The Career Education Corporation is giving up on its attempt to sell several of its money-losing colleges, including several from the Gibbs Division and Lehigh Valley College, in Pennsylvania, which prompted a 2005 investigative series about the company by The Morning Call, an Allentown newspaper.

After trying for more than a year to find a buyer, the company announced today that it would “teach out” the programs at Lehigh Valley and eight other colleges — seven from the Gibbs Division located in the Northeast, and McIntosh College in New Hampshire.

The company said it would seek approval to convert two other Gibbs colleges, one in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, and the other on Long Island, to campuses of its Sanford-Brown College, which focuses on allied-health programs.

According to a recent article in The Morning Call, an investigation into recruiting and financial-aid practices at Lehigh Valley College, started by the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office in the wake of that series, is continuing.

In June, Career Education said it would also teach out the Long Beach and Sunnyvale campuses of Brooks College, after failing to find a buyer for those.

The company’s announcement comes just three days after unveiling a major restructuring in an effort to cut the company’s marketing and administrative costs. —Goldie Blumenstyk