Ex-Students of Bankrupt Trade School Offered Help

A San Fernando Valley legal services agency is offering a workshop this weekend to teach former trade school students whose school filed for bankruptcy how to apply for refunds to repay student loans.

United Education and Software, which formerly had offices in Encino and operated Pacific Coast Technical Institute in Van Nuys and National Technical School in Los Angeles among other institutions, filed for Chapter 11 federal bankruptcy protection in December, 1989. But the firm set aside $6.5 million to refund loan debts of former students, said Roberta Stovitz, coordinator of consumer and employment affairs at San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services.

The company set aside another $600,000 to pay claims filed by students for its failure to provide instruction, supplies or equipment.

United Education, now based in Los Angeles, agreed to set aside the claim money earlier this month as part of a settlement of a consumer-protection complaint brought by the state attorney general’s office.

“We’ve had hundreds of former students come to our office complaining about these various schools and the fraud committed against them,” Stovitz said.

Students, mostly low-income blacks and Latinos, frequently take out loans to attend these schools, planning to repay the loans after getting better jobs, which the school operators said the training would qualify them for, Stovitz said. In practice, she said, the graduates often do not find better-paying jobs.

Valley legal services will conduct the workshop Saturday to help former students file their claims with the company before the June 25 deadline, Stovitz said. The workshop will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the legal services’ office at 13327 Van Nuys Blvd. in Pacoima.

Stovitz said claim forms should be sent to U.E.S., Student Claims, P.O. Box 67808, Los Angeles, Calif., 90067.

United Education filed for bankruptcy following a string of events that included student-loan processing problems, a federal audit of one of the company’s schools and the consumer-protection complaint brought by the State of California.