profit school within two years unless it addresses these and other problems.

The school is owned by Career Education Corp., an Illinois-based company that has been the subject of investigations by the U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Other than graduating from Brooks in in 1969 (when it was still owned by the Brooks family), I have no connection with the school.

[Matthew Cordery]

I find myself having a surprising lack of sympathy for the students really. Surely, the school shouldn't be making such outlandish claims but certainly it is the responsibility of the students to check claims made by the school. If anyone told me that, after on a few years of study, I could be making 100K, I'd certainly find out if what they were saying was true. I'd certainly ask to see some data supporting this claim, esp if I was going to be shelling out that kind of money. If a car dealer said "This car will get 100 mpg and make you breakfast", you'd think "Hmm, maybe that's just hype". Then again, maybe I live in a world where everyone wants to be a victim and I just don't know it.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

LOL....I agree with Matthew completely. Chemical, structural, electronic engineers rarely get salaries just out of school in the 100k range, same goes for doctors and lawyers, what makes these kids think they are going to make more fresh out of college than these careers that require far more effort and years in school? Yeah some of them might become famous photographers, or after many years become photography directors for the movie industry, but it aint going to happen just after getting the diploma....I am sure of that.

[domenico Foschi]

Matthew, you are blaming the victim here.
There is a big difference between the promise the Brooks institute offers and the example you give, which is highly unrealistic.
The institute has made a claim that is untrue, period.

[ronald moravec]

The problem is there there are all kinds of these schools receiving government money, LOTS OF IT, which supliments the student`s tuition. Beauty and clothing design shools are two other examples. Same outlandish promises.

They are committing fraud on the students and the governmernt.

Sure the students should be smarter, but they are young kids easily fooled. And the money supplied by the the government is not government money, it is yours and mine as the government has no money of its own.

Shame, I never knew Brooks was one of the one in the business.

[Richard Boulware]

This subject really hits a sensitive spot with me.

While undergoing the four years of academic hell at the Art Center College of Design where I earned my BFA, we had many transfer students from that school up in Santa Barbara...and they washed out very quickly.

Later in my photography career, I left my huge studio...with custody of my two small children after a divorce, to become instructor and department head at a large art school with a photography department of 300 studens and a faculty of 14. (I could no longer operate my huge studio, with all the traveling...and my two small kids needed a Dad at home.) I had hired new, qualified faculty and overhauled the entire darkroom and view camera inventory, tripods, lighting, etc. I had hoped to re-energize the school and provide a quality photographic education. What a naive idealistic fool I was.

In about 18 months, it became clear to me that the school was using my award-winning career as a sales tool to lure new and naive students in to this expensive program...just for the 'bucks'!

When I tried to 'tighten the screws' and provide tougher academic standards and asked more in student performance, the administration balked, and after four years, we parted company. Although I was allowd to resign...I had no choice really, because I would have been fired. I was feeling like I was an accessory to a crime...

Schools like this take naive you people with stars in their eyes, and parents with hopes and dreams and large wallets, and rip them off. The tuition was NOT cheap...and yes there was public m0neys involved. Yours and mine.

Tuition revenue was the only item in the school's bottom line. Quality of education was not a priority consideration. This was in direct conflict with my basic philosophy which was....take a lot of tuition, and give a lot back, of equal value.

My school...Art Center gave me more than what I paid...which was a fortune, even with my G.I Bill moneys.

On my last day at this "school" I came home, burned my busines cards which listed me as 'director of photography', and took a two hour shower...to get the stink off, and I've never looked back.

"Let The Buyer Beware"

Richard Boulware

[Hans Berkhout]

May I assume that Matthew and Jorge are of student age/experience and just a bit more critical than other students?

[Alec Jones]

I too agree with Mathew and Jorge. It's a simple matter of personal responsibility. Sadly today, it seems everybody wants to blame somebody else if something doesn't go exactly as they expected it, whether or not that expectation was valid, reasonable or rational.

I don't excuse the school for "puffing" their product [the education], but the ultimate responsibility should be squarely with the students who didn't look behind the school's statements, talk with graduates, talk with professionals in the business, and talk to themselves ["is this a reasonable thing to expect?"]

I'll bet there was no "promise" by Brooks, only statements like "the earning potential of our graduates is ...". There is often two sides to these arguments. Don't automatically blame the institution first. Knowing how little common sense today's graduates acquire during their government [public school] education, I'd first suspect their expectations.

[Richard Schlesinger]

"If it sounds too good to be true it probably is."

I keep reading about how the army etc. is guilty of the same tactics in their recruiting. It's a wonderful wonderful world!

[Matthew Cordery]

I'm not saying that I don't share any sympathy with the students. Sure, I feel a bit sorry for them. However, I also had the benefit of having parents who actually taught me to think for myself and to look out for the other guy. Maybe that makes me overly skeptical but it's also kept most of my money in my wallet, even when I had precious little of it.