The Career Education Corporation, in a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, failed to disclose some of the more negative elements of a letter it received from the Education Department about the status of the agency’s freeze on the company’s opening of new campuses, Bloomberg News reported today.

The Education Department announced the freeze nearly a year ago, citing an investigation of the higher-education company’s recruiting and student-aid practices (The Chronicle, June 30, 2005). The inquiry is one of several the company faces from federal and other agencies.

In the letter obtained by Bloomberg, the Education Department said that noncompliance with its investigation “has grown worse” at almost 45 percent of the company’s 80 campuses and programs. The letter was dated May 12, a few days before Career Education’s annual meeting, where a dissident shareholder was mounting a challenge against the company-picked slate of candidates for its board. The challenge ended up failing (The Chronicle, May 19).

Career Education did not disclose the letter for more than a week and then reported in an SEC filing that the Education Department said that it was partly satisfied with the company’s response to the investigation, and that it might soon lift the freeze (The Chronicle, May 23).