A federal agency is investigating reports that Lawrence Career College mishandled government loans intended for the school’s students.

A review team was at the school during the first week of February, said Stephanie Babyak, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Education in Washington, D.C. The review, she said, was prompted by students at the college calling the department’s regional office in Kansas City, Mo., with complaints.

Jennifer Searight is one of many students discontented with the Lawrence Career College. Students have complained that the school is inordinately slow in processing their loan checks.

Babyak declined to comment on the nature of the complaints, but several students most of them low-income single, single mothers told the Journal-World the school has been slow to process their aid checks, creating confusion and consternation.

The school’s owners say the problem is the result of confusion over complicated federal rules.

Students say they’re not getting what was promised.

“When I signed up for the medical-assistant course in December, I was told I’d get my first (loan) check by Feb. 2,” said Michele McAfee, a student. “Then I was told it would be ‘next week’, and then it was ‘two days’ I didn’t get my check until Feb. 22.”

Some students said they’ve been shortchanged.

“My aid has been changed on me four times now,” said Jennifer Searight, a student in the college’s executive assistant program.

Owners respond

“I got my first check two weeks ago,” Searight said. “It was for $800, it was supposed to be $1,200. And now they’re saying the difference between what I owe and what the loans will cover is close to $2,700. I sure didn’t know that going in.”

Jeff Freeman, who, with his brother, Scott, owns the Kansas City-based corporation that operates Lawrence Career College, denied any wrongdoing.

“Everybody is getting their checks, absolutely,” Freeman said, noting that laws governing the payments are complicated and led to misunderstandings. It’s not unusual, he said, for students to want their checks before the regulations allow the school to distribute them.

“I’ll always have a couple people mad at me about something,” he said.

Freeman insisted the federal review was “a routine thing” that uncovered only a few minor miscalculations.

“It went fine,” he said.

The official report on the review’s findings should be available in a couple weeks, said federal spokeswoman Babyak.

How loans work

Most students at Lawrence Career College are eligible for federal grants and loans designed to help them acquire the skills they need to land better jobs.

Though most of the grants and loans are used to pay Lawrence Career College, students are encouraged to apply for loans to help offset some of their living expenses child care, for example while going to school.

They’re expected to begin paying back the loans six months after they leave the program.

Students do not get the loans all at once. Instead, the money is wired to the school in quarterly installments for distribution.

Lawrence Career College recently hired a third-party contractor to process the payments, Freeman said.

The college offers 10- and 12-month courses aimed at helping students get jobs as bookkeepers, executive assistants, medical office help or medical assistants.

Depending on the course, costs range from $7,200 to $9,600.

Wanting a career

Searight, 28, rents a room from a couple who live in a mobile home behind the SuperTarget store, 32nd and Iowa streets.

“I pay them $200 a month,” she said, “and then I pay my ex-husband $200 a month in child support because he’s got the kids. We have three, two boys and a girl.”

The children stay with her on the weekends.

“The couple I’m staying with have a kid,” she said. “So on the weekend, that’s three adults and four kids in a two-bedroom trailer. It gets pretty crowded.”

Searight, who earned a GED at Pratt Community College, enrolled at Lawrence Career College after seeing an advertisement in the telephone book.

“I’m to the point now where all I want is a career, a good, respectable job that’ll let me take care of myself and my kids.”

Her time at Lawrence Career College, she said, has been filled with unwanted stress. She can handle the coursework “I’m in the 90s,” she said of her marks but she can’t handle not getting her money on time.

“I can’t get anybody over there to understand that when I don’t get my money, I can’t pay my rent and I can’t pay my child support,” she said. “My second check is already two and a half weeks late. And I can’t get anybody to explain it to me. I feel like I’m being deceived all the time.”

Misunderstandings

Rebecca Clothier, executive director at Lawrence Career College, is baffled by complaints like Searight’s.

Loan payments, she said, are distributed seven weeks from the beginning of each quarter.

“That’s if all the forms have been filled out correctly,” she said.

Some of the misunderstandings, she said, may be the fault of previous administrations.

Clothier’s predecessor, Tunya Carr, resigned in January. Also in January, the school’s director of education, two instructors and a financial aid officer were laid off.

Lawrence Career College has been crosswise with its students before.

Last year, the college expelled five students Ann Barone, Dawn Krambeer, Heaven Fitzgerald, Allison Coy and Stephanie Wagner in the medical-assistant program after learning they had complained to the Kansas Attorney General’s Office and the Journal-World about poorly organized classes and absent teachers.

The students’ complaints prompted the Attorney General’s Office to investigate.

“It’s still ongoing,” said Mark Ohlemeier, a spokesman for the attorney general. “At this point, there’s not a timeline for completion, but we’re hoping for sooner rather than later.”

Eighteen students filed complaints with the Attorney General’s Office.

On two occasions, students said they were encouraged to rent videos after their teacher didn’t show up. They watched “Coyote Ugly” one week, “Me, Myself and Irene” the next.

District court lawsuit

The students later filed a lawsuit in Douglas County District Court, accusing the college of selling them a bill of goods.

“A wrong was committed,” said Ted Lickteig, an Overland Park attorney representing the students. “This lawsuit is about getting that wrong corrected.”

The students are seeking more than $75,000 in damages. A pretrial conference is set for July 1.

Sheldon Singer, attorney for Lawrence Career College, called the lawsuit “nonsense.” Most of the school’s students, he said, give the program high marks.

School records show that of the 43 students who took the medical assistant certification tests last year, 37 passed. Their average score was 87 percent.

The expelled students did not take the test.

“We’re doing what we promised to do,” Freeman said, “and that’s to give people the education and training they need to get a better job, to make a better life for themselves.”

Several former students of the college contacted the Journal-World last week, apparently at the behest of college officials, to say their experiences with the school had been positive.