Students at Career Point College campuses in Austin, San Antonio and Tulsa were alerted that their school would no longer continue to operate Sunday.
KVUE viewers forwarded a letter to news staff allegedly sent by the President and CEO of the institution, Larry Earle.
In the letter, Earle states two months ago, three long-term employees were a part of a scheme related to student aid funds. Earle said the college self-reported the incident to the Department of Education and promised to pay back all missing monies.
However, the Department of Education did not accept the plan. As a result, they also decided to restrict government funds toward the institution, which Earle said severely limited them. He added the school exhausted all of its other financial resources, which led to the decision to close the college.
The letter concluded with an apology, and a promise from management to help seek other opportunities for students who will be hindered by the situation. Earle said they would also attempt to provide transfer assistance in the coming weeks.
Several nursing students who attended the college said they invested thousands of dollars at the institution in Austin and were hoping to graduate in a few short weeks.
"We've tried calling the school, the school is closed. We were actually at the campus yesterday for 12 and a half hours and the director of the school was there and she saw us and didn't even say anything to us," said Izabella Lumus, a former student at Career Point College. "I have gone through a year of school I have paid a lot of money for this school. I have a job waiting for me that I'm supposed to take in January and I can't take it now."
KVUE attempted to contact the institution, but all phones numbers were disconnected.
You can read the letter in full below:
Two months ago, the Career Point College management team discovered that three long-term employees had collaborated to violate the rules related to student aid funds. After conducting a full investigation, the president of the College self-reported the inappropriate activity to the Department of Education, and provided the Department of Education with a plan to repay all funds taken.
Even though no money was stolen, and even though the College had self-report the violation and agreed to repay all inappropriately received funds, the plan was not accepted. Instead, the Department of Education severely restricted government funds going to the College making it impossible for the College to continue operations. Finally, after exhausting all available resources, the College's management has been forced to discontinue operations.
Therefore, effective immediately, Career Point College is closed.
Since 1984, the College has had an impeccable record of complying with all federal and state regulations. In fact, the College has never had even one student lawsuit in its entire history. The College has one of the highest completion rates in state and last year the College's students had one of the highest vocational nursing pass rates on the nursing licensing examination (94 percent). The College is very proud of its support of the community and is proud that over its long history, the College has graduated and changed the lives of over 10,000 students.
However, in this very hostile government climate against for-profit schools, the Department of Education chose not to give the College a chance to fix its problems and instead chose to effectively terminate the College.
To all our very fine students, staff, and faculty, we are so sorry that we have to close this fine, old institution. The college's management is attempting to arrange various teach-out opportunities for our student, and we will provide that Information as it is available.
Over the next few weeks, we will be attempting to provide students transfer assistance to other college as that also becomes available.
Again, we apologize for closing the school, but in light of the actions by the Department of Education, we had no choice.
Larry Earle, President and CEO