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The Everest College campus in West Valley City is one of a dozen that for-profit education company Corinthian Colleges Inc. will close in coming months, the company announced Tuesday.
In the toughest regulatory action ever taken against a for-profit college, the U.S. Department of Education and the Santa Ana, Calif.-based company reached an agreement late last week that has it shutting down those campuses in 11 states. It also will put 85 U.S.-based campuses up for sale. About a dozen others in Canada will also be sold.
In Utah, about 250 students attend the Everest campus, said Corinthian spokesman Kent Jenkins Jr. Those students will be allowed to complete their programs before the campus shuts its doors, he said, and the school is no longer accepting new students.
"What we set out to do is minimize the amount of disruption that affects our students and employees," Jenkins said. "This is a process that takes a number of months to complete."
Last month, the department put Corinthian on heightened financial monitoring with a 21-day waiting period for federal funds. That was after it failed to provide adequate papers and comply with the department's requests to address concerns about the company's practices. The department said the concerns included allegations of falsifying job placement data used in marketing claims to prospective students, and allegations of altered grades and attendance.
Jenkins said Corinthian decided to close rather than sell some campuses, such as the one in Utah for a variety of reasons.
"Because of various conditions specific to that market and campus we simply did not think we'd succeed in finding a buyer so we made the decision to gradually wind down our operations," Jenkins said.
In 2010, several former Utah Everest students filed a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging Everest admissions representatives deployed "a policy of deceiving and misleading students" about the value of a degree from the West Valley City campus and the true costs of attending. That lawsuit has since been dismissed, Jenkins said.
The school has also had a higher-than-state-average student loan default rate, though that rate has dropped in recent years, Jenkins said. He said, however, that default rate was unrelated to the company's decision to close the Utah campus.
In all, about 3,400 of the 72,000 students who attend schools owned by Corinthian — including Everest College, Heald College and WyoTech schools — will be affected by the closures, the company said.
Besides Utah, the campuses closing are in Bensalem, Pa.; Chelsea, Mass.; Cross Lanes, W.V.; Eagan, Minn.; Fort Worth, Texas; Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo, Mich.; Merrillville, Ind.; St. Louis; Silver Spring, Md. and McLean, Va.
Under the terms of the agreement with the feds, the campuses must tell students their options and each campus will have a plan that allows students to finish their program, if they choose to do so. Some are eligible for a refund.
The company faces multiple state and federal investigations.
Tribune reporter Lisa Schencker contributed to this report.