City Government

Partial Tuition Refunds, Scholarships Available in For-Profit College Settlement

Published

11 years ago

May 26, 2015

City Attorney Dennis Herrera has launched an outreach program to identify and compensate eligible beneficiaries of his office’s settlement agreement with the Education Management Corporation, the parent company of Art Institute of California-San Francisco.

Herrera’s unlitigated claim centered on allegations, largely informed by his office’s consumer protection investigation, that the for-profit college’s marketing tactics systematically underestimated the college’s costs to students and inflated job placement figures for graduates.

Under terms of the settlement agreement, the Art Institute agreed in June 2014 to resolve the dispute prior to litigation by paying $1.95 million to carry out the purposes of the agreement and to fully reimburse all public costs to investigate the case.

The City Attorney’s Office will also administer a reimbursement program for Art Institute of California-San Francisco students who graduated between 2009 and 2012, and who were unable to secure a job placement relating to their field of study within six months of graduation.

Eligible graduates who received bachelor’s degrees are expected to receive partial refunds of approximately $4,000 each. Eligible graduates who received associate’s degrees should receive partial refunds of approximately $2,000.

Precise amounts will depend on the total number of beneficiaries who can be located and enrolled as participants in the program before the June 30 deadline.

“For-profit colleges have come under fire for deceptive marketing, and when we found evidence of actionable practices victimizing San Franciscans, we moved aggressively to right the wrong,” Herrera said.

“Half our motivation for pursuing this case was to hold Art Institute of California-San Francisco accountable for failing to accurately inform students about their education costs and job placement prospects, and achieve a change in practices that would prevent future students from being misled,” he said.

“The other half was to secure partial refunds as a measure of justice for those graduates who relied on overly rosy cost and job placement statistics, only to find that they couldn’t find a job in their field upon graduation.”

As part of the settlement, Education Management Corporation, or EDMC, agreed to endow a $1.6 million scholarship fund for non-graduating students seeking to complete their studies, and to offer another $850,000 in general scholarships.

EDMC began offering scholarships for returning students several months ago, and is still in the process of implementing its unrestricted scholarship program. The agreement, formally an “Assurance of Voluntary Compliance” that is legally binding and enforceable, also includes key changes to Education Management Corporation’s marketing and reporting practices to avoid misleading prospective students in the future.

For potentially eligible Art Institute-SF graduates who did not receive notice letters, the City Attorney’s Office provides online access to Applications for Refund, Change of Address forms, and answers to frequently asked questions at http://sfcityattorney.org/aicasf.

For more information, call (415) 355-3268; or email at aicasf.refund@sfgov.org.

The deadline to submit an Application for Refund is Tuesday, June 30.

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The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – December 31, 2025 – January 6, 2026

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Alameda County

Oakland Council Expands Citywide Security Cameras Despite Major Opposition

In a 7-1 vote in favor of the contract, with only District 3 Councilmember Carroll Fife voting no, the Council agreed to maintain its existing network of 291 cameras and add 40 new “pan-tilt-zoom cameras.”

Published

4 weeks ago

December 21, 2025

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At the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference, Flock Safety introduces new public safety technology – Amplified Intelligence, a suite of AI-powered tools designed to improve law enforcement investigations. Courtesy photo.

By Post Staff

The Oakland City Council this week approved a $2.25 million contract with Flock Safety for a mass surveillance network of hundreds of security cameras to track vehicles in the city.

In recent weeks hundreds of local residents have spoken against the camera system, raising concerns that data will be shared with immigration authorities and other federal agencies at a time when mass surveillance is growing across the country with little regard for individual rights.

The Flock network, supported by the Oakland Police Department, has the backing of residents and councilmembers who see it as an important tool to protect public safety.

“This system makes the Department more efficient as it allows for information related to disruptive/violent criminal activities to be captured … and allows for precise and focused enforcement,” OPD wrote in its proposal to City Council.

According to OPD, police made 232 arrests using data from Flock cameras between July 2024 and November of this year.

Based on the data, police say they recovered 68 guns, and utilizing the countywide system, they have found 1,100 stolen vehicles.

However, Flock’s cameras cast a wide net. The company’s cameras in Oakland last month captured license plate numbers and other information from about 1.4 million vehicles.

Speaking at Tuesday’s Council meeting, Fife was critical of her colleagues for signing a contract with a company that has been in the national spotlight for sharing data with federal agencies.

Flock’s cameras – which are automated license plate readers – have been used in tracking people who have had abortions, monitoring protesters, and aiding in deportation roundups.

“I don’t know how we get up and have several press conferences talking about how we are supportive of a sanctuary city status but then use a vendor that has been shown to have a direct relationship with (the U.S.) Border Control,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Several councilmembers who voted in favor of the contract said they supported the deal as long as some safeguards were written into the Council’s resolution.

“We’re not aiming for perfection,” said District 1 Councilmember Zac Unger. “This is not Orwellian facial recognition technology — that’s prohibited in Oakland. The road forward here is to add as many amendments as we can.”

Amendments passed by the Council prohibit OPD from sharing camera data with any other agencies for the purpose of “criminalizing reproductive or gender affirming healthcare” or for federal immigration enforcement. California state law also prohibits the sharing of license plate reader data with the federal government, and because Oakland’s sanctuary city status, OPD is not allowed to cooperate with immigration authorities.

A former member of Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission has sued OPD, alleging that it has violated its own rules around data sharing.

So far, OPD has shared Flock data with 50 other law enforcement agencies.