Academy of Art University in San Francisco settles fraud case alleging it dangled Hawaii trips, pay hikes to recruiters

"The Academy of Art University in San Francisco has settled a 12-year-old federal fraud lawsuit with four former recruiters whose case had threatened to cripple the huge for-profit school if it had lost in court.

The amount of the settlement was not immediately disclosed. Announced Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Oakland, the settlement is the final chapter in a lawsuit the Academy of Art tried to get thrown out for more than a decade, even asking the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in in 2019. The court declined.

At the heart of the 2009 lawsuit was whether the private school used illegal tactics to attract students and cheat the federal government out of millions of dollars in financial aid. Nearly 10,000 students from 108 countries are enrolled in the Academy of Art."