You’ve served the nation and maybe you’re thinking about heading back to school to start the next chapter of your career. Colleges are there to help you, right? Hmm, not so fast. Not every school has got your back. Some for-profit schools may care more about boosting their bottom line with your VA education benefits. Some may even stretch the truth to persuade you to enroll, either by pressuring you to sign up for courses that don’t suit your needs or to take out loans that will be a challenge to pay off. In 2010, the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) said that 70% of the agency’s current fraud investigations were focused on for-profit schools.

Be your own boss! No experience necessary! Make $60,000 a year from home! Sounds pretty good, huh? Before you sign on the dotted line, you might want to listen to this 1-minute tip from the FTC...

Earlier this week, more than 50 legal services practitioners joined together with staff from the FTC, USCIS, DOJ, the CFTC, the CFPB, and the SEC to talk about scams against the immigrant community – present and future.

The results of the half-day forum were illuminating for all of us. We found out about all sorts of creative scams targeting immigrants – more about that in a minute. But, just as important, we heard about the hard work and creative solutions that advocates are undertaking to help protect immigrant communities.