In 2011, MJI awarded only three bachelor’s degrees and only 10% of its students continued their studies past their freshman year – meaning MJI was likely used to make one-year fully religious yeshiva and seminaries programs, which otherwise would not qualify for Pell grant participation, appear to be legitimate academic endeavors for the purposes of the Pell Grant.
Above: the late rebbe of Chabad-Lubavitch Menachem Mendel Schneerson. His picture is displayed at locations throughout Chabad of Michigan's campus
Chabad College Raided By Feds
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Federal agents raided the offices of Chabad’s Michigan Jewish Institute (MJI) in suburban Detroit, Michigan yesterday, the Forward reported.
MJI is a college that has received millions of dollars in federal aid while almost all its students live abroad, mostly in Israel. Almost none of the purported college’s students graduate.
In 2012, the Forward reported that MJI’s students received $25 million in federal Pell Grants. Almost all of those students took degree courses in Judaic studies at Orthodox, Chabad and haredi yeshivas and seminaries in Israel but never completed their ‘degrees.’ Pell Grants are meant to help very needy Americans attend college.
About 15 federal agents raided MJI’s administrative offices in Southfield yesterday morning. They herded employees into a conference room, took their names and other information, and then sent them home, and eyewitness told the Forward.
Agents were also seen bringing boxes into the building on a hand truck.
Agents from the federal Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General participated in the raid, the department confirmed, but it is unknown whether other federal agencies, like the FBI, also participated.
MJI reportedly charges students an administrative fee of more than $2,500 for its study-abroad program that is above and beyond what the student’s host yeshiva or seminary charges. All the students who receive Pell Grants, capped at just below $6,000 per year each, must be American citizens. But they can use the money to study abroad in legitimate academic programs – something many of these yeshivas and seminaries likely are not.
In 2011, MJI awarded only three bachelor’s degrees and only 10% of its students continued their studies past their freshman year – meaning MJI was likely used to make one-year fully religious yeshiva and seminaries programs, which otherwise would not qualify for Pell grant participation, appear to be legitimate academic endeavors for the purposes of the Pell Grant.
After the Forward’s exposé on MJI was published in 2012, MJI’s self-reported figures suddenly dramatically improved. That year, 40% of students continued their studies into their sophomore year and 20 MJI bachelor’s degrees were awarded.
MJI has almost no on-site classes of its own; the few it has are taught in spare rooms of Chabad’s large synagogue, The Shul, located on Chabad’s 45-acre Campus of Living Judaism. MJI, The Shul, and the rest of Chabad’s operations there are controlled by Berel Shemtov, who heads Chabad of Michigan and is the brother of Chabad’s #2 rabbi worldwide, Avraham Shemtov. MJI’s president is Berel Shemtov’s son, Rabbi Kasriel Shemtov.
The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, which accredits MJI, three times deferred its decision on renewal of that accreditation because of problems with MJI’s “compliance with [the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools] standards and expectations.”