Corinthian Colleges Shutdown its Remaining Campuses. Corinthian Colleges Inc., once one of the biggest for-profit education companies in the United States, is closing its remaining 28 colleges, affecting 16,000 students.
Government officials have accused the company of faking job placement rates, recruiting prospective students too aggressively and issuing predatory loans. Corinthian blamed the government, which imposed a $30 million fine April 14. The company plans to help students transfer to other schools.
Corinthian Colleges Closes All 28 Remaining Campuses
The Santa Ana, California-based company said it was working with other schools to help students continue their education by making transcripts available and coordinating with other educational institutions to accept them. The closures include Heald College campuses in California, Hawaii and Oregon, as well as Everest and WyoTech schools in California, Arizona and New York.
Ted Mitchell, the undersecretary at the Education Department, said in a statement that the department "will immediately begin outreach to Corinthian students to review all their options, which may include loan discharges for students whose school closed."
The Education Department estimated that forgiving the federal student loans for all the current students would cost taxpayers a maximum $214 million.
Earlier in April, the department fined subsidiary Heald College, alleging the school had shown a pattern of falsifying post-graduation employment data. A group of current and former Corinthian students have already petitioned the Education Department to waive their federal student debt based on the alleged misconduct.