MJI’s statement to students said it will seek
to determine if a “teach out” can be arranged
with other schools that could accept stu-
dents’ current credits and that the school
would do everything it could to ensure those
credits are transferred to institutions stu-
dents choose.
Lynn did say that when the government
clamps down on federal student aid, it is dif-
ficult for many schools to stay afloat finan-
cially. He cited two nursing schools in South
Florida that closed recently for this reason.
MJI has not closed its doors, although its
administrative offices in Southfield are no
longer open, Meisner said. A small number
of office staff are in place in West Bloomfield
on the Chabad-Lubavitch Campus for
Living Judaism. Dual enrollment classes for
high school students studying Hebrew, the
Holocaust and other subjects are ongoing at
The Shul.
Near The Shul is the nearly completed
three-story, 16,000-square-foot MJI head-
quarters building that was funded, Kasriel
Shemtov told the JN previously, by private
donors over many years. The building is
designed for offices, a studio for online
classes and space for students.
HISTORY AND GROWTH
Michigan Jewish Institute was started in
1994, with the goal of serving the Jewish
community and educating students to help
them get jobs in computer and business
information systems, Shemtov said in a pre-
vious JN story.
The nonprofit career college says it offers
bachelor and certificate programs for stu-
dents interested in pursuing an education
that accommodates their cultural and reli-
gious beliefs. MJI says it offers degrees in
business, computers and Judaic studies.
In the beginning, MJI focused on two
main populations: Jewish Russian immi-
grants and the Orthodox community. “As
soon as they graduated, they got jobs,”
Shemtov said at the time.
After 2000, jobs in information technol-
ogy dried up and the school planned a Judaic
Studies program to prepare students to be
professionals at Jewish organizations. MJI
launched its online program in 2006, which
was accredited by ACICS in 2009.
The online program generated “enor-
mous interest from Orthodox communities
throughout the world. This interest has
U.S. GOVERNMENT
Department of Education Student Aid Funding
resulted in a substantial increase in MJI
enrollment,” Shemtov had said.
Only 42 students were enrolled at MJI
before the online program started; now there
are an estimated 2,000.
Many students wanted the opportunity to
study for a year in Israel at a yeshivah or sem-
inary and earn credits toward their degrees,
Shemtov said in 2013. He added that working
closely with host schools in Israel, students
who participate in the MJI Study Abroad
Program may earn additional credits per year
toward their bachelor’s degrees.
However, according to the DOE letter
to MJI, this became an issue because “MJI
turned the notion of a study abroad pro-
gram on its head and demonstrated it was
awarding Pell Grants to students who were
not ‘regular students’” — those enrolled or
accepted for enrollment in an institution for
the purpose of getting a degree or certificate
offered by that institution.
“The evidence the department has
reviewed shows that many, if not most, of
MJI students had no interest in obtaining, or
intention of receiving, a degree or certificate
offered by MJI.”
Jessica Fidler, a former MJI employee, says
she is not surprised by the DOE’s actions to
cut off student aid, she told the JN last week.
At the end of 2012, she filed a report with the
DOE about some things she discovered there.
A native Detroiter, Fidler lived in Israel for
almost nine years before returning home.
She was hired by MJI in late 2012 because of
her fluency in Hebrew.
“They needed someone who spoke
Hebrew because the majority of students
were Israeli kids with parents who are
Americans,” she said. “I talked to a few stu-
dents who didn’t know a word of English.
That’s when I started questioning things.”
She says she was given all student tran-
scripts from the past year to prepare for
MJI’s accreditation renewal. She claims the
transcripts showed some students took the
same course several times and were granted
credits each time.
EXCERPT OF MJI STATEMENT:
“Rather than engaging the institution in any discussion about its concerns or issues
and truly attempting to understand MJI’s programs of study, including why MJI is and
has been in compliance with the Department’s rules and those of its accreditor, the
Department has acted precipitously, unfairly and unjustly.
“The Department contends that MJI improperly permitted U.S. citizens, who were full-
time Israeli residents, to receive federal student aid in the form of Pell Grants. It contends
that these students were enrolled for the sole purpose of receiving Pell Grants and had
no interest or intent to obtain or receive a degree or certificate from MJI, notwithstanding
the fact, among other things, that students seeking federal student aid must complete a
Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which includes a certification by the stu-
dent that s/he intends to use the funds for educational purposes at the institution.
“MJI does not provide a study abroad program as described by the Department;
rather, its students are almost all either enrolled entirely online with MJI or enrolled in
a hybrid version in which the student is taking courses from MJI and courses for credit
toward an MJI certificate/degree from a foreign institution that has signed a partner-
ship agreement. This arrangement complies with Departmental regulations governing
written arrangements between eligible institutions, such as MJI, and other institutions
including ones located outside the U.S.”
(Read the full statement online at bit.ly/1pdx7BR.)
“That didn’t make sense,” she said, adding
that when she started asking questions, she
received vague answers. “They would try to
come up with different excuses,” she said. “I
told them they couldn’t do that.”
Then, after only two weeks, her employ-
ment was terminated.
Fidler, who now teaches at an Arizona
university, did not hear back from the DOE
until May 2015, when a written response
directed her to speak to ACICS, MJI’s accred-
iting agency.
However, the DOE letter supports Fidler’s
concerns about full-time Israeli residents
receiving Pell Grants, as the letter states,
“ostensibly for ‘studying abroad’ in Israel at
Israeli institutions.”
“Not a single one of them [between 2006-
2012] ever physically attended classes at MJI
and none of them graduated from MJI,” the
DOE letter to Shemtov stated. More than
25 percent were enrolled in Israeli universi-
ties or teacher’s colleges, meaning they did
not study briefly at an Israeli institution to
enhance their educational experience after
enrolling at MJI to obtain a degree from MJI.
The letter also states that some 524 stu-
dents were “supposedly” enrolled in a MJI
computer degree program. “No MJI-supplied
computer degree credits are listed on 520 of
these 524 transcripts,” the DOE document
stated. More than 75 percent earned zero
computer-related credits, and many stated
they didn’t have a computer.
Other students interviewed by DOE, as
outlined in the letter, said they never applied
for a Pell Grant, yet records show they
received one through MJI.
In the final pages of the lengthy letter, the
DOE addresses MJI’s failure to “exercise ade-
quate standards of administrative capability.”
Cited is a Dec. 18, 2012, email from Moshe
Klein, president and CEO of Moshe Klein &
Associates, an accounting firm in Skokie, Ill.,
that stated “all associates confirm that thou-
sands of student records … contain inaccu-
rate, duplicate or misleading information.”
Klein was, or acted as, an officer of MJI,
the document said.
Further paragraphs mention grades and
transcript information for students that
cannot be verified as accurate and other
“recordkeeping shortcomings,” leading DOE
to concede that MJI violated administrative
standards.
Because of these problems, the DOE deter-
mined that MJI provided false information to
ACICS, its accreditor.
An institution only needs to violate one of
three essential Title IV requirements to be
denied recertification: not meeting the fidu-
ciary standard of conduct, failure to adhere
to regulatory requirements of administrative
capability and engaging in substantial mis-
representation.
“… the Department has determined that
MJI violated all three of these essential Title
IV requirements,” DOE’s letter stated.
*
March 10 • 2016
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