The Robbery Factor

...What compels salesmen to exploit the dreams of youth, and what constraints, if any, does ITT Tech put on its sales force...

...With classes nearing capacity, Williams said it would be self-defeating to visit the school before enrolling...

...Its goal is to dispel the prospect’s natural skepticism about salesmen by putting him on the defensive, questioning his sincerity and qualifications, and evoking a groundless fear of rejection by the school...

...At one time the VA seemed concerned about whether the funds it dispensed were actually achieving any purpose...

...Surprisingly, the school estimated a loss of $60,000 in 1972, about $52 per student...

...It was also, as subsequent inquiry showed, completely false...

...The ad, placed by Universal Training Services, Inc., gave few details, but to Heatley “it looked real good,” and he contacted the school...

...An hour early, George Williams appeared at the door...

...Even the slight, seemingly insignificant details of the interview must be planned in advance, for they may prove decisive...

...Charles Sullivan, Heatley’s salesman, lives 13 miles west of Boston in an office-home from which he combs southern Massachusetts and northern Connecticut for Universal...

...This school doesn’t work with commissions,” Sullivan remarked...

...Nevertheless, even the most fastidious salesman now and then encounters a recalcitrant who falters at the moment of decision...

...Sullivan sells all six of Universal’s combination correspondence and resident training courses-motel management, truck driving, insurance adjusting, heavy equipment operations, airline personnel work and diesel mechanics-at costs ranging from $793 (motel) to $1,295 (heavy equipment...

...Once he finished the 60-lesson correspondence portion of the course, Heatley would travel to Florida for five weeks of practical training that would prepare him for immediate employment at $1 0 to $1 2 an hour...

...The VA Cop-out Defensiveness is endemic at correspondence schools, especially the larger ones, because of recurring questions about the extent to which the schools’ participation in federal funding programs such as the GI Bill is justified...

...Elliott’s position at ITT...

...Students in several fieldsincluding accounting, commercial art, drafting, and electronic technician training-quit at rates surpassing 90 per cent...

...We’re looking for people with a background in selling intangibles, such as insuranceor ideally, a successful track record in educational sales,” the ad proclaimed...

...Universal was founded in 1945 by E. McSwiggan, Sr., a college dropout and former LaSalle salesman who, as its 71-year-old board chairman, now runs a company with annual revenues of $4 million to $5 million...

...Any change in the law removing mail- or der ins tit u tions from eligibility for the use of veterans’ benefits-a change that has been suggested by some advocates of reform-would devastate schools like Universal, where, according to Universal vice president C. L. Craig, two thirds of the students are veterans, To determine the effectiveness of correspondence education for veterans, the General Accounting Office surveyed veterans taking mail-order programs in 1972...

...Such corporate reticence is understandable, for the available information about ITT Tech does little to enhance its image as an educational institution...

...Have I Got A Job For You...

...The pitch is subtle, crude, and in the hands of some salesmen, brutal...

...I have an ITT diploma, but it’s worthless...

...If you are not now earning $18,000 per year, this could be the opportunity you’ve been looking for...

...Piqued at questions about the school, he asserted brusquely that ITT Tech had only a five- to ten-percent attrition rate, that 80 percent of its graduates had jobs in the fields they studied, and that a prospect’s decision was of no consequence to Williams, since he was salaried and not commissioned...

...Morris Nooner, director of the VA’s education rehabilitation division, says the requirement was “rescinded” in favor of a prescription for “overall quality” in course content...

...In one course, figures for the last two years revealed a 93-percent dropout rate among its 142 enrollees...

...He’s been back in Connecticut since then, but has had no luck finding a job...

...ITT Tech’s priorities inevitably translate into student resentment...

...Rigorous screening is possible because Universal salesmen, being salaried, lose nothing by rejecting a candidate...

...Williams began with an admonition about the necessity of a quick decision about applying: “I could come in with your enrollment tonight, and they could tell me, ‘OK, George, now don’t take any more.’” This theme was repeated throughout the interview...

...Heavy Learning Robert Heatley ’was laid off abruptly last May after devoting 10 of his 34 years to a job stocking the meat and frozen food cases at a supermarket near his home in Watertown, Conn...

...We don’t work that way, so upon the conclusion of my interview here, you’re going to have to decide yes or no...

...Yet Robert Heatley remains convinced his investment will pan out, and he is quick to distinguish Universal from the Florida umpires’ school he attended in February and March of 1970...

...Housed in a two-story, cinderblock building with a brick facade, it is just up the street from Boston University on a bleak commercial boulevard split by trolley tracks and lined with appliance and auto accessory stores, bars, used car dealers, and fried chicken concessions...

...Tom Elliott, an ITT official in New York, would not say whether the company felt any obligation to supply facts to the public, who, through veterans’ benefits and federal grants and insured loans, pays so much of the tuition for ITT Tech students...

...The requirement brought immediate, vigorous opposition from Bernard Ehrlich, the chief proponent in Washington of proprietary education and attorney for two of the largest proprietary school accrediting agencies...

...Manager of public information...

...The findings, however, haven’t diminished the Veterans’ Administration’s enthusiasm for mailorder education, for last year the agency spent a record $120 million on correspondence courses for 427,000 GI Bill beneficiaries...

...In 1972 the school spent $2 14,000 on teachers’ salaries, compared with $296,000 on marketing, of which $186,000 was on salesmen’s commissions alone...

...Williams explained that classes were so near-one week a, way-that the usual lengthy screening process would have to be abbreviated, “So it’s up to me, being the senior man there, to say yes, this man in my opinion is qualified to take this program...

...You will determine whether or not he [the prospect] is qualified...

...Three-fourths of all veterans were found to be dropping out of the courses...

...The only job I could get was here,” says a graduate of the medical assistance course, as she dusts off the display case of the shop where she now works as a clerk...

...Salesmen faced with this symptom are instructed to proceed immediately to the Diploma Story...

...The results were startling...

...McSwiggan didn’t renew the invitation, nor did he admit-as he did in a subsequent telephone interviewthat he had been aware of the program when he issued the invitation and that the board of directors included his mother, father, and brother...

...They deserve better from us...

...And statistics the school furnished to the Massachusetts Education Department disclosed that nearly 70 per cent of enrollees from 1971 to 1973 dropped out, many before classes began, and only half of those who actually graduated got jobs...

...A salesman receives his commission even if his student drops out before classes, and the school pays an extra $25 for enrolling some one without a school-provided lead...

...But here you have a canned speech you use with every lead...

...To the right of the entrance lies a network of flimsy, five-foot-high partitioned cubicles...

...Many of the students’ complaints stem from what the salesmen tell them...

...For instance, with 60 per cent dropping out of the motel course without taking the resident training, the school could count a tidy profit if it only broke even with those who finished...

...Heatley was soon visited by salesman Charles Sullivan, who began by pointing out that as a veteran, Heatley could apply for GI Bill benefits that would pay nearly the entire $1,300 cost of the course...

...Because it delegates the approval function to state agencies, the VA has little contact with the schools...

...Many students undoubtedly drop out once they consider the cost of a trip to Universal’s training facilities in Miami or Las Vegas, plus room and board...

...Sullivan, a highschool dropout, depicted himself as aloof from the sleazy tactics of rapacious, high-pressure salesmen...

...VA officials have no idea whether veterans find jobs as a result of the training, nor does the VA know which schools have been subjects of repeated complaints by veterans about misrepresentation and poor quality education...

...His air of detachment, combined with his warnings about how quickly classes were filling, was more effective than any browbeating sales tactic in creating pressure to enroll...

...After spotting its ad in a sports magazine, Heatley flew to Florida, paid the school $400, and studied there for five weeks until, having failed the examination s- ‘ ‘ they were kind of hard”-he left without the umpire job and returned to stocking frozen food cases in ’Connecticut...

...No one cares except the people who need jobs-who want to acquire real skills that will give them real self-respect...

...Sullivan’s description of the school excited Heatley and he enrolled that day, paying a $175 deposit...

...The school’s success appears to stem from an ingenious arrangement whereby attendance at the resident institution is contingent upon completion of the mail-order course...

...This gets the prospect used to the sight of the pen and prevents a defensive reaction later when the time comes to use it...

...Anxious to begin his new career, the ex-supermarket clerk raced through the 60 lessons in five months, drawing encouragement from comments such as “Excellent” or “Very good” written neatly in red ink across his multiple-choice answer sheets...

...This article was based on research by a Globe investigative team that included Gerard 0 ’Neill, Stephen Kurkjian, and Ellen Zack Aspirants for future jobs in fields such as drafting, refrigeration repairing, or electronics, they are prospective students who probably thought it futile to apply at even the less exclusive state colleges...

...We can go into a home and tell a fellow, ‘Look, you’re not really interested...

...The most persistent grievance of the school’s graduates is their inability to find jobs...

...Curiosity about what ITT Tech salesmen tell prospects in private impelled a 29-year-old writer to pose as a potential student and invite a salesman to his unimposing threeroom suburban apartment for a discussion of the school’s $2,000 mechanical drafting course...

...You are assuming the sale can be made...

...One example is ITT Tech, the largest private vocational school in Massachusetts, with some 1,200 students...

...After the interview, the writer stopped for lunch at a neighborhood restaurant-bar, where he met an ITT Tech salesman...

...Murmurs escape from the cubicles, subdued, low-key dialogues that lend an aura of dignity to the transactions underway within...

...But shortly before the visit, the 28-yearold vice president abruptly vetoed it in a letter that said he had just been “informed by our board of directors” that an expansion program underway at Universal made the visit “inappre priate...

...Inside them the school’s salesmen-eschewing commercialism, they call themselves -“representatives”ply potential enrollees with their pitches...

...Salesmen, paid $135 and more per enrollee, have a monthly quota of five students, one source says...

...An official of the state heavy equipment operators’ union, Wayne Gyenizs, says there are several hundred men on the waiting list for union membership, largely because of the 15-percent unemployment rate in the industry...

...The spiel itself is a deceptively uncomplicated device aimed at shifting the burden of persuasion from the salesman to the prospective student...

...But the delivery was surprisingly casual...

...To learn more about Universal, I arranged with G. W. McSwiggan, executive vice president of the family-owned company, to visit the school in Miami and observe its training program...

...Williams’ spiel was persuasive and efficient, the product of his 15 years of experience selling for the school...

...You’re like an actor who plays the same role, although you can try different things out each time...

...Indeed, in the last seven years, the Veterans’ Administration has spent $1.4 billion on correspondence and other vocational education without having any notion, until the General Accounting Office report, whether the money was achieving its congressionally mandated objectives...

...Paint him a picture of it hanging on his wall...

...Universal gave him the names of a few companies to try, but with the construction industry in a virtual depression, jobs are few and far between...

...What’s it like working at ITT Tech...

...I think you and your wife would be fantastic in motel management,” he told a writer posing as a prospective student...

...A customer enters the store and the graduate walks over to wait on him...

...Seated in folding chairs outside the cubicles, are half a dozen young men dressed in working clothes, waiting to be interviewed...

...If you come over tomorrow,” he snapped, “I can’t guarantee you a place in the school...

...Heatley drove to Florida and finished his training last July...

...Use a ball-point or fountain pen as a pointer during the presentation,” the manual exhorts...

...whether it’s redwood logs or this stuff [education] .” Spokesmen for both I n Tech and the parent ITT Corporation refused to answer questions about their school for this article...

...But Elliott did have one request: “I would prefer that you not use my name, and refer to me as a spokesman...

...A writer posing as an applicant was greeted at the school by Donald H. MacCalmon, supervisor of “admission representatives...

...His sales pitch leaves the cheerful impression that success comes packaged with the loose-leaf courses, payable on an easy installment plan...

...It’s a school rule...

...It’s orderly, it’s consistent, and what’s best, it works...

...But the role stays the same...

...Between spring 1971 and spring 1973 some 2,300 students signed up with ITT Tech, so assuming half that number enrolled in calendar-year 1972, about $186 of each student’s tuition was spent on teachers’ salaries and $257 on marketing...

...Inside ITT Tech, hanging on the yellow cinderblock walls, are facsimiles of the Bill of Rights, U. S. Constitution, and Declaration of Independence, the latter partially obscured by a cigarette machine...

...Universal’s acceptance of an applicant is another matter, however, and to stress his own selectivity, Sullivan said he personally rejects more than half of all applicants, while the school rejects others after paying $25 per person to check their backgrounds “through a computer in Boston...

...Heatley, as he readily admits, is a dreamer, and he had long yearned for such a job, shepherding a powerful machine with a turn of a wrist, commanding, building, working under the sun...

...What they hear in the cubicles is known only to them and their salesmen, and if the youths claim months later, as many do, that they were deceived about ITT Tech, they will most likely be informed by school and state officials that the words on their contracts, not verbal statements, govern the school’s responsibilities to them...

...As he browsed through TV Guide one night, Heatley noticed an ad, slightly larger than a postage stamp, proclaiming opportunities to train as a heavy equipment operator at a school in Miami...

...The technique probably preferred by most proprietary school salesmen is the “negative sell,” named for its emphasis on the applicant’s personal deficiencies...

...If the prospect tries to put you off by saying something like ‘I don’t want to enroll now in the course,’ tell him that’s perfectly all right because ‘I couldn’t enroll you tonight.’ ” LaSalle also has advice for the hesitant, insecure salesman, apt to forget his own role: “Remember that you are the person in control of this interview...

...Peter &wen is a reporter for The Boston Globe...

...Paper Prestige “Successful negative selling is a skilled art, not a matter of luck or accident,” begins the salesman’s manual used by LaSalle Extension University...

...As MacCalmon depicted it, the job held no risks for a salesman, as long as he continued bringing in contracts...

...The manual leaves little to chance...

...Forget about it.’ We don’t lose a dime.’’ In fact the school doesn’t require prospects to make their decisions at the first interview, nor does it use a computer to check their backgrounds...

...Affable, almost effusive, MacCalmon began with a picture of the job...

...There was little urgency about enrolling, for Williams told the same applicant a week later that he could still sign up the following week...

...The salesman himself, ITT Tech reported, was commissioned, not salaried...

...Right away they try to get their foot in the door and give you a selling pitch,” he stated knowingly...

...Salesmen reject few applicants, the overall attrition rate is about 60 per cent, and Sullivan, like all Universal salesmen, is paid on’ a commission basis...

...the writer asked...

...Job opportunities in heavy equipment operation-driving tractors, graders, cranes, and other machineswere excellent, and although the 47-ye ar-old salesman men ti one d nothing about the need for union membership or a license, Heatley was left’ with the impression that the school would furnish the license...

...The VA kept the requirement for two years, but in 1972 Ehrlich’s opposition prevailed and the VA dropped the placement criterion...

...Answering a newspaper advertisement for a salesman’s job at ITT Tech offered insight into the origins of deception...

...Your chances get slighter and slighter as each hour goes by...

...But while students have complained to Massachusetts authorities about misrepresentation, crowded classrooms, broken equipment, and inferior instruction, no action appears to have been taken against the school, which is licensed by the state...

...Complaints had been arriving from veterans at such a rate that the VA directed all approving agencies to require any vocational school seeking GI Bill approval to demonstrate “substantial” job placement of its graduates...

...Selling is selling,” the salesman answered...

...Yet the financial position of ITT’s educational division is sound, with current assets of $8.3 million and liabilities of $2.7 million...

...This could be his sole motivation...

...You know, I neverreally liked the canned pitch before I came here,” he confided...

...She is wearing the white nurse’s shoes she purchased for the career ITT Tech’s training was to provide her...

...Mail-order Education Reputed to be among the dozen largest proprietary schools in the country, Universal has an enrollment of 50,000, with the company’s 150 salesmen roaming the nation to collect 800 new students each month...

...WHY JOHNNY CAN’T WORK: The Robbery Factor by Peter Cowen The indifference of our public schools to training people for jobs has left the field largely to educational hustlers...

...Each week a salesman pursues 20 to 25 “leads”-potential students-and “scores” on four to six of them...

...Leave the diploma right in front of the prospect...

...He was a middle-aged man of medium build, with wavy, graying hair swept back from a receding hairline...

...As the manual explains, “If you need to go to the diploma story, never underestimate the prestige and status this would mean to a prospect...

...The Veterans’ Administration’s indifference to vocational education reflects the indifference of government at all levels-federal, state, and local...

...The school pays salesmen $100 for each student, with a $10 bonus if the student attends his first class (the school’s director said later that a quarter of enrollees never reach that milestone...