Sydney college accused of recruiting illiterate and disabled students purely to receive funding
A joint investigation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and the NSW Fair Trading Department has found that a private college in Sydney has been recruiting illiterate and disabled students to fund courses, which the students were never told they were being enrolled into. These tactics are said to have netted the college more than AUD$11m in six months last year, in addition to the AUD$47m in taxpayer funding it received for January to December 2014. The ACCC will ask the court to make the college repay the AUD$57m in government funding it has received to date.

The company's founder and CEO, Amarjit Khela, is a prominent member of Sydney's Indian and Nepalese community, hosting beauty pageants for Mr & Miss Teen Nepal Australia, Bollywood film screenings and disaster relief charity events.

A joint investigation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and the NSW Fair Trading Department will allege that the Unique International College in Sydney's western suburbs engaged in "unconscionable conduct" in pushing disadvantaged students into signing up for courses worth up to $25,000.

A private Sydney college is being accused of recruiting illiterate and disabled students to take out thousands of dollars in loans to fund courses they were never told they were being signed up for, documents lodged in the federal court allege.

The tactics from the Granville college netted the company a profit of more than $11 million in six months last year after it received up to $47 million in taxpayer funding between January and December 2014. The ACCC will ask the court to make the college repay the $57 million it has received to date in Commonwealth government funding.

Amarjit Khela presents one of his students with a diploma.

In one instance, a 19-year-old disabled man who was under the full-time care of his grandmother was allegedly signed up for thousands of dollars in Commonwealth debt despite not being informed of anything about the course or the private college that was providing it 400 kilometres from his home in Wagga Wagga.

The ACCC's statement of claim filed in the Federal Court on Tuesday reveals the students that were allegedly targeted by the college were often from Aboriginal housing missions in the state's most disadvantaged areas such as Walgett, Boggabilla and Bourke.

Sales agents would allegedly enter their houses, enticing students and their families with free laptops and would then ask the students to sign a series of forms that they could not understand.