No thanks to the do-Nothing U.S. Department of Education, which sides with for-Profit, predatory “colleges,” you know, the market.
For Immediate Release
December 6, 2018
CRL Statement on Closure of Education Corp. of America Campuses
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Birmingham, Alabama, based for-profit college owner Education Corporation of America (ECA) has announced that it is closing its campuses across the country after the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) suspended their accreditation. The closure of ECA’s campuses include those operating as Brightwood College, Brightwood Career Institute, Ecotech Institute, Golf Academy of America, and Virginia College. More than 19,000 students were enrolled at ECA owned colleges.
Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) Senior Policy Counsel Whitney Barkley-Denney released the following statement:
“ECA’s closure is long overdue. Their campuses, including Virginia College, has a long record of providing substandard education at exorbitant prices. For years, CRL and other education advocates have sounded the alarm to federal and state governments about the risks and harms associated with predatory, underperforming for-profit colleges. Students who were lured to an ECA campus should have their loans discharged as they decide their next education path—being straddled with crippling student loan debt after their college failed them shouldn’t be a burden that they have to carry.”
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For more information or to schedule an interview with a CRL spokesperson please email: ricardo.quinto@responsible
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The marketplace when used for common goods creates failed products- what a surprise.
🙂
Remnants of the Virginia College website are still functioning. One feature was the large number of campus locations. Another was a cost calculator based on the school you selected, and the degree/certificate or program (including online) that you wanted. The calculator was not working. The website did say that no new students were being accepted and schools were closing this December.
I hope more of these operations are denied accreditation and shut down.
I hope they are all shut down, too. Unfortunately, there will be many students left with a load of debt and no certificate or degree. Those students wishing to continue will find out that their credits will NOT be accepted at any university or community college. I know it’s buyer beware, but this is just so wrong for the many people trying to do their best to make a better life for themselves and their families.
“Buyer beware” is the mantra of business people who lack conscience. The concept is built on the idea that the most vulnerable are the best targets.
Does the disproportionate inclusion of financially weaker HBCU’s in an exchange of monetary support for buy-in to Gates’ “collaboration” on course content and delivery, suggest the practice of buyer beware?
Does privatization in the inner cities, denying its citizens the rights others have to elect boards, suggest the practice of buyer beware?
Does a population in a gerrymandered state, who are bilked out of $1 bil. by Republican politicians who are funded by charter school slime suggest buyer beware in practice?