LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Over the past year there's been no shortage of students left in the lurch when their colleges or training courses have gone bust.

Tonight, we bring you yet another one, this time involving thousands more students, an $80 million business and two company directors channelling millions of dollars each through their own personal companies.

Global Intellectual Holdings was a vocational education giant and its demise has particularly hit students in one of Victoria's most disadvantaged regions.

Josie Taylor reports.

LIZ JOLLEY, KEYSTONE COLLEGE STUDENT: I thought, "I want to keep my mind occupied." So I thought, "Well, to keep it occupied, what can I do, you know?"

JOSIE TAYLOR, REPORTER: Liz Jolley has been a disability pensioner for 30 years. Last year a young man approached her in the street about doing some study at Keystone College, Broadmeadows.

LIZ JOLLEY: He said computer course and I thought, "Oh, that'll be good, you know, I'll learn the computer!"

JOSIE TAYLOR: But Liz was signed up to a Diploma of Interactive Digital Media. The $22,000 course, funded by taxpayers through the Department of Education's VET FEE-HELP scheme, was beyond her.

LIZ JOLLEY: I couldn't understand it. And my - it takes me mind a while to understand.

JOSIE TAYLOR: Tannim and Justin Davenport live in a tent in Liz Jolley's backyard. They're unemployed. They too signed up for a $22,000 Diploma in Digital Media.

JUSTIN DAVENPORT, KEYSTONE COLLEGE STUDENT: I heard about someone talking about it. I'm like, "Good, that's something I want to do."

JOSIE TAYLOR: This household now has a taxpayer-funded debt of nearly $70,000.

TANNIM DAVENPORT, KEYSTONE COLLEGE STUDENT: It's $22,500 for the course, and as far as I know, I gotta pay the whole thing back.

JOSIE TAYLOR: Each student won't have to repay their debt until they earn over $54,000, something that seems unlikely.

JUSTIN DAVENPORT: Probably never, 'cause I'm only on the Disability Support Pension myself and at the moment I'm even struggling to keep up with that.

TANNIM DAVENPORT: I'm on the dole and I'm barely surviving.

JOSIE TAYLOR: The members of this household were all enrolled at Keystone College, one of five private training colleges that suddenly closed their doors last month after parent company Global Intellectual Holdings was placed into voluntary administration.

KEYSTONE COLLEGE STUDENT: We're very angry. We're very angry.

KEYSTONE COLLEGE STUDENT II: We need answers and we need respect and dignity.

KEYSTONE COLLEGE STUDENT III: We've got nothing to show for it/

JOSIE TAYLOR: Global's collapse has left thousands of students without a course and 500 employees without jobs.

25-year-old Jacob di Battista is one of those. He's the recruiter who signed up Liz Jolley.

JACOB DI BATTISTA, GLOBAL RECRUITER: Liz I knew was not going to complete the course. There was no way she was going to get a job in that industry.

JOSIE TAYLOR: Jacob worked for National Training and Development, the marketing arm of Global Holdings. He trawled the streets of Broadmeadows, outside Centrelink and public housing, targeting everyone, including the homeless, he claims under the direction of his superiors.

JACOB DI BATTISTA: Whether you're in a wheelchair, scooter, blind, disabled, don't really care. You're a target.

JOSIE TAYLOR: How did you feel when you were saying that to homeless people?

JACOB DI BATTISTA: I was - horrible. But in the end, after doing an amount of sales, you sort of put a block on it, saying, "Look, it's you or me," sorta thing. "I need the money, you're a sale."

JOSIE TAYLOR: Then last month, the money stopped for everyone. Jacob's boss told staff new federal laws would make it harder to sign up students.

JACOB DI BATTISTA: "The company's closed," we're all fired, "Good luck with it all." Grabbed his coat, grabbed his bag. "I've got another company that's gonna be - that's overseas. I'm heading off. Good luck. See ya."

JOSIE TAYLOR: The news may have been a shock for the staff, but not for the company's two directors. 40-year-old Aloi Burgess and 47-year-old Roger Williams sit at the top of a complex company structure that ran Keystone and Aspire colleges and three other training companies. They'd grown the company into an $80 million enterprise, but then in 2015, the Government clamped down on many private college recruiting practices. The ABC understands Global's two directors then tried to sell the company. That failed. The last financial report filed by Global shows they had a Plan B, a trust called The Collective Exit Strategy.

JASON HARRIS, UNI. OF TECHNOLOGY SYDNEY: The naming of the trust suggests that they're anticipating that this house of cards is going to fall over.

JOSIE TAYLOR: Corporate law expert Jason Harris says it appears Global Holdings placed at least some of its assets in the Collective Exit Strategy trust.

JASON HARRIS: This perhaps was set up to take advantage of a short-term opportunity. Sometimes it's set up specifically to shield potential claims from creditors.

JOSIE TAYLOR: Before Global collapsed, the company lent $4 million to each of the directors personal companies and paid each $6 million in dividends.

JASON HARRIS: It's then fallen into insolvency very shortly thereafter. That could well be breaching your directors' duties.

JOSIE TAYLOR: The ABC set out to find Global Holdings directors, visiting their homes in Queensland.

Neither man was home and nor did they respond to multiple messages asking about the Collective Exit Strategy trust and the payments to their personal companies.

But just down the road lives Global's company secretary Robert Francis Drake.

Hello. It's Josie Taylor from the ABC. Are you Mr Drake?

ROBERT FRANCIS DRAKE, GLOBAL HOLDINGS SECRETARY: Yep.

JOSIE TAYLOR: Did you have any role at Global Intellectual Holdings?

ROBERT FRANCIS DRAKE: No, not really.

JOSIE TAYLOR: You were the company secretary, Mr Drake.

ROBERT FRANCIS DRAKE: And you should look up what that means.

JOSIE TAYLOR: The company secretary couldn't help 7.30 either.

We've spoken to four senior executives from the Global group of companies who claim they've also tried unsuccessfully to contact Mr Burgess and Mr Williams.

The peak body for private training providers is now trying to the help students left high and dry by Global's collapse.

Thousands of students have been moved to another provider and can finish their course, but there are 2,500 more left in limbo.

ROB CAMM, ACPET: The Government were getting the enrolment data, were getting the payment data and could see the rate of growth. It's certainly our contention that in any market administered by government, they've got a responsibility to manage the contract.

JOSIE TAYLOR: Victorian Senator Scott Ryan is the third minister to hold the Vocational Training portfolio in 12 months. He declined to be interviewed for 7.30, but in a statement said he will redesign the VET FEE HELP scheme. It's a program that's enjoyed about $5 billion from the taxpayer. The question now is will any money be recouped from Global Holdings or its directors?

JASON HARRIS: Typically these companies are left with little or no assets and so the liquidator could take action, but in fact there's no money to do that.

JOSIE TAYLOR: Late today, 7.30 obtained a report by the administrators of Global Holdings. He identified the two company directors may have committed offences and says he'll be reporting them to company watchdog ASIC.

The Education Department couldn't confirm whether it will chase those payments either. Those payments have come at the expense of desperate students in the poorest areas.

Some now have no job, no course to study and a debt that could last forever.

LIZ JOLLEY: I blame the Government. They should have known better.

TANNIM DAVENPORT: Everyone's asking the same questions I'm asking: what do we do?

LEIGH SALES: Josie Taylor reporting.