The following comments, by Al Sullivan, were first sent to the leadership of a small group of privately held career focused colleges and universities. Mr. Sullivan has agreed to share his thoughts with CER readers.
Al Sullivan, Chancellor of The Sullivan University System, is a second generation school owner whose family have been part of career education since 1927. His son Glenn is a third generation President of Sullivan University and The Sullivan University System. Al has been part of this sector literally since birth – but officially since 1960 (some 56 years) and as he proudly says “I care” about what we do and the contribution we make to our students and the employers who hire them.
A shameful and tragic closing…
I know all of you receive and read Career Education Review. The story on the closing of Cambria-Rowe Business College, which has served the Johnstown, PA community for over 125 years, is truly tragic.
I fear that there will be many small schools like them in smaller communities forced to close with little options for their employees and students. These schools will have served the citizens and businesses in their community for decades – but now forced to close because of the so called “Gainful Employment” regulations and the decertification of ACICS promulgated by the Department of Education.
Many schools in smaller markets won’t be able to meet the GE regulations (which were drafted mainly to control and put the larger publicly-traded school groups out of business) or find an alternative accrediting body. Did the government officials realize this would happen? Very doubtful!
The remaining few accrediting agencies will not take many of our schools who have been struggling the past few years for enrollment anyway. What a double whammy!
The Department was focused on somehow closing down the large publicly-traded school groups – and they will probably succeed. But the collateral damage are scores of our sister colleges around the country – like Cambria-Rowe (and maybe some of us) – who have been an alternative to the public sector education in our towns and cities or – in some cases – the only local source of trained and educated workforce… closing.
What a tragic shame?
If any of you are in a similar place – or it you know of other schools who are closing I think someone needs to start a list. I will be happy to keep it and I will check with CECU and the Accrediting Commissions to find out who is being forced to close.
The owner of Cambria-Rowe is Bill Coward who I have known professionally for decades. He, like me and many of you, invested his entire professional life serving the business community in and around Johnstown…graduating well-educated and trained employees. He is like most of us who know we can offer a better option than the public sector for students in our markets…at a fair tuition…with superior results.
There truly is shame to go around – the Obama administration and the DoE leadership together will cause many fine schools like Cambria-Rowe to close and the markets and business and industry they have served for decades will lose a trusted source of quality employees. Apparently no shame so far – or maybe even an understanding of the nationwide damage their actions will cause.
I wonder how many small colleges closing because of GE the ACICS situation will hit the papers. If we develop a list of closing schools, it should be publicized with stories like Cambria-Rowe’s 125-year history coming to an end.
Al