Fresno students sue for-profit college for deceptive recruitment and false advertising
Fresno resident Joshua Jones was working at an Olive Garden and struggling to support his fiancée and newborn son when he saw an advertisement for UEI College on Facebook in January 2022.
At the time, he was deciding between pursuing a four-year college degree or a trade education program, Jones, 36, said in an interview.
After browsing the college’s website and providing his contact information, Jones was contacted by a recruiter who insisted he visit the campus at The New Manchester shopping center in Fresno for a tour.
“When I did the tour, I brought my wife and my son with us to make sure it was the right decision for our family, because it was a big financial move and we wanted to move forward,” Jones said.
But what Jones instead found after enrolling in the school’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) program was limited of hands-on training, courses without instructors and a lack of promised career-placement services, according to a lawsuit he and other former students filed.
Originally filed in July 2023, Jones and 11 other students from the HVAC program are suing United Education Institute (UEI) and its parent company, International Education Corporation for deceptive practice, unfair competition, false/misleading advertising, breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation, intentional misrepresentation and fraud, according to the lawsuit filed by the firm Callahan Thompson Sherman & Caudill LLP.
UEI College is a for-profit, post-secondary education institution with thirteen California locations in central and southern California. UEI offers programs that typically last nine-months in fields such as business office administration, HVAC, criminal justice and health care.
During the tour, Jones said he saw the campus, met with a program director and saw HVAC equipment he was told he’d get the chance to learn with during the hands-on program.
According to the lawsuit, the admissions recruiter told Jones there was only one spot left and encouraged him to enroll on the spot, which included signing up for a $22,000 loan. Multiple plaintiffs were given “a false sense of urgency by mentioning that the program had limited spots left and that they were filling up fast,” the suit said.
Everything seemed to be going well during the first two weeks of introductory lessons, Jones said.
“But then shortly after that, we kind of started feeling like we weren’t getting what we were promised,” he said.
Jones and the others allege they didn’t receive relevant hands-on training. His cohort didn’t have an instructor for three of its nine month program. Nor did the school have relationships with local employers, as promised, help with job placement.
When Jones finally found a job, he was embarrassed at how unprepared he was for the work.
“When I came out of the school, I was making less than I was waiting tables at Olive Garden,” he said.
A spokesperson for parent company IEC denied the allegations, calling them “completely false.”
“The allegations in this lawsuit are completely false and misrepresent the reality of our programs, our faculty, and our commitment to student success,” spokesperson Joseph Cockrell said in a statement. “UEI College stands behind the integrity of our programs and the success of our students. We will vigorously defend ourselves against these baseless accusations and remain focused on our mission of providing quality career education,” he said.
The plaintiffs seek injunctive relief, actual damages/restitution, punitive damages, fees and costs, pre-judgement interest and further relief as allowed by the court.
A mandatory settlement conference is scheduled for July 10.
Broken equipment, missing instructor, former student says
According to data from the California Employment Development Department, the number of heating/air conditioning and refrigeration workers is growing in Fresno County.
There were an estimated 850 HVAC jobs in Fresno County as of 2020, and the EDD projects this number will grow by 14.1% to 970 jobs by 2030. The projected median hourly wages salary for the sector in the Fresno metropolitan area was $28.36 hourly and $58,989 annually, according to EDD data.
Jones and other plaintiffs were told they’d receive hands-on training to prepare for the growing field.
But during his nine months of school, Jones never got to use the vast majority of the refrigeration, air conditioning or heating equipment he was shown during his tour. Some equipment was outdated, and some was broken, former students allege.
“We were also told that the new equipment they did have we were not allowed to touch because they were afraid that we would break it,” Jones said.
The equipment they did have access to wasn’t set up for students to learn real-world applications. “One of the modules was heating and the school did not have the gas set up, so there was no way to learn how gas furnaces work without the gas being set up,” Jones said.
Jones and others also said they didn’t have an instructor for three of the nine months of the program. During this time, students tried to teach themselves about HVAC by watching YouTube videos, Jones said.
The lawsuit also alleges multiple plaintiffs were asked to sign a form stating they had located full-time work in their field of study in exchange for a gift card — even if this wasn’t true — so that the school could claim a higher job placement rate.
Not one student received the promised job placement support, according to the lawsuit. Those who did find HVAC jobs said they were unprepared for entry level work or learned outdated skills. As a result, they received jobs paying about the same as they were already making before enrolling in UEI, according to the complaint.
“We were not allowed to get our certificates unless we signed a paper saying that career services did what they were supposed to,” Jones said.
While Jones is employed today in the refrigeration field, he said couldn’t perform basic tasks that was expected from a trade school graduate.
“The longer I’m in the field, the more obvious it is of how little I (learned)“, he said.
Looking back, Jones said he wishes he would have enrolled in the HVAC certificate program at Fresno City College, which offers an HVAC certificate program for $1,288 in tuition costs. Students can typically complete the certificate over two semesters.
But at the time he enrolled, he didn’t see a need to question anything. He just wanted to get into a trade, start his new career and support his family.
“The school was an accredited school, so I had no reason to worry that it wasn’t as legitimate as a regular college,” he said.
According to the lawsuit, each plaintiff was asked very personal questions about family life and financial circumstances and given “a persuasive and emotionally manipulative pitch” that played on their current hardships.
Several plaintiffs who had criminal histories or were formerly incarcerated were told the program would give them a fresh start and that getting a job wouldn’t be a problem. But in at least one plaintiff’s case, their criminal history did hinder their employment opportunity.
The school “preyed on a vulnerable population of those who were uneducated and desperate for work,” the lawsuit said.
UEI College scrutinized by state, federal regulators
The lawsuit isn’t the only probe questioning UEI Colleges operations.
UEI College has received two systemwide warning letters from the accrediting institution for alleged violations and noncompliance with several accreditation standards.
One letter issued on May 23, 2023 from the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges noted federal regulators had found that IEC employees and senior leaders knew of, and encouraged, violations of ability-to-benefit testing, which measures if students who didn’t complete high school or the equivalent would benefit from a college education.
A systemwide continued warning letter was issued nearly a year later in March 2024, urging UEI schools to comply with several areas of federal law and accreditation standards.
In February 2024, the CEO and CFO of UEI College’s parent company IEC were forced to resign as part of a settlement agreement reached with the U.S. Department of Education — which is the first time the agency has required such a move, according to online news publication Inside Higher Ed.
This story was originally published February 11, 2025 at 3:02 PM.
