Administrators and officials with Wright Career College are notifying students and staff the college has closed its doors.
There were signs posted on the doors of the Overland Park campus that said the school has closed.
The college has not released any further information about why the closure happened.
After the college announced its closure, Kansas City Kansas Community College posted on its website it welcomes students from Wright Career Colleges.
“We welcome the opportunity to meet with students to evaluate their prior learning and help guide them to a path of completion” Tami Bartunek, Director of Admissions, said in the KCKCC post.
A former administrator who would like to remain anonymous called Wright Career College's name a "misnomer," saying it's not really a 'college' at all because credits don't transfer to other schools, and students are often misled about the nature of the careers they're working toward.
"A 'medical assistant' means you'll actually be a glorified office assistant," said the former administrator. "Some were led to believe they would be a nurse."
Another student 41 Action News spoke with Friday said that she graduated from Wright six years ago, but she had to start over at a new school because no one would recognize her degree from Wright.
Shannon Akins is a student who chose Wright because she lives a few blocks away from the Overland Park campus and does not have transportation.
Akins, a working mother of three, thought she was less than a year away from an Associate degree in medical assisting. Now, she's not only angry because she was told weeks ago there would be a 'teach-out' to allow her to complete her program, but she's also close to $30,000 in debt with nothing to show for it.
"It's gonna be a real bad process if we have to pay all that back plus go to a different college," she said. "Research your school before you go because this could happen to anybody anywhere."
The U.S. Department of Education placed several institutions, including Wright Career College, on a Heightened Cash Monitoring payment method in March. For a full list of such institutions, including those in Kansas and Missouri, click here.
Schools may be placed on the list as a result of problems including but not limited to:
- Accreditation issues
- Late or missing annual financial statements and/or audits
- Outstanding liabilities
- Denial of re-certifications
- Concern around the school's administrative capabilities
- Concern around a schools' financial responsibility
- Possibly severe findings uncovered during a program review.
- For more information about Heightened Cash Monitoring click here.
According to public data, Wright Career College had an enrollment of 1,391 last year with a full-time tuition of $13,100 per year. The most recent data also says 21.4 percent of students were in default.
Attorney Ken McClain said that default rate should have been a red flag.
"Rhe whole system at Wright Career College was built on deceit," he said. "The degrees they were getting were not worth what they were paying for them, if anything."
It's unknown whether Wright students will have to still honor their loans to go to the school. The college's attorney, Neil Sader, said it will be weeks before that's all sorted out.
"We would ask people to be patient, although we certainly recognize the incredible inconvenience that it causes and the disappointment," he said. "We're trying to be as thorough as we can and provide as many answers as we can as quickly as we can."
So how do you know if a college is legit?
McClain said looking at a school that is accredited by NCATE (the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education) is a good start.
"These proprietary schools are accredited by their own accrediting agency," said McClain. "They present themselves like a college when really they're not a college in the traditional sense."
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