HARRISBURG — State Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced Friday that he sent a letter to Temple University demanding answers from President Richard M. Englert about the university’s business and marketing practices in the wake of recent reports indicating the Fox School of Business and Management knowingly provided false data to rankings organizations for years.
“As Attorney General and the Chief Law Enforcement Officer for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, my job is to ensure students and their families receive the benefit of the bargain when they make significant expenditures to advance their education,” Shapiro said in a press release. “It is especially troubling to learn that an institution entrusted with significant Commonwealth funding to educate our citizens is alleged to have so flagrantly violated the trust of students, families and taxpayers alike.”
As the Attorney General writes in his letter to President Englert, news reports indicate that Fox intentionally provided false information to school rankings organization U.S. News and World Report, resulting in the Online MBA program being ranked as the nation’s best, then using such ranking to lure applicants.
“It’s critical that students and alumni alike have confidence in the value of their degree or certification from Temple University,” added Attorney General Shapiro. “Accordingly, I am directing my office’s Bureau of Consumer Protection to further examine these reports, as well as Temple’s business and marketing practices to determine whether these practices of falsifying data were limited to Fox or if any relevant laws were broken.”
