Rutgers created fake jobs for grads to boost MBA program rankings, lawsuit charges

[left-of-center2012]

On its website, it proclaims its No. 1 ranking this year by Bloomberg Businessweek as the top Public Business School in the Northeast. Fortune bestowed a similar honor in 2021. And U.S. News & World Report rated its MBA program among the top ten for Best Overall Employment Outcomes in the U.S., as well as No. 12 for its Supply Chain Management MBA program.

But in a whistleblower lawsuit filed Friday, a Rutgers administrator charged that the university fraudulently burnished those national rankings by creating bogus jobs to show the success its business school graduates had in finding employment.

The lawsuit by Deidre White, the business school’s human resources manager, alleged the program used a temp agency to hire unemployed MBA students, placing them into sham positions at the university itself — for no reason other than to make it appear like a greater number of graduates were getting full-time jobs after getting their Rutgers diplomas.

By going through an outside temp agency, White’s lawsuit claimed, the university was able to circumvent restrictions in the ranking systems that do not allow universities to count internal hires for purposes of their employment statistics.

https://www.pennlive.com/nation-world/2022/04/rutgers-created-fake-jobs-for-grads-to-boost-mba-program-rankings-lawsuit-charges.html

[Sanity Claws]

1. Lots of schools do similar things

I know that some law schools have created 1-year fellowships in which they place graduates in legal services nonprofits. These fellowships are funded by the schools. This opportunity helps the recent graduate gain work experience, which may be used to land a permanent position. However, it doesn't work always work out like that. The graduate still has a high student loan debt but the school gets to increase its placement numbers.

[Demovictory9]

2. YIKES