Large for-profit chain EDMC to be bought by the Dream Center, a missionary group

After years of switching between being publicly traded and privately held, Education Management Corporation’s large chain of for-profit institutions will become nonprofits.

The Los Angeles-based Dream Center Foundation announced Friday that it is seeking to purchase the for-profit company for an undisclosed amount and plans to convert Argosy University, South University and the Art Institutes into nonprofits.

The sale requires the approval of accreditors and the U.S. Department of Education before it is finalized, however. And it doesn’t include Brown Mackie University, which is closing its campuses. The EDMC sale and conversion are just the latest sign of a collapsing for-profit sector.