Mass. Attorney General Martha Coakley filed a lawsuit Wednesday against a Brockton-based for-profit school, alleging the institution falsified alumni statistics to entice new students.

We allege Sullivan and Cogliano deceived students by promising careers in the medical field with misleading ads and inflated placement rates, Coakley said in a press release Wednesday.

Sullivan and Cogliano, a university training center with locations in Massachusetts and Florida, stated that between 70 and 100 percent of their graduates went on to work in the medical field, according to the press release. In reality, less than 25 percent of the graduates went on to work in the medical field.

We are conducting an extensive investigation into the for-profit school industry. For-profit schools are extremely expensive and heavily funded through federal student loans, so all taxpayers have a stake in this. If students do not receive these promised jobs and wind up in default, the students and taxpayers suffer, Coakley said in the release.

Sullivan and Cogliano, like many for-profit schools, has access to federal funding. When Sullivan and Cogliano gained access to funding its revenue quintupled from $1.9 million to more than $10 million, but their academics suffered, according to the press release.

According to a two-year investigation into for-profit colleges by U.S. Senator Thomas Harkin of Iowa, Federal taxpayers are investing billions of dollars a year, $32 billion in the recent year, in companies that operate for-profit colleges.

Harkins report, released in the summer of 2012, further accused for-profit colleges of focusing on financial returns because shareholders want higher profits. This financial incentive, the report suggests, resulted in poor education.

Nationwide, there are also 19 law schools being sued for lying about the success of their graduates.

Jesse Strauss of Strauss Law P.L.L.C. in New York is handling most of the cases against the law schools.

The law schools are being sued by the alumni/graduates from recent years because the laws schools made their employment data appear that there would be a very good chance at being employed after graduating from law school, he said. They are suing because they feel that they were misled.

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AG sues for-profit schools over misleading alumni stats