Sudden death: Can the most damaging kind of for-profit closure be prevented? – Education Dive
Three major systems failing abruptly in four months is a sign the sector’s troubles aren’t over and its oversight mechanisms may not be working.
Dream Center Education Holdings (DCEH) started the year with a possible buyer for its Argosy University and hopes of offloading its remaining Art Institute campuses as well. The organization was facing insolvency, seeking protection from creditors after having sold most of its remaining healthy colleges.
Yet within two months, the DCEH enterprise — created to acquire the college assets of for-profit Education Management Corp. — would be in ruins. With a few exceptions, prospective buyers for its campuses would evaporate. The U.S. Department of Education dealt DCEH’s death blow, blocking Argosy’s access to federal student aid. In the span of a few days, nearly all of the organization’s colleges closed.
It was the third major for-profit college system to close since December, coming on the heels of Education Corporation of America (ECA) and Vatterott Educational Centers. Taken together, the shutdowns signal that the for-profit sector’s reputational and financial troubles aren’t over, even after a period of consolidation and relative quiet following the collapses of ITT Technical Institute and Corinthian Colleges during the Obama administration.