JCU’s ‘breach of trust’ explained: Students suffer career setbacks over misleading advertising

Eighteen students have launched a class action against James Cook University (JCU) after their financial advising major was falsely advertised as accredited.

The university is said to have promoted the financial advising major in 2019 as an accredited course of study, however, as a number of students who completed the course found, it was in fact unaccredited. This meant that despite completing their studies, the students in question did not have industry-standard qualifications — a requirement to work in the highly regulated industry.

According to solicitor Duke Myrteza, from Australian Law Partners, the university’s misleading claims have resulted in a range of consequences for the graduates, from compromised job opportunities to mental anguish.

The specifics

Speaking to ifa, Mr Myrteza, who is representing 18 former students in a class action against JCU, said as per the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards), courses that are offered, or intend to be offered, as accredited cannot be described as such until such accreditation has been obtained.

However, what JCU reportedly did is offer its course under the promise that it would eventually gain the appropriate accreditation.

According to Mr Myrteza, this is a “significant breach of trust” by JCU.

“We’ve got a university that’s not complying with the higher education standards, and we’ve got a university that has actually breached the trust reposed in it by the students that they are supposed to be helping in their careers,” Mr Myrteza said.

This, he said, “lies at the heart of the contract between a student and a university”.

“We all know that the financial planning industry has gone through a significant period of regulatory change following the royal commission. One would expect that universities are across those changes in offering courses to young Australians who want to start a career in financial planning.”

Mr Myrteza stressed that students shouldn’t need to do their own due diligence to confirm if the course they have applied to is actually accredited as advertised.

“[Students] shouldn’t have to check whether a degree is out of a cornflakes packet or not, because the laws are clear,” he said.

“The reason why this is so significant, and have never seen it in my whole career, is because students repose their trust in universities to be able to offer a course that will give them a desired outcome in terms of accreditation or being able to pursue a career path.”

Mr Myrteza, however, urged employers to seek confirmation that qualifications obtained by their employees meet the necessary guidelines — both for the safety of the employee and the practice — because this issue could be widespread.

“My advice to the industry is that they should be checking qualifications carefully to ensure that the requisite accreditation has been obtained for that particular employee so they can give advice. Otherwise, they’re exposed,” he said.

How are students impacted?

Blade Stark, a former student of the financial advising major at JCU, told ifa that he initially hoped the university’s failure to see that the course was accredited was a mere oversight, and that it would be resolved by the completion of his degree.

“Once we had continuous delays in the submission of the degree, I grew increasingly frustrated,” Mr Stark said.

“Students constantly asked for updates on the progression of the degree, but emails would sometimes take weeks before we saw a response, or we wouldn’t even get a response back.”

What’s more, Mr Stark had to push his professional year (PY) back by a year and a half because his studies were not recognised.

He explained to ifa that JCU eventually offered a Deakin University course to the wronged students, at its own expense. However, after years of study, Mr Stark had secured a customer service role at Morgans Financial, and the additional workload was not a viable option.

“I started working at Morgans around then, so my commitments to the completion of the Deakin courses were unobtainable. Some students had to take additional time off work and do additional study in their own time to complete the degree,” the former student added.

“It is likely I won’t be an adviser until the end of next year,” Mr Stark concluded.

The response

ifa reached out to JCU for comment and received a written statement, in which it explained that the bachelor of commerce (financial advising) has been accredited since 1 July 2022.

“At that time, students who were enrolled in the course were provided with a seamless transition to the newly accredited program, while graduated students received an accredited degree,” JCU said.

According to the institution, students have been offered further financial and emotional support, which some have accepted.

“JCU was in regular contact with affected students and graduates throughout the accreditation process, providing them with updates on the matter.”

“Where JCU is in discussions with students we cannot comment further about the matter.”