Rutgers created fake jobs for graduates to boost MBA program rankings, lawsuit charges
Rutgers Business School is always keeping score.
On its website, it proclaims its No. 1 ranking this year by Bloomberg Businessweek as the top Public Business School in the Northeast. Fortune bestowed a similar honor in 2021. And U.S. News & World Report rated its MBA program among the top ten for Best Overall Employment Outcomes in the U.S., as well as No. 12 for its Supply Chain Management MBA program.
But in a whistleblower lawsuit filed Friday, a Rutgers administrator charged that the university fraudulently burnished those national rankings by creating totally bogus jobs to show the success its business school graduates had in finding employment.
The lawsuit by Deidre White, the business school’s human resources manager, alleged the program used a temp agency to hire unemployed MBA students, placing them into sham positions at the university itself — for no other reason than to make it appear like a greater number of graduates were getting full-time jobs after getting their Rutgers diplomas.
“The fraud worked,” wrote White’s attorney, Matthew A. Luber of McOmber McOmber & Luber in Marlton. In the very first year of the scheme, they said Rutgers was suddenly propelled to, among other things, the ‘No. 1′ business school in the Northeast.
The university, in a statement, said as a matter of policy it would not comment on the specifics of the litigation.
“We will say without equivocation, however, that we take seriously our obligation to accurately report data and other information to ranking and reporting agencies,” the university said. “The Rutgers Business School strictly follows the MBA Career Services & Employer Alliance guidelines in submitting MBA statistics and similarly follows the appropriate guidelines in submitting undergraduate statistics.”
By going through an outside temp agency, White’s lawsuit claimed the university was able to circumvent restrictions in the ranking systems that do not allow universities to count internal hires for purposes of their employment statistics.
White, 54, who alleged she was the subject of retaliation over health and other issues aimed at forcing her resignation or termination, said the university used more than $400,000 of its endowment to fund the fake positions and to pay what she called “kickbacks” to the employment agency.
Such a scheme, if true, has led to criminal charges elsewhere.
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A former dean of Temple University’s business school was found guilty in 2021 of using fake numbers in a complex fraud operation aimed at boosting the school’s national rankings and increase revenue.
Moshe Porat, 74, was convicted of federal wire fraud and conspiracy charges for his role in the cheating scandal that sought to raise the ranking of the university’s Fox School of Business in Philadelphia. The school’s online MBA program had been ranked best in the country by U.S. News & World Report in the years that he provided falsified data. He was sentenced last month to 14 months in prison.
In the wake of the charges at Temple, the University of Southern California announced last month it was withdrawing its education school from U.S. News & World Report’s graduate-school rankings, after determining it had provided the publication with inaccurate data going back at least five years.
And at Columbia University, a math professor who specializes in algebraic geometry challenged the university’s No. 2 ranking, posting a statistical analysis that questioned the key supporting data that had led to meteoric rise in the school’s standings.
“It has been gratifying to witness Columbia’s steady rise from 18th place, on its debut in 1988, to the lofty position of 2nd place which it attained this year — surpassed only by Princeton and tied with Harvard and MIT,” wrote Michael Thaddeus. “A few other top-tier universities have also improved their standings, but none has matched Columbia’s extraordinary rise. It is natural to wonder what the reason might be.”
His conclusion — that several of the key figures supporting Columbia’s high ranking were “inaccurate, dubious, or highly misleading.”
Colleges nationwide have faced pressure to improve their rankings, which administrators know matter greatly to parents and students.
The charges by White, though, raised allegations of outright fraud.
“This was a blatant effort to give the impression of a higher overall full-time employability rating with third parties and to deceptively bolster…Rutger’s ‘ranking’ with crucial media outlets, such as U.S. News & World Report,” the lawsuit stated, noting that as a result of the “data manipulation scheme,” Rutgers obtained money and funding from applicants, students, alumni and donors and gained “millions of dollars a year in increased tuition revenues.”
The lawsuit — which also named the Rutgers Business School Dean and the director of the business school’s Office of Career Management, and others — charged that when White raised concerns about the scheme in March, the university failed to investigate.
“The scheme was organized, deliberate and unequivocal,” it said, citing the hires of specific students for positions “well-below the criteria for an MBA student.”
In one case, the lawsuit referred to emails regarding the interviews of two students, who were characterized by an administrator as “significantly overqualified” for the position being offered.
“As alleged in the complaint, Mrs. White was not only subjected to clear retaliation, she had to work in an environment rife with fraudulent activity,” said Luber, her lawyer.
White, who remains a university employee, is seeking unspecified compensatory damages, back pay, and reinstatement of all benefits
“Our client feels as though she has an obligation to the students and parents who relied upon Rutgers to provide honest data about its graduate programs,” commented Luber. “She can no longer sit idly and allow the fraud to continue. She looks forward to her day in court.”