A small for-profit college in North Carolina is shutting down, citing the U.S. Education Department’s impending gainful-employment rule, The Charlotte Observer reports.Brookstone College of Business, which served roughly 200 students at two campuses, in Charlotte and Greensboro, will cease night classes immediately and afternoon classes next week.
Jack Henderson, Brookstone’s president, said complying with the gainful-employment rule — which takes effect in July and will judge career-oriented programs based on their graduates’ ability to repay student-loan debt — would distract the college "from its core mission of providing quality education and training."
The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities has lobbied against the rule, suing successfully in 2012 to have portions of it thrown out. Shortly after the departmentreleased its final rule, in October, the association sued the department again on similar grounds. The department estimates 1,400 programs — 99 percent of them for-profit — will fail the rule in its first year.
Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/small-for-profit-college-will-close-citing-gainful-employment-rule/98849