Colorado § 23-64-123 - Deceptive trade or sales practices.

§ 23-64-123. Deceptive trade or sales practices.

(1) It is a deceptive trade or sales practice for:

(a) A school or agent to make or cause to be made any statement or representation, oral, written, or visual, in connection with the offering of educational services if the school or agent knows or reasonably should have known the statement or representation to be false, substantially inaccurate, or misleading;

(b) A school or agent to represent falsely, directly or by implication, through the use of a trade or business name or in any other manner, including the use of "help wanted" or other employment columns in a newspaper or other publication, that it is an employment agency or agent or authorized training facility for another industry or member of such industry or to otherwise deceptively conceal the fact that it is a school;

(c) A school or agent to represent falsely, directly or by implication, that any of its educational services have been approved by a particular industry or that successful completion thereof qualifies a student for admission to a labor union or similar organization or for the receipt of a state license to perform certain functions;

(d) A school or agent to represent falsely, directly or by implication, that the lack of a high school education, prior training, or experience is not a handicap or impediment to completing successfully a course or program of study or for gaining employment in the field for which the educational services were designed;

(e) A school or agent to adopt a name, trade name, or trademark that represents falsely, directly or by implication, the quality, scope, nature, size, or integrity of the school or its educational services;

(f) A school or agent to represent falsely, directly or by implication, that students completing a course or program of instruction successfully may transfer credit therefor to any institution of higher education;

(g) A school or agent to represent falsely, directly or by implication, in its advertising or promotional materials or in any other manner, the size, location, facilities, or equipment of the school, the number or educational experience qualifications of its faculty, the extent or nature of any approval received from any state agency, or the extent or nature of any accreditation received from any accrediting agency or association;

(h) A school or agent to provide prospective students with any testimonials, endorsements, or other information that has the tendency to mislead or deceive prospective students or the public regarding current practices of the school, current conditions for employment opportunities, or probable earnings in the industry or occupation for which the educational services were designed or as a result of the completion of any such educational service;

(i) A school or agent to enroll a student when it is reasonably obvious that the student is unlikely to complete successfully a program of study or is unlikely to qualify for employment in the field for which the education is designed, unless this fact is affirmatively disclosed to the student;

(j) An agent representing an out-of-state school to represent directly or by implication that the school is approved or accredited by the state of Colorado;

(k) A school or agent to designate or refer to its sales representatives as "counselors" or "advisors" or to use words of similar import that have the tendency to mislead or deceive prospective students or the public regarding the authority or qualifications of the sales representatives or agents; or

(l) A school to advertise or otherwise represent that it is accredited unless the school is accredited by an accrediting body that is recognized by the United States department of education or is accredited by a programmatic accrediting body recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation as having the ability to accredit a freestanding, single-purpose institution of construction education.

Source: L. 2017: Entire article added with relocations, (HB 17-1239), ch. 261, p. 1198, § 1, effective August 9. L. 2021: (1)(k) amended and (1)(l) added, (HB 21-1306), ch. 310, p. 1897, § 5, effective September 7.

Editor's note: This section is similar to former § 12-59-117 as it existed prior to 2017.

ANNOTATION

There is no claim for relief based upon educational malpractice. Tolman v. Cencore Career Colls., Inc., 851 P.2d 203 (Colo. App. 1992) (decided prior to the 2017 amendments relocating article 59 of title 12 to this article 64).