DeVry advertised a 90% job-placement rate — the FTC fined it $100M for the claim

For years DeVry University advertised on TV, radio and online that 90 percent of its graduates actively seeking employment landed jobs in their field within six months of graduation. Ads also claimed that DeVry bachelor's graduates earned, on average, 15 percent higher incomes one year after graduation than graduates with bachelor's degrees from all other colleges and universities.

On December 15, 2016 the FTC announced a $100 million settlement, charging that both claims were deceptive and that 'tens of thousands of students' had been harmed. The agency's complaint said the 90 percent figure counted jobs graduates held before they graduated, and jobs outside their field — so the headline number was engineered rather than measured.

The settlement was structured as consumer relief: $49.4 million in cash for qualifying students, plus $50.6 million in debt relief — $30.35 million wiping out the full balance on private unpaid student loans DeVry issued to undergraduates between September 2008 and September 2015, and $20.25 million against debts for tuition, books and lab fees. DeVry also had to release transcripts and diplomas it had withheld over unpaid balances, and the order banned the job-placement and income claims outright.

DeVry denied wrongdoing — 'DeVry Group chose to settle this action after filing an answer denying all allegations of wrongdoing,' it said, insisting that the academic quality of a DeVry education had never been questioned. The settlement nonetheless became the benchmark FTC action against for-profit college advertising: a public correction as large as the ads' reach.