Dear Community Members:
I wanted to inform the community about an additional legal matter regarding our former J1 Visa Program.
We were disheartened to learn of this matter, but we are grateful to the community for its ongoing support through these challenging times. Given this, we felt it necessary to share our plan of action given this most recent development.
The Western Iowa Tech Community College Board of Directors reluctantly approved a new $2.5 million settlement involving 21 former students, all of whom were a part of the college's former J1 Visa Program.
We continue to emphatically deny the students' allegations of mistreatment. All students in the program were free to leave at any time, and the college also purchased each student a plane ticket home when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
We are disheartened by the ongoing challenges and want to clarify that this decision to settle - like the previous two in 2024 – poses the least financial risk to the college and is not an admission of any wrongdoing. Litigation is unpredictable, costly, and prevents the college from allocating time and resources to our mission of strengthening our community through inclusive and innovative education.
We have a contingency fund that will cover this new settlement and are continuing to work with our insurance company to determine what portion of the three settlements will be covered. We remain hopeful we will come to a resolution soon.
As higher education faces challenging headwinds across the country, WITCC is committed to delivering a high-quality education and serving the need for affordable, relevant degrees for students.
Thank you to the local community for your continued support.
Sincerely,
Dr. Terry A. Murrell
President
WITCC