A nonprofit organization plans to buy the four Everest college locations in metro Atlanta as part of a sale of most of the campuses of its beleaguered parent company, Corinthian Colleges.
ECMC Group will acquire 56 Everest and WyoTech campuses from Corinthian for $24 million, according to a federal securities filing. ECMC, which operates one of the largest student-loan guaranty agencies, plans to launch a new nonprofit education subsidiary, Zenith Education Group, to operate the purchased schools. The company also plans to transition the institutions from for-profit to nonprofit status
Through its Everest, WyoTech and Heald Colleges brands, Corinthian, a national for-profit education provider, had enrolled more than 72,000 students at 107 campuses and online. The metro area’s four campuses in Greenbriar, Jonesboro, Marietta and Norcross served about 1,200 students.
The sale is part of an agreement Corinthian made with the U.S. Department of Education earlier this year that allowed the company to gradually cease operations at its schools to allow students a chance to finish their coursework or enroll at other colleges. Corinthian has faced a number of investigations from state and federal agencies into whether the company lied about its educational programs, job-placement rates and finances that left many students with high debt and poor job prospects.
Data released in September, which tracked students who began paying back their loans in 2011, showed that loan default rates reached about 27 percent for students at Everest locations in metro Atlanta.
ECMC said it would begin changing the culture and education model at the colleges by lowering tuition 20 percent for new students and implementing accountability guidelines for program-completion and job-placement rates.
The sale — which is expected to close in January — will allow about 39,000 Corinthian students to finish their college studies without interruption and create the largest nonprofit career college system in the country, according to ECMC.
About the Author
