Following up on my previous posts:

• Whistleblower Claims Rutgers Created Fake Jobs For Graduates To Goose Business School Ranking
• Rutgers Seeks Dismissal Of Lawsuit Claiming Business School Created Fake Jobs For Graduates To Goose Ranking

Law360, 3rd Circ. Wary Standing Exists In Business School Fraud Suit:

The Third Circuit on Thursday appeared skeptical that a former Rutgers University student could bring a proposed class action alleging the university inflated its full-time MBA program’s rankings, questioning how he could have been injured if he wasn’t enrolled in the program.

U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas called the allegations in Lorenzo Budet’s complaint against Rutgers Business School alleging that it inflated postgraduate employment data related to its full-time MBA program by hiring its own graduates “fairly sketchy,” repeatedly questioning his attorney about what was wrong with the bargain that Budet purportedly didn’t receive.

“Your complaint’s allegations are fairly sketchy. You say you didn’t get the benefit of the bargain, but you don’t pin down what the theory is on which you didn’t get the benefit of the bargain. That’s what I’d like to know about. So what is the subject of the bargain your client didn’t get?” Judge Bibas asked.

Because Rutgers marketed its business school as a high-ranking program based on the allegedly inflated rankings, Budet’s attorney Tyler Burrell argued, Budet didn’t get to receive an education at a topflight graduate program as Rutgers promised.

Budet, however, wasn’t enrolled in the university’s full-time MBA program, or even its part-time MBA program, Judge Bibas noted — he was enrolled in the university’s part-time supply chain management MBA certification program.

“How do you tie the inflated ranking of the full-time MBA to his decision to enroll in the certificate program? What do you plead? And what could you plead about that?” Judge Bibas asked.

TaxProf Blog coverage of the Temple business school rankings scandal: 

• Rankings Scandal Unfolds At Temple Business School (Jan. 29, 2018)
• Temple Business School Dean Fired For Knowingly Submitting False Data To Inflate U.S. News Ranking Over Several Years (July 10, 2018)
• After Temple Admitted That Its Business School Misreported Data To Goose Its Ranking, U.S. News Demands Certification Of Other Schools’ Data (Including Law School) (July 12, 2018)
• Temple’s Ranking Scandal Spreads To Six Additional Programs; University Also Admits To Three Errors In The Data It Submitted For Its Undergraduate College Ranking (July 30, 2018)
• WSJ: Temple Rankings Scandal Spotlights MBA Grads’ Swelling Debt (Sept. 7, 2018)
• Temple Reaches $5.5 Million Settlement In U.S. News Rankings Scandal (Dec. 24, 2018)
• Federal Judge Approves $5.5 Million Settlement In Temple U.S. News Rankings Scandal (Jan. 31, 2019)
• Ousted Business School Dean Files $25 Million Defamation Lawsuit Against Temple For Unfairly Blaming Him In U.S. News Rankings Scandal (May 6, 2019)
• Online MBA Rankings Scandal Costs Temple $17 Million; After Ranking #1 In 2015-2018 With False Data, Business School Now Ranks #88 (Dec. 6, 2020)
• Former Temple Dean Faces Criminal Charges For Submitting False Data To Inflate U.S. News Ranking (Mar. 29, 2021)
• Anatomy Of Temple Business School Rankings Fraud (Apr. 20, 2021)
• Former Temple Dean Convicted In U.S. News Rankings Scandal Fraud; AUSA Hopes Case Send A Message To Administrators At Other Schools (Nov. 30, 2021)
• Former Temple Dean Sentenced To 14 Months In Federal Prison For Rankings Fraud (Mar. 12, 2022)
• As Temple Dean Begins Serving 14-Month Sentence For U.S. News Rankings Fraud, Tenured Professor Is Defiant At Sentencing Hearing: ‘Every Single University Has People Doing The Same Exact Operations’ (May 9, 2022)

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