The beleaguered Corinthian Colleges Inc. announced Sunday it would shut down its remaining 28 colleges, displacing 10,000 students, many of whom have no degree to go with their college debt.
The closure was effective immediately, and most students and faculty were
shocked at the suddenness, the Los Angeles Times said.
"A lot of us are devastated," Dylan Low, 22, told the Times. He had three classes left to graduate with an associate's degree in criminal justice from Everest College-Ontario.
The Corinthian Colleges network of for-profit schools has been under investigation for a variety of problems, including allegations the company boosted job placement rates by paying for temporary agencies to hire students after graduation, the Times said. Although the company denied such practices, the U.S. Education Department levied a $30 million fine against Corinthian's Heald College system this month.
"This has really exposed the shortcomings of federal and state oversight, and the accreditation system," Pauline Abernathy, vice president of Institute for College Access & Success, told the Times. "The fact that a school could be allowed to get so big and so reliant on taxpayer funding — and to harm so many students without action being taken sooner — really exposes the need to reform the system at all levels."
Campuses closed Monday included Corinthian’s 13 remaining Everest and WyoTech campuses in California; Everest College Phoenix and Everest Online Tempe in Arizona; the Everest Institute in New York; and 150-year-old Heald College — including its 10 locations in California, one in Hawaii, and one in Oregon, a press release said. Other colleges in the network had previously been sold.
ABC 7 News tweeted that students were going to the campus but were barred from entering.
"This is a waste of money, a year and a half spent in this school," student Karen Cruz told ABC 7.
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