Vatterott College was a for-profitcareer training institute with programs at 16 campuses across the Midwest of the United States and online. It was operated by Vatterott Educational Centers, Inc.,[1] which was based in St. Louis and owned by the private equity firm TA Associates. The college also offered distance-learning programs, called eCompanion Courses, which allowed students to earn credits, diplomas, and degrees through online classes.
Vatterott College closed all campuses on December 17, 2018 citing a U.S. Department of Education decision to place it under heightened cash monitoring.[2]
History
John C. Vatterott Sr. and Phil Sullivan opened Urban Technical Centers, Inc. in 1969 in St. Louis, Missouri.[3] In the 1970s, the institution was renamed Vatterott & Sullivan Educational Center.[4]
In 1984, Vatterott and Sullivan agreed to split the company. Sullivan moved to Kansas City, and Vatterott took full control of the college, which was then renamed Vatterott College.[5] In January 1985, a Vatterott College campus opened in St. Ann, Missouri.
In 1989, the college's associate degree (specialized) granting authority was issued by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC), now known as the Accrediting Commission of National Association of Trade and Technical Schools (NATTS).
In April 1991, Vatterott College expanded to the Missouri cities of Springfield, Joplin and Independence as a result of a teach-out of students attending the former Draughon Business College, and became authorized to establish branch campuses at those locations in August. In May 1995, Vatterott College expanded to Quincy, Illinois, as a result of the acquisition of the former Quincy Technical Schools.
In June 1996, Vatterott College entered into a teach-out agreement with the Business and Banking Institute, which operated locations in Omaha, Nebraska, Des Moines, and Iowa. Programs were added and the institutions were renamed Vatterott College. The same year, an additional location of the St. Ann campus opened in Sunset Hills, Missouri. Vatterott College expanded into the following cities as a result of various teach-out agreements: St. Joseph, Missouri, in March 1995 (formerly known as the Northwest Missouri Community College); Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1997; Memphis, Tennessee, in 1999; Wichita, Kansas, in 1999; and Cleveland, Ohio in 2001. In 1997, a location was opened in Oklahoma City.
In 1998, Vatterott became the first private career college in St. Louis to offer classes online through its division Vatterott Global Online.
In December 1999, Vatterott College expanded to Omaha, Nebraska by acquiring the former Universal Technology Institute. In January 2000, a campus was established in O’Fallon, Missouri. In September 2001, Vatterott College purchased the former Omaha College of Health Careers in Omaha, Nebraska, and converted it into a Vatterott College campus.
In January 2003, Vatterott College was purchased by Wellspring Capital Management for $50 million, resulting in the formation of a holding company, Vatterott Educational Centers, Inc.[6]
In 2004, Vatterott Educational Centers opened L'Ecole Culinaire, a culinary school located in St. Louis. In 2004, Vatterott acquired the Court Reporting Institute of Dallas and the Court Reporting Institute of Houston and converted them into Vatterott Colleges, marking Vatterott's expansion to Texas. These two campuses were permanently closed in 2015.
In January 2007, Vatterott Education Center located in Dallas, Texas was approved as a branch campus of the Quincy main institution and has been closed since 2014. The Vatterott Career College, Appling Farms location in Memphis was opened in April 2008. In November 2008, a L’École Culinaire campus was opened in Cordova, Tennessee. In August 2009, a Vatterott College campus opened in Fairview Heights, Illinois with seven diploma programs.
In September 2009, TA Associates acquired Vatterott Educational Centers, Inc. from WellSpring Capital Partners.[7] The O’Fallon, Missouri, location relocated in the fall of 2010 to a renovated building in St. Charles, Missouri. The Court Reporting Institute opened a campus in Arlington, Virginia, in December 2011 and was closed within one year after opening.
"ex’Treme Institute by Nelly", a music recording and production school, was opened in St. Louis, Missouri in December 2011.[8][9]
Lawsuits, investigations, and criticism
In 2009, three executives of Vatterott College were convicted of conspiring to obtain federal student grants and loans for students who were not eligible by providing false information and documents.[10]
In 2014, the college was sued by a student who claimed that she was misled that her credits from the college would be transferable toward a nursing certificate.[11][12] The plaintiff was awarded $27,676 ($36,200 in 2023) in actual damages and about $2 million ($2.62million in 2023) in punitive damages because the state of Missouri law caps these awards.[13]
In January 2017, Brian Carroll, president of the college's Kansas City campus for the previous five years, was fired by the school because he allowed a homeless student to sleep in the library on a night where temperatures fell to −4°F (−20°C)[14]
In 2017, forty programs at Vatterott failed the first test of the Obama Administration's gainful employment rule.[13] Since then, Vatterott College filed for receivership and attempted to seek a buyer for its campuses.[15]
On January 4, 2018, Education Corporation of America announced that it would acquire select campuses from Vatterott, but the sale did not go through due to the restrictions on Vatterott's participation in the federal financial aid programs being significantly increased by the U.S. Department of Education.
In October 2018, the Quincy, Des Moines, Wichita, Cleveland, and Oklahoma City campuses were permanently closed.[16][17] The closures of these campuses were announced on January 9 following Vatterott's attempted acquisition by Education Corporation of America, and at the same time, the campuses ceased enrollment to new students. On December 5, 2018, the college's accreditation by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges was revoked.[13]
On December 17, 2018, Vatterott College closed its remaining campuses.[18]
As of August 2021[update], Vatterott still owes the U.S. Department of Education $244 million ($274million in 2023).[19]
Locations
At the time of the college's shuttering in December 2018, Vatterott College operated facilities in the following US cities:
Lindenwood University is a private university in St. Charles, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1832 by George Champlin Sibley and Mary Easton Sibley as The Lindenwood School for Girls, it is the second-oldest higher-education institution west of the Mississippi River.
St. Lunatics were an American hip hop group formed in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1993. The group consisted of childhood friends Nelly, Ali, Murphy Lee, Kyjuan, City Spud, and Slo Down.
Quincy University (QU) is a private Franciscan university founded in 1860 in Quincy, Illinois.
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) is a public university in Edwardsville, Illinois. Located within the Metro East of Greater St. Louis, SIUE was established in 1957 as an extension of Southern Illinois University Carbondale. It is the younger of the two major institutions of Southern Illinois University system. SIUE has eight constituent undergraduate and graduate colleges, including those in arts and sciences, business, dentistry, education, engineering, graduate study, nursing, and pharmacy, in addition to the East St. Louis Center.
The Eastern Nazarene College (ENC) is a private, Christian college in Quincy, Massachusetts. Established as a holiness college in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1900, the college moved to Rhode Island for several years. With its expansion to a four-year curriculum, it relocated to Wollaston Park in 1919. It has expanded to additional sites in Quincy and, since the late 20th century, to satellite sites across the state. Its academic programs are primarily undergraduate, with some professional graduate education offered.
Maryville University of St. Louis is a private university in Town and Country, Missouri. It was founded on April 6, 1872, by the Society of the Sacred Heart and offers more than 90 degree programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels to students from 50 states and 47 countries.
Mid-America Christian University (MACU) is a private Christian university in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. MACU is an endorsed agency of the Church of God and is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. MACU was initially founded as the South Texas Bible Institute in 1953 in Houston Heights, Houston, Texas.
Forgottonia, also spelled Forgotonia, is the name given to a 16-county region in Western Illinois in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This geographic region forms the distinctive western bulge of Illinois that is roughly equivalent to "The Tract", the Illinois portion of the Military Tract of 1812, along and west of the Fourth Principal Meridian. Since this wedge-shaped region lies between the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, it has historically been isolated from the eastern portion of Central Illinois.
Metropolitan Community College (MCC) is a public community college system in the U.S. state of Missouri. The system consists of four physical campuses in Kansas City, Independence, and Lee's Summit, as well as the MCC-Online campus. The campuses had a total enrollment of 13,376 for the fall semester of 2023. The college's athletic teams are known as the Wolves. It is not affiliated with Metropolitan Community College in Omaha, Nebraska.
Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (MBTS) is a private Baptist seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary also houses an undergraduate college, Spurgeon College.
Sanford–Brown was a division of the Career Education Corporation, a proprietary, for-profit higher education organization.
Brown Mackie College was a private for-profit college system in the United States. The colleges offered bachelor's degrees, associate degrees, and certificates in programs including early childhood education, information technology, health sciences, and legal studies. Brown Mackie's schools were most recently owned by Education Management Corporation (EDMC).
Kansas City University (KCU) is a private medical school with its main campus in Kansas City, Missouri and an additional campus in Joplin, Missouri. Founded in 1916, KCU is one of the original osteopathic medical schools in the United States. It consists of both a College of Osteopathic Medicine and a College of Biosciences. KCU is one of the largest medical schools in the nation by enrollment.
Kansas City 33 School District, operating as Kansas City Public Schools or KCPS, is a school district headquartered at 2901 Troost Avenue in Kansas City, Missouri, United States.
Garden City Community College is a public community college in Garden City, Kansas. It was established in 1919 to provide a means for post-secondary education for area residents. The school initially shared facilities in Sabine Hall and Calkins Hall in the 100 block of Buffalo Jones Avenue with Garden City High School and opened with a first class of less than three dozen students. The college moved to the then-new Garden City High School building in 1954. The Kansas Legislature passed the Community College Act in 1965, authorizing establishment of 22 independent colleges including GCCC. Today GCCC is one of 19 Kansas community colleges.
The University of Missouri–St. Louis (UMSL) is a public research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Established in 1963, it is the newest of the four universities in the University of Missouri System. Located on the former grounds of Bellerive Country Club, the university's campus stretches into the municipalities of Bellerive, Bel-Nor and Normandy. Additional facilities are located at the former site of Marillac College and at Grand Center, both in St. Louis city.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
