Feds Raid Jewish College Facing Fiscal, Academic Questions

The few on-site classes offered by the Michigan Jewish Institute are held at The Shul in West Bloomfield. The Institute’s administrative offices in Southfield were raided by federal agents Tuesday. (Photo via Facebook)

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Federal agents raided a Jewish college whose finances and use of government Pell grants came under question after the college’s enrollment in distance and online learning classes soared by thousands of students in 2012.

The Forward, a noted Jewish newspaper, said about 15 federal agents raided Michigan Jewish Institute administrative offices in Southfield on July 7. It’s unclear exactly what information they were after, but The Forward said students enrolled at the college mostly live in Israel and few of them graduate.

The Forward said that despite the poor academic record, assets increased to $4.6 million in 2013, the ot recent tax year available, from $1.2 million in 2008. In 2004, the institute had 300 students.

Today, more than 2,000 are enrolled in online and distance classes. Many of the students are U.S. citizens, but live overseas, which means they qualify for the federal Pell grant program.

In 2012, The Forward published a report that touched not only on the college’s accreditation challenges, but also claim it received $25 million in federal aid, but said “very little of this money has been spent on men and women taking courses in Michigan or … the United States.”

The institute is tied to the local chapter of the Chabad-Lubavitch, an Orthodox Jewish group with a growing presence in West Bloomfield. The few on-site classes offered by the college are held at The Shul, a $6 million synagogue there.

During the raid, employees were gathered in a conference room, where personal information was taken before they were sent home, The Forward reported.

Catherine Grant, a spokeswoman for the federal Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General, confirmed to the Detroit Free Press that the raid took place, but offered no details.

Rabbi Kasriel Shemtov, the college’s president, and Dov Stein, its director of academic administration, declined The Forward’s request for comment. The Free Press said the rabbi also failed to return phone calls seeking comment, and that messages reporters left at the Institute were not returned.

In a statement published in the Jewish Press, the Institute said it is cooperating fully with the federal authorities.

“We are continuing operations as normal,” the statement read. “We remain committed to our students who rely on the institute, and we appreciate the dedication of our nearly 100 faculty and staff who are focused on our students.”