Career Education Corp. is closing its Gibbs College campus in Norwalk and six other locations, despite the Norwalk campus”™ recent growth and steady profits rung up by its corporate parent.
CEC is planning a “teach out” program that will allow the vocational school”™s 920 students to complete their degrees. The Gibbs campuses are slated for closure by December 2009.
Gibbs College-Norwalk is located at 10 Norden Place. The school first opened a Norwalk campus in 1973, and in 2004 added a satellite campus in Farmington.
With programs in business office administration, computer networking, and design, it is one of 11 institutions in Fairfield County offering at least an associate degree, including the University of Phoenix, an online school that opened a Norwalk campus in 2006.
Gibbs College-Norwalk enjoyed a 20 percent increase in enrollment last fall, but that was not enough to sway Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based CEC from seeking a buyer for the campus.
CEC is moving ahead with the shutdown despite repeated calls from local business people and politicians to improve access to career training programs; and despite CEC”™s determination to save a campus on Long Island, N.Y., by converting it to a health care curriculum.
CEC announced last November it would attempt to sell Gibbs College in Norwalk, but was unable to find a buyer for the school along with schools it runs in New York City; Boston; Piscataway, N.J.; Livingston, N.J.; Norristown, Pa.; and Cranston, R.I.
The shuttering of the Cranston campus ends the Gibbs brand in the state where it was launched. Founded by Katherine Gibbs in 1911 in Providence, R.I., Gibbs College was acquired in 1997 for $20 million by CEC. That same year, CEC held an initial public offering of stock, just three years after its own launch.
At the time of the acquisition, the Norwalk campus had 250 students.
The company said it considered converting the schools to other formats. It is seeking approval to convert Gibbs Colleges in Melville, N.Y., and Vienna, Va., to focus on health programs under its Sanford-Brown Institute brand.
In advance of its year-end financial results, CEC announced a corporate restructuring in mid-February. In the third quarter, the company had a $16 million profit on $404 million in revenue, down from earnings of $21 million on $429 million the year before.
Gibbs College students will be allowed to retain existing financial aid packages, and the company indicated student records will be available online. Students who have been accepted for future start dates will receive refunds of tuition payments and application fees, according to the Connecticut Department of Higher Education.
