A confidential report is shining a light on the City Colleges system and alleges that one campus has inflated its graduation rate through a controversial program.
The revelation, as reported on by the watchdog organization Better Government Association, is presented as further proof of problems with the system in spite of sunny depictions of it by the top level of Chicago's government.
“It is yet another example of how the City Colleges of Chicago administration under Mayor Rahm Emanuel has manipulated rules to create an illusion of meteoric success at the seven-campus system of taxpayer-funded community colleges,” BGA's David Kidwell wrote.
City Colleges Chancellor Juan Salgado
The report, which was put together by City Colleges of Chicago Inspector General John Gasiorowski and obtained by the BGA, said that Richard J. Daley College has an apprenticeship program for electricians that is unapproved and has many ineligible enrollees but has awarded about 300 diplomas. Gasiorowski said the certificates granted upon completion of the program are not valid, according to BGA.
The report also alleged that the program was used in an attempt to get thousands of dollars in reimbursements for state tuition that covers college courses that are made available for free, BGA reported. City Colleges reported it received more than $630,000 in tuition reimbursements off more than 41,000 credit hours from 2012 to 2016. City Colleges had not refunded the money, BGA noted.
The program put the college's graduation rate in 2017 at 26 percent as reported to federal authorities, other documents showed. The college's rate without the program would be 12 percent, according to BGA.
Gasiorowski said in the report that poor oversight and record-keeping and attention paid to regulations were issues with the system, which has undergone alterations since Emanuel came into office, BGA said.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the National Electrical Contractors Association had a longtime program for apprentices, and City Colleges wanted to work with the program in a public-private arrangement. However, the issues began there, the report alleged.
“In summary, based on the myriad of problems involved in offering the IBEW programs, it is safe to conclude that Daley College’s relationship with the IBEW-NECA Technical Institute is a shoddily designed effort to siphon credit-hour reimbursement, and to a lesser extent, academic completions, from the instruction that the IBEW-NECA Technical Institute provides to its students,” Gasiorowski's report said.
In a statement to BGA, City Colleges Chancellor Juan Salgado said the issues in the system began before he took over from Cheryl Hyman. She resigned in 2016 after faculty gave her a vote of no confidence.
“The argument that working with IBEW is simply to improve graduation rates or revenue is narrow-minded and wrong,” Salgado said in his statement. “While those interests may have existed among some college administrators in the past, it is not my perspective as chancellor.”
Salgado said the system board will look into redoing the program. Jose Aybar, who was responsible for the program as Daley College president, has resigned from that position. He was not reachable for comment for the BGA article.
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