Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Education didn’t intentionally force Corinthian Colleges Inc. to shut down, an unidentified department official told reporters Monday.
- According to the official, as quoted by the Chronicle of Higher Education, the department didn’t know Corinthian’s cash situation and didn’t expect that the company’s response to the department’s 21-day hold on federal funds would be deciding to close.
- The education department believes that transitioning the 85 Corinthian colleges in the U.S. now up for sale to new owners will be better for the students and their progress toward degrees, the anonymous source said.
Dive Insight:
The anonymous source provided comments during a so-called background briefing, allowing the education department to circulate its views on the Corinthian matter while hiding individual officials at the department from scrutiny about the comments. Corinthian has more than 100 schools and 75,000 students, and 85 U.S. colleges, plus 10 in Canada, will be sold while the others are to be closed. With the education department’s failure to understand how critical Corinthian’s financial issues were, it plans to reassess the systems that are supposed to keep tabs on finances. The department also, apparently, doesn’t have a plan if the colleges don’t sell, the Chronicle reported.