Another nursing service feels the heat

The Ivy Hall Academy of Nursing has become the latest tutorial service of its kind to come under fire from former students who are seeking thousands in refunds.

In a recent hearing with the Utah Division of Consumer Protection three women told commerce manager Thad LeVar that the Provo-based Ivy Hall still owes them money for instruction they never received.

Only in one case did Ivy Hall officials say they will repay $12,540 of Rianne Cross Whiting's loan with Sallie Mae over the next four years.

To date, Ivy Hall claims it has repaid students more than $300,000. Students say they were forced to drop out after at least two major changes in Ivy Hall's program that required them to take more qualifying course work.

Ivy Hall, which plans to close by the end of this year, and the now-shuttered, similarly named Academy of Nursing in West Valley City say changes to their requirements were the result of sudden switches in New York-based Excelsior College's degree track.

Both of the local tutoring services claimed they could help students prepare for an online test administered by Excelsior toward becoming a nurse. Ivy Hall boasted in advertisements that students could earn an "accelerated nursing degree" in 18 months or less.

KeyBank, and to a much lesser extent Bank One, loaned students a combined millions to seek services from the West Valley City academy, which the state shut down in February after former majority owners and brothers, Mark Hansen and Aaron Hansen, were cited for collecting too much tuition up front from students.

KeyBank is in the midst of making refunds to students among the 290 affected borrowers who were out a total of about $5 million. Bank One has maintained they owe nothing to former academy students because they no longer own or service the loans.

The state is now making the same allegations against Ivy Hall, saying its directors could have chosen to work with a different lender whose disbursement practices did not put their business in conflict with state law.

A state document obtained by the Deseret Morning News shows that former Ivy Hall students Jamie McDonald and Sara Bernstein had three disbursements each of more than $6,000 and almost $5,000 made to Ivy Hall through Sallie Mae in 2003 and 2004. The time line of those disbursements violated the state's pay-as-you-go law for postsecondary proprietary schools, according to consumer protection investigator Tonya Bronson.

"They knew the rules," Bronson told LeVar about Ivy Hall's relationship with Sallie Mae.

Ali Levin, an attorney for Ivy Hall, countered that the students could have canceled their loans at any time. McDonald and Bernstein signed enrollment agreements that cleared Ivy Hall of any further obligation to those students, according to Levin.

Ivy Hall's director of operations, Nathan Finnigan, said some students were even offered refunds in excess of what the state's refund policy mandates in such cases.

Bernstein said she thought her loan would be frozen while attending another institution in order to fulfill the changed course requirements at Ivy Hall.

Ivy Hall officials now await the state's decision on repayment of loans and whether they violated state law.

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E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com