The Art Institutes Shutting Down 15 Locations

Education Management Corp., operator of The Art Institutes schools, is shutting down 15 of The Art Institutes locations. The Illinois Institute of Art-Tinley Park isn’t accepting any new students, and will remain open for two years so the 225 students currently enrolled can complete their studies.

Education Management Corp runs 51 Art Institutes campuses in 25 states and Canada. The Art Institutes is a for-profit college that offers associate’s and bachelor’s degrees in fields such as graphic design, film-making, fashion design and culinary arts. The Art Institutes has experienced declining enrollment in the last few years.

The 15 campuses slated to shut down are Atlanta (Decatur), Fort Worth, Houston (North), Jacksonville, Kansas City, Michigan (Troy), New England, New York City, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, Silicon Valley, Tinley Park, Washington (Dulles), Wisconsin and York. 36 locations will remain operational.

Chris Hardman, a spokesman for Education Management Corp., said the closings come after “after a lengthy review process across the system,” and that the company considered certain criteria, including market demand and proximity to other AI locations. According to Hardman, EDMC underwent restructuring last month that resulted in a debt reduction from $1.5 billion to $400 million.

Parent company Education Management Corp was under investigation in 2011 by the Department of Justice for targeting low-income families and enrolling too many students at once, and once the students graduated there just weren’t enough jobs available for all of the graduates.

For-profit schools like The Art Institutes have been under scrutiny for some time for allegedly preparing students for a career that can’t justify the expensive cost of tuition. Two weeks ago, DeVry University announced it was closing 14 of its campuses. Before that, Corinthian Colleges, owner of Everest, WyoTech and Heald shut down all of its operations, and in February Kaplan sold all 38 of its schools as well. It’s a trend for-profit colleges seem to be following amid countless investigations and scrutiny into predatory behavior. If you went to the Art Institutes, you may qualify for federal loan forgiveness under one of President Obama’s loan forgiveness programs. Goodbye Loans specializes in assisting students from for-profit colleges such as The Art Insitutes. You DO NOT have to have attended one of the closing locations to qualify.

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