Anyone familiar with Career Education Corporation?...

I'm currently about half way through my MSM-IT with Colorado Technical University (on campus, not DL), and we were recently acquired by CEC.

I've been very happy with the courses and instructors at CTU so far, but am wondering if this new acquisition will impact the school's reputation down the road.

I visited CEC's website, and didn't recognize any of the schools under their umbrella. I'm worried now that CTU has that "for profit" tag, it could sacrifice quality for quantity/profit.

Anyone know of them, or have any experience with one of their schools?

Thanks in advance.

 

CEC

CEC is now, I think, the USA's third largest provider of vocational programmes. It owns many vocational schools across the USA and American Intercontinental University (AIU) I think. CEC turned over approximately US$1.3 billion last year and is NSDAQ listed.

AJJ

 

CEC have been buying up a lot of campuses of late, and as suggested above are one of the bigger education providers in the country. CEC stock recently (6 weeks or so ago) took a hit as a couple of disenfranchised employees made allegations that enrollment figures had been artificially pumped up - a la corporate world. The stock took a two-day hit, and I don't know if it has recovered since.

Personally, in terms of degree worth, I think that as long as it is an RA degree you should be fine. For-profit education is very much a reality these days (for better or worse), and at the end of the day I don't think future employees are going to give a nat's chuff who owns the establishment where you were educated, just so long as the institution has legitimacy i.e. accreditation.

 

Just for the record, CTU was a for profit corporation before the CEC acquisition. It was owned by Whitman Education Corporation. Any changes will not be a result of a change from not-for-profit to for profit.

Best,
Mary

 

Hi Lurker,

In my previous position I was responsible for the QA for four CEC schools at Associates level. I have had the pleasure of dealing with the CEO and a range of both high and middle management staff, and I have great respect for their programs. Yes, they are for profit and there is difficult line there re-quality vs quantity, but all staff I met and dealt with were sincere and implemented all of the continous improvement recommendations I made.

Cheers,

George