Not all former students are aggrieved – the Guardian spoke to one on his to way to $1m. But for those who were left indebted, the anger remains intense

Kathleen Meese is still paying off credit card debt she ran up in 2009, to pay for classes at Trump University. She was told the classes would make her a real estate millionaire.



Trump used 'fraud' university to pocket millions, New York attorney general says Read more

When Meese balked at the $25,000 and travel time needed to take the university’s Gold Elite Program, worried it would strain her finances and could hinder her care for her son, who has Down’s syndrome, a Trump instructor told her she “had to sign up” to help her family, court documents show.

“They said: ‘You are just nervous. It’s going to be fine,’” Meese told the Guardian this week. “We’re going to work with you, help you.

“I maxed out my credit card,” she said.

Meese is now one of 5,000 consumers on whose behalf the New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, is suing the Republican nominee’s past venture. Schneiderman slams the for-profit online educational provider as an illegal scam.

Separately, in California, two class action lawsuits are also under way. If the cases go to trial, none will begin before the presidential election. But as details accumulate, the controversy surrounding the now-defunct Trump University will dog Donald Trump all the way.

“You were supposed to write yourself a check for $1m and tape it to your mirror, and in three years you would be able to cash it,” Meese said. “I didn’t have three cents from them. I didn’t make a penny.”

Meese, 57, lives in the village of Schoharie, near Albany in upstate New York, with her husband, who works for the local highway agency, and their adult son. Now that her dream of buying and selling houses has died, she is a stay-at-home wife.

“I wasn’t aiming to get godly rich like Donald Trump,” she said, “but rich enough to help my family. My aunts and uncles and cousins and my sister, we’re all very close … and I’m the one people normally come to in my family, the rock.”

In 2009, after receiving an invitation in the mail to attend a free Trump University seminar, she went to the Palace Theater in Schenectady. According to the affidavit detailing Meese’s case: “We were told if we signed up for Trump’s three-day seminar we would learn everything we needed to know about … how to buy and sell real estate using other people’s money.”

Meese paid $1,495 for a three-day seminar at a Hyatt hotel in the region. During that event, the affidavit shows, she was told about the $25,000 advanced program.

When she expressed worries about money and her son, according to the affidavit, Trump University instructor Stephen Goff “said he had a son so he knew that family meant everything to me … he promised to personally work with me and guaranteed I would make my $25,000 back within 60 days”.

She discussed potential real estate deals with the purported experts. None of them ever worked out.

‘I don’t think he’s Teflon – he’s Velcro’

Donald Trump says judge in university court case biased by 'Mexican heritage' Read more

For Trump, this week has been tumultuous. Just days after he clinched the delegate count needed for his party’s nomination, he was challenged over cited donations to military veterans and excoriated by Hillary Clinton on foreign policy. He also lashed out at journalists, in a surreal press showdown in New York.

But the show was stolen when a hitherto unremarkable judge in San Diego released devastating legal documents about Trump University.

Trump roared that the judge, Gonzalo Curiel, was unfit to preside over the case there, because of his “Mexican heritage”. In San Jose on Thursday, bloody clashes followed between protesters and Trump supporters. Many of the protesters carried Mexican flags.

Trump is vigorously fighting all the lawsuits against Trump University and strongly denies any wrongdoing. But as he cranked up his counterattacks against Clinton and Curiel, some observers believed he had suffered reputational damage that would be increasingly difficult to slough off as he transitions from the relative safety of the Republican primary into the tougher general election arena.

“I don’t think he’s Teflon – he’s Velcro,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “We’re going to see a lot more of this begin to stick to him in the coming weeks.”

Sabato believes the real damage of the Trump University cases lies less in the business practices in question and more in the candidate’s shocking decision to accuse a judge of racial bias.

“I don’t think people are under that much illusion about what it takes to become a billionaire these days and will not be surprised that he tricked people,” said Sabato.

“What is most significant about the Trump University case are the attacks on the so-called ‘Mexican’ judge, who is actually as American as I am. He is just putting up an ever larger wall between himself and Hispanic voters with comments like that.”

On the ground, however, details of Trump University continue to emerge. Meese and some others, for example, said in affidavits they had been instructed by Stephen Goff.

Donald Trump’s own promotional material for the courses said the real estate experts were “hand picked by me”.

In a court in Texas in 2007, Goff filed for bankruptcy protection. According to court documents, at the time he had just $18,850 in assets – not enough to buy a Trump University Gold Elite Program – and owed much more. The value of his own real estate venture at the time was listed as $0.

Subsequently at Trump University, Goff taught real estate investment.

‘I benefited from Trump’

Protesters attack Trump supporters after San Jose speech striking back at Clinton Read more

One satisfied Trump University customer who spoke to the Guardian is on his way to becoming a millionaire.

The 60-year-old hospital doctor from Maryland took a $5,000 course with Trump University soon after it was created, in 2005. He became a developer as a side interest to his medical career.

The man had been through university, medical school and business school. After taking the program, he said, he borrowed from his 401K retirement fund to buy land in Virginia and start a construction firm to build homes he then planned to sell.

Trump’s campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, pointed the Guardian to the individual, in response to a request to interview a consumer who had made a good profit in real estate as a result of studying with Trump University but who was not in any way affiliated with Trump or any of his business interests.

The doctor shared his identity with the Guardian but asked to speak anonymously because both his current job as a senior executive in the health insurance industry and his role as an occasional expert witness in criminal court cases precluded him, he said, from speaking openly in the media.

He confirmed that he had never met Trump and was speaking entirely independently. A lifelong Republican, the doctor said he not decided whether he would vote for Trump – and that he had not ruled out voting for Hillary Clinton.

“I ended up doing several different real estate ventures,” he said. “I think it [the program] made me more savvy. It made me more aggressive and gave me the courage to poke around a bit with different opportunities. I benefited from Trump.”

His development lost value in the financial crash of 2008, the doctor said, but he managed to reap enough to invest in an office building to rent out, which so far had made him about $400,000 in profit, he said, and was likely to make $1m.

He said he had been given unlimited access to Trump University’s experts as he made his business plan and deals.

The doctor acknowledged that his education, professional experience and access to capital had helped him, but said he feared some expected Trump’s program to “spoon-feed” them everything.

“The idea that you go to Trump University and walk out and something falls out of the sky, a building worth millions for $10 – that just doesn’t happen,” he said.

Meese and others, however, claim they paid for opportunity and were promised success. What they got was debt and deception.

“I’m still angry,” she said.