Herguan University Raid – 450 Students in Trouble – Most Are From India
Yet another University goes down – Herguan University (HU) raided today and federal agents arrested Jerry Wang, CEO. You must remember Tri-Valley University Raid last year. Now, its Herguan University – located in Bay Area in California, just like Tri-Valley.
Guess what? Back in July 2011, following article was posted in Happy Schools Blog
HU is was listed at #4. Guess what, after 1 year, the university is raided, but not closed.
Raid at Herguan University
SEVIS Status Revoked
Following was posted in ICE.gov site about Herguan University.
Based on federal regulation, Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP)-certified schools are subject to a review of their certification at any time.
On Aug. 2, pursuant to a review of Herguan University’s certification, an SEVP representative served Herguan University school officials with a notice of intent to withdraw the school’s SEVP certification and Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) access.
Students have two choices:
- Continue to attend classes, or continue to work at the job for which they were authorized Optional Practical Training, and maintain their active status in a manner required by regulations, or
- Transfer to another SEVP-certified institution.
Are you a student in Herguan or do you have any information about the programs, do share your ideas below.
Why do you think majority of students are from India in Herguan?
- Low barrier for admission
- Low GRE scores are accepted
- Low TOEFL scores are accepted
- Students with backlogs apply in large numbers
- Students are of low academic profile get admits
- It’s considered a degree mill ( and SEVP approved)
- Consulates issues visa
- Low cost to study
- Agents mint money from recruiting students
- Herguan university accreditation – Not regionally accreditated.
Following the raid, CEO was later sentenced to prison for one year. But, Herguan University is not yet closed. It continues to operate. Right now, CPT is issued only after students complete 1 year of studies in F1 as per their web page.
The Feds are trying to attack universities like Herguan University and NPU in whichever way possible. Right now, it looks like they are trying to take action against the agency ASICS which accredited them. The article suggests that this they will not succeed in shutting down ASICS. Link: http://cis.org/north/progress-accrediting-council-okd-visa-mills
Or google “Feds Move Against Accrediting Council That OK’d Visa Mills”.
Another way that they can attack colleges is when colleges don’t follow city regulations like fire code, electrical safety etc. This is unlikely.
As of now, Herguan is fine and will be okay in the next few years.
@Six Pack Potato – Looks like ACICS is close to being shutdown http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-06-23/reglators-vote-to-shut-down-nations-largest-for-profit-accrediting-agency
This article is clearly click bait. The so called raid happened years ago. Why is it being mentioned as if it just happened recently ? I did not expect this from Raghu.
Anyway, the university is still under government scrutiny & they are trying their best to shut it down. Currently, they are trying to shut it down by targeting ACICS, the agency which accredited Herguan. The problem is that ACICS has accredited many other colleges which are essentially diploma mills. This makes the case against ACICS stronger. It would not be a as big a problem if they had accredited only 2-3 schools like Herguan.
Here is an article about the ACICS case:
http://www.therepublic.com/2016/08/21/school_accrediting_organization_faces_threat_of_shutdown/
Just a quick note: It seems that UNVA, one of the frauds on your list of the infamous 6, is forced to close:
http://watchdog.org/95968/university-of-northern-virginia-forced-to-close-leaving-students-in-limbo/
http://www.ice.gov/sevis/alerts/herguan.htm
Good riddance.
Their lawyer is obviously rather incompetent. Apparently, he thought they had time to submit their response to SEVP by Sept. 4, as Herguan’s website indicates. But 30 days from August 2 is Sept. 1 according to my calendar…
My guess is that he got that idea from a court document filed by ICE in a Temporary Restraining Order case that this lawyer filed (which of course was dismissed.)
The court documents are available at http://archive.recapthelaw.org/cand/258256/
Retrieved from PACER by yours truly. I’ll check in the coming days with what brain-dead stuff Herguan’s lawyer comes up now 😉
It turns out that Herguan’s lawyer sent his response to the wrong email address.
ICE found it now, and accepted it as timely filed, despite the lawyer’s error. So, for now, ICE has rescinded the revocation, and they are now going through the normal motions.
People still at Herguan still need to get out of there immediately, to avoid going down with Herguan.
Come on stop throwing stones on them they had enough.Everyone know they did wrong.You guys should not be more discouraging by your comments.This is not the way it works if some one makes a mistake we don’t show finger at him instead we try to guide them if you can and give them the right path may be they are willing to pick your path now.
Renuka-Come on, it has nothing to do with Indian’s loosing there value or something stop spreading revolutionary dialogues.
BTw,JOEF -I am big follower of you.I follow all your blogs and reviews on all the websites.Good Job man.
Hi, I am an international student and i have done my MBA in healthcare from USA. All i wish to know is if there is any university which will give me CPT ….i am thinking of joining SSU- southern states university NEWPORT beach..does anone know if it is okay to get into it or if anyone knows any other university who offers CPT plz let me know…I want to do it the right way and not like what most people do by crook…Thanx
Forget CPT. CPT is not for working in some job. It is only for working as part of an established curriculum.
No real university will give CPT to somebody who just signed up.
This CPT stuff is one of the things that doomed Herguan, btw.
Hello:
One approach to minimize the risk is by ensuring that institution is accredited and listed under
http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/Search.aspx
I am curious, how students for institutions like Herguan, Tri Valley etc. (non-accredited) are recruited? Any experiences and thoughts?
Here is my blog post on this theme:
http://www.dreducation.com/2012/08/indian-student-visa-fraud-herguan.html
Best,
Rahul
How can one know whether the university is a state sponsored or private. Sometimes state sponsored have high fee and private university less.
Private universities actually generally have higher fees, because public universities get tax payer money, and private universities don’t.
You may want to compare the fees of Stanford or University of Southern California (USC), both private, with the fees of the University of California, a public university with 10 campuses throughout California.
There may be some lower-level private universities with lower fees, but that can indicate that they skimp on teacher salaries, which in turn results in lower-quality education. If you search the Net, you will find that this is one of the common complaints about one particular private university, University of Phoenix.
Hi,
I have gained admission to study MS STATISTICS in the state and before the I-20 forms will be issued, am required to send a financial certification documents. My bank statement runs on an overdraft which mostly shows negative balance but is very liquid in the sense that monies pass through very often (about $10,000 monthly). What should I do? Send it or go for someone’s bank statement?
Please comment on this for me to make an informed decision.
Thanks
Adams
Ghana
No one should bother about the future of the students of that uni who are in soup now, as they brought it on themselves. Even a cursory glance at the university website has a whole bunch of punctuation and spelling errors. They don’t even have a page for their MS-EE program! It’s obvious that these people chose a bunch of crap unis without any research whatsoever, got admitted at Herguan, obtained a visa (how they obtained it will be an eternal mystery) and took the first flight out. They deserve it, not only for their abysmally low judgment skills (yes, we all have bad judgement sometimes, but this is beyond pathetic), but also the bad name they’ll be giving to other Indians who are genuine.
A word of common sense. Will you go and fall in a pit right in front of you in broad day light believing that there is gold? Please give me another good reason to not study in an average university in India and instead going for a nameless university in US out of desperation to earn more in Indian rupees and send it back home for buying property and other stuff. Better stay back and save your buck instead of betting on some nonsense. If all you want is money you got 2 options according to me, one, work hard for getting in a good university and work harder there also, two, have common sense. I think both are enough to live in this stupid world where people go behind money.
If you really want to go study in USA, chose a public school or at least a “decent” private school.. doesn’t has to be Ivy league.. but should not be shady for sure..
Yeah i mean HERGUAN?? How did they even
come to know of it???