'Lower fees, work permit lured students to Sham University'

The university was shut down on charges of a massive immigration scam by the ICE recently leaving the Indian students to face the prospect of deportation from the US. Ninety-five per cent of the students at TVU, dubbed a "sham university" by US immigration officials, were reported to be Indian, most of them from Andhra Pradesh.

According to IAEC Consultants, a city-based overseas educational consultants, the university was chosen by most of the Indian students because of its fee structure, which is lesser when compared to other universities.

"TVU's fee structure is very less when compared to other universities in USA which charge in the range of USD 15,000 to USD 20,000 per annum. Also the university basically offers on-line courses which allow the students to stay at a place other than the location," IAEC Managing Director, Madhukar Reddy, told PTI.

Incidentally, IAEC Consultancy has been named as Tri-valley's representatives for South Asia region in the varsity's website.

However, Reddy denied any links with the university and said IAEC Consultancy has not sent even a single student to the institution.

"As per (media) reports, as many as 1500 students (in the university) are from India. The US government will never issue visas in such large scale to one single university," he said.

Meanwhile, R Ramesh, manager (operations) of Valmiki Group, which sends between 300-400 students to USA and other countries every year, said the option of changing universities after landing in US could also have attracted the students.

"Any international student once landed in USA with a valid visa can change the university any time. So many students would have opted Tri-Valley for work permit or low fee structure," he said.

As per the university website, the fee structure for all TVU programs was less than USD 1,000.

The university has been offering on-site and online courses in law, medicine, art, business and engineering to students since 2008, and boasted a faculty list of over 50 educated professionals in its website.

According to US media reports, the institution had received approval to issue visas in February 2009 for about 30 students.

In May 2009, the institution had 11 active students, who had received F-1 visas, and 939 by May 2010, the reports said.

"We had no idea about the university. My sister realised her mistake only when she visited the university. She questioned the university authorities and they assured her that everything would be alright. But the damage has been done," kin of a student of said.