A California regulatory agency has threatened to withdraw the Brooks Institute of Photography’s approval to operate unless the institute’s parent company, the Career Education Corporation, responded by the end of last week to questions that the company describes as “compliance issues.”
In acknowledging the inquiry in a news release, the company said the Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education had not accused it of fraud, as suggested last month in a news article in the Financial Times.
In an 11-page report, the agency faulted Brooks for inadequately informing students about the full costs of their education, for enrolling students who appeared academically unprepared to complete the program, and for providing students and prospects with “false and misleading” promotional information on the school’s job-placement record.
Career Education said it expected to meet the deadline for satisfying the agency’s concerns.
This is not the first time that practices at Brooks, located in Santa Barbara, have come under official scrutiny.
In September 2003 a former registrar filed a complaint with the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools alleging that officials of the institute had forged student signatures and otherwise tampered with files. The accreditor cleared the institute of those charges in February.
In an unrelated matter, Career Education also reported that the accreditor of its American InterContinental University was continuing to delay the university’s planned opening of two new campuses in Texas. The company had hoped to do so last July but was prevented when the university was placed on warning status by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
The association removed American InterContinental from warning status last month.
But at the same meeting, the accreditor appointed a committee to conduct a “focused review” of the university and told Career Education not to expect a decision on the new Texas campuses until the review was completed, no later than December 31, 2005.
http://chronicle.com Section: Money & Management Volume 51, Issue 18, Page A36