Investigation underway at BRCC over students' credentials

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BATON ROUGE - Serious questions are being raised about hundreds of credentials students received at Baton Rouge Community College.

Out of state investigators are digging deep into records at BRCC this week. It centers around hundreds of students who received credentials for trade jobs, where there's no proof they met all of the requirements.

All of this focuses on the multi-million dollar TAACCCT grant, or "Trade Adjustment Community College and Career Training." At least 400 students went through the federal grant-funded program, which required classes and hands-on work in order to earn its credentials, but hundreds of those students may have received credentials they did not earn.

The TAACCCT grant was supposed to help people learn a craft like pipe fitting and welding. Tonight, everything BRCC has done with this program over the past few years is being closely scrutinized by investigators from the national organization that puts their names on those credentials.

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Vincent Lee proudly holds the credentials he received from BRCC this year. The certificates he's holding show he's a certified pipe fitter.

"I feel like I accomplished more," Lee said.

Despite having those credentials, Lee hasn't been able to find work since he received them. Part of that reason, could be his physical disability. Vincent Lee has been considered legally blind since he was born. Despite that blindness, Lee managed to get a certification showing he's a pipe fitter. The TAACCCT program at BRCC trained students for things like welding, industrial maintenance and pipe fitting. Lee was among 410 students who sailed through, but didn't complete all of the work.

Jeff Almo

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