© AFP/Scott Olson
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump greets guests gathered for a campaign event at the Grand River Center on August 25, 2015 in Dubuque, Iowa.
Former students of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's Trump University say that the millionaire real estate mogul's college program was a money-sucking scam run by "a bunch of frauds."
According to the New York Daily News, ex-student Robert Guillo, 75, said that every workshop and class he attended charged a fee and that the nature of the business became clear to him very quickly.
"As soon as I attended the first workshop, I knew I had been scammed," Guillo said to the
NYDN. "Every single workshop, they charged you another amount. Everything was to get you to spend more and more and more."
The office of New York's attorney general said that former students in New York and California have filed suit against the now-defunct institution, claiming that instructors urged them to run up massive amounts of credit card debt to complete the training program.
In order to pay for their training, Trump University officials told students to make up the name of a phony business and lie about their income in order to get higher credit limits with which to pay for their workshops and apprenticeships. Many students spent up to $25,000 and $35,000 just to attend classes, only to have their credit scores crater after the fact.
Kathleen Meese of Schoharie, New York said that an instructor pressured her to charge $25,000 on her credit card in order to qualify for the school's "Gold Elite" program. Meese said she balked at the figure because she has to care for her son who has Down syndrome.
The instructor, Meese said, "told me that I had to sign up for Trump Gold Elite for $25,000 to help my family. He said he had a son, so he knew how family meant everything to me."
Comment: The West has a lot invested in this development, see: