A new class-action lawsuit has been filed against the Los Angeles Film School and Los Angeles Recording School, alleging that both have used deceptive practices in promising students jobs in the entertainment industry. Which sounds like a suit that could be filed against any creative arts school, ever—or for that matter, any university at all in an economy where your average graduate faces a job market full of unable-to-retire senior citizens who die clutching their desks. But this suit actually has damning specifics, namely that students at both schools pay between $18,000 and $23,000 in tuition in exchange for 900 hours of instruction (which the students claim they did not receive) and the aid of career development departments—job placement services that have supposedly been helping these students find work in the “entertainment industry” by getting them gigs at Guitar Center and the Apple Store.
Even worse, in order to maintain their accreditation, the schools then allegedly asked students to sign self-employment forms classifying their jobs helping people pick out an iPod case or listening to dudes mangle Black Sabbath all day as “creative positions”—a question of philosophy in one respect, and in another, a lie. Anyway, in exchange for helping them fool the system, these students were bribed with “gift cards to Target and Best Buy.” Perhaps so they could then buy CDs and DVDs, which would count as music and film history courses?