Brown Mackie College is the latest in a string of for-profit colleges to hit hard times.
A majority of the campuses in the for-profit college system will be closed over the next few years, including the Atlanta campus, which currently has about 400 students enrolled. Brown Mackie’s parent company and for-profit college operator, Education Management Corporation, announced that the campuses had stopped enrolling students as of Friday. Current students will be allowed to complete their programs.
Some campuses may continue to be open for as many as three years to complete the full “teach out” of students already enrolled, EDMC spokesman Bob Greenlee told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
On the heels of that announcement, the U.S. Department of Education has recommended closing the national accreditor that oversees Brown Mackie and several other for-profit colleges, which could mean a loss of federal financial-aid funding for those colleges.
The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools oversees 800 institutions enrolling more than 800,000 students, in schools including ITT Technical Institute, Le Cordon Bleu culinary colleges and Sanford-Brown Colleges, all of which have — or had — a presence in metro Atlanta. ACICS had been criticized for its lax oversight of failed for-profit chain Corinthian Colleges. Despite numerous federal and state investigations and legal actions against Corinthian, ACICS repeatedly renewed the chain's accreditation.
The large number of substantial settlements agreed to by ACICS-accredited schools indicate the accreditor is not effective in its monitoring, which is insufficient to deter widespread misconduct regarding placement, recruiting and admissions, federal officials said in the recommendation.
The recommendation to shut down ACICS will be considered next week by a national advisory panel and then by a senior education department official who has 90 days to review the recommendations to make a final decision. ACICS can appeal a termination decision.
In a statement on its website, ACICS called the recommendation to shut it down "disappointing," but said it does not mean the immediate loss of recognition. The agency plans to address the recommendation before the review panel later this month.
For students, education officials note that the determination process could take at least 18 months. If ACICS is terminated, schools that is has accredited will also ave 18 months to find a different accreditor for its programs to remain eligible for financial aid. Officials recommend checking with colleges to ensure they have a plan to purse a different accreditor if necessary, and thoroughly research other colleges if planning to transfer.
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