City Paper has received word of more layoffs taking place at Pittsburgh-based for-profit educator Education Management Corporation. Company officials have kept mum, however, and it is unclear at this time if any of the lost jobs occurred in Pittsburgh.

We began receiving emails last week about layoffs of as many of 100 employees at the brick-and-mortar Art Institutes EDMC operates around the country. The news comes just two months after EDMC laid off several hundred employees in its online division at the same time it was investing company revenues in a stock buyback program.

According to sources inside the company, who asked not to be named out of fear for their jobs, the layoffs began last Thursday. EDMC, the second largest for-profit educator in the country, owns several schools including the Art Institutes, Argosy University, Brown Mackie College, South University and Western State University.

Over the weekend CP received an email dated March 8 purportedly sent from Todd Cunningham, the president of the Art Institute of Washington — which is located in the D.C. suburb of Arlington, Va. — to AI employees.

“As you may have heard, there have been some organizational changes at our school,” Cunningham writes. “The Reduction Program is an effort to maintain close alignment with staffing in our schools and market demand. We have an obligation to our students to provide the highest quality education in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible.”

The “reduction program,” the message continues, is being “driven in part by the demand for certain programs at our schools and we are realigning faculty to meet those demands.” Among the areas cut, the email says, were positions in graphic design and general education.

Although the number of employees affected was not laid out in the email, laid-off employees “were advised they will no longer have roles with us after April 5, 2012.”

The email concluded:

“We extend our sincere best wishes to all those affected, and we thank them for their contributions which have benefited our students over the long term; and we will do what we can to help our displaced colleagues during this difficult time. We remain a vibrant organization. It is important that we continue to strive to be as healthy, efficient and streamlined as possible so that we can continue to invest in and support growth where we see the greatest need and demand.”

Several other campuses have also apparently been affected. At the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, for one, an online petition is being circulated regarding the layoffs of some 15 instructors last week. According to the petition, the instructors taught illustration, graphic design, web design, fashion, psychology and in the culinary programs.

“This sweep of layoffs affected the lives of FIFTEEN instructors at our school from all majors and the general education field,” the petitioners write. “This kind of mindless corporate layoff practice needs to be addressed with awareness and guidance.”

There has been no formal company release about the reported layoffs. We’ve requested a comment from EDMC, and will provide updates if they become available.

The company has undergone some financial hardships lately due to lower revenues and declining enrollment last quarter. Ever since it announced its quarterly results in early February, the company’s stock has fallen sharply. The stock hit almost $30 on Jan. 3, but opened this morning at less than $17 per share.

This article appears in Mar 7-13, 2012.

18 replies on “More EDMC layoffs reported”

  2. They should refund the students they ripped off. Once again the exects are shifting all the staff that actually help. This is mindboggling how obvious their scam is now. I hope the government is watching this. Its clear they dont care about students or even educating.

  5. Reduction Program = Arranging Deck Chairs.

    The layoffs that occured last month, I’m afraid, are only the beginning. There are probably a lot more on the horizon.

    I wonder how much of this will get play during this election year. The candidates haven’t said anything so far as what to do about higher education in America. I hate to say it but after the housing mess that we’ve been in over the past four years, I think that student loans are the next big bubble to burst.

  6. Some of EDMC’s growth strategy is questionable. This post is from San Antonio, TX where the Arts Institute has recently opened, also recently begun laying off (as is it’s local counterpart Brown-Mackie College). The question is in part about how much marketing feasibility was done prior to opening. The city has five brick and mortar universities (included are UT, TX A&M, Trinity University, Our Lady of the Lake, and University of the Incarnate Word–Texas Lutheran is twenty miles outside of the city) all of which offer a number of arts and related degrees and certificates. Additionally there are four established “arts” schools of this for profit type (Kaplan, etc.) type. In checking the local market, there are zero, no kidding, zero jobs for graduates from the established schools (or the three military bases here) let alone a company whose reputation is mud. So the question is did EDMC open these schools with the intention of inflating its stock value after it bough so much of it back?

    Given the level of character of this school’s executives, stockholders, and employees it would seem wise to suspect the worst first. My suspicion is that the schools were opened to prey on military members and their families. Given that EDMC has recently brought on board a hired gun for the purpose of preying upon the military, it would seem credible. The laugh is that all of these people can attend Texas universities at roughly 20% of the price, receive credible training and degrees, and go online or to classrooms. Three of the universities even have programs geared to Spanish speaking populations.

    I going with the inflated stock gimmick theory.

    But these children are desperate. As a very vocal disgruntled graduate they still call me at 9:30 p.m. Pittsburgh time trying to sell classes. (Good grief, the last phone call was on St. Patrick’s eve, truly an act of desperation). Instead of enrollment advisers, they have the academic advisers doubling as telephone solicitors. What the heck, a salesperson is a salesperson no matter what they are titled.

    I follow the advise of the SEIU.org, just say it is not worth it and hang up.

  7. I worked at South University told I was changing lives. What I ended doing was selling my soul for a paycheck. I am sorry for any student I hurt. I have a daughter. This employer is evil.

  8. Management at EDMC is awful. “Instructors” are given numbers that they have to hit, just like admissions reps. Instructors are told that they will get more work if their past student evaluations are good AND if a lot of students “persisted” in their classes. Translation? “If you want to work, pass EVERYBODY.” What is an EDMC degree worth?

  9. It’s simple.

    EDMC has been on a steady decline since 2010 and the people at the top are absolutely FREAKING OUT!

    The layoffs are happening because the money is not coming in on the front end the way that they expect it to.

    They’re simply trying to make up for lost revenue (which is a pretty lousy way to do it if you ask me..especially when there are TONS of things that should be cut out of EDMC before resorting to firing teachers OR administrative staff).

    They have no idea how to turn things around…and Goldman Sachs could care less. They’ve already made a ton of money off of EDMC.

    It’s only a matter of time before Goldman Sachs dumps EDMC all together and the whole thing gets exponentially worse.

    With all of the new legislation and regulations that are being proposed (and passed), most of the for profit schools will be out of business by the end of 2016…watch.

  10. This is for Sharon: What you are saying is completely out of order…People with families work for EDMC, and are not all supporters of what this company does…The perfect example is those who work at a cigarette manufacturing plant, will you hate on them too just because they make a product that kills? EDMC has over 25.000 employees, and with stupid unfounded comments like yours, I don’t understand how you sleep at night. You need Jesus, or therapy, so watch what you type, karma is a bitch.

  11. Why would anyone be happy that people are losing their jobs. Look up regional accreditation (SACS). This is what South University has and the school has been around since 1899. EDMC has made some mistakes, but do not think that this is a MILL. Do not forget that real people, with real lives work for EDMC. Lets hope that they rebound for the sake of jobs.

  12. Hi Dice,

    This is the definition of Diploma Mill: EDMC. You may not think this is a diploma mill, but you are entirely alone. Employees, instructors, regulators, investigators, students, and employers.

    While it is tragic that EDMC employees will be losing their jobs, indeed. They are not losing their jobs by their own fault, it is the criminal actions of Todd Nelson, John McKernan, and Edward West that is causing it. The company will be sold, there are new models coming, all will be good. Meanwhile Nelson, McKernan, and West took home more than $100 million last year–do you like that too! I don’t believe they will give one penny to the employees whose families will suffer. One the other hand I do believe that they will pay criminal defense attorneys big time.

  13. I have worked in admissions for almost fifteen years. I worked for EDMC for two years….It was the WORST experience of my entire career! I am still blown away at the level of incompetence and GREED. We were hired to start a new campus that was delayed…. I kept thinking “as soon as we have students it will get better” I sat exactly ONE class and the day of the class start as we were waiting for our new students to arrive all of admissions was told to “go get on the phones” we were not even allowed to welcome our students on their first day!!! It was a NIGHTMARE! Those poor students

  14. Today, more cardboard boxes quietly made their way past the cubicles today in a pantomime version of the mass layoffs of January and July. No official email was sent, but the effect was the same: layoffs. We were all shuttled into another round of mass meetings where we were handed down the official/unofficial news. Troubling indeed.

    Nevertheless, I do take offense that certain people care to call the school a “diploma mill” in the sense that unless they are employed at this school in academics, they don’t know that a large percentage of students simply do not pass. Class is accredited, real, and full of assignments and deliverables that unless done, will earn you a failing grade. Try taking 10-40 classes without the aid of a lecturer where you have to absorb the material and synthesize it into points on assignments. And the aggregate student population enrolled simply cannot manage to complete this type of program, where only a self-starter could hope to finish. There might be instances of “skating by” or plagiarism, but the odds of finishing 40 classes with this tactic are slim to none. At least it’s not like UOP where a significant portion of the grade comes from a team project and without doing anything at all, you could sponge off the “team” for your passing grade. The class is yours alone to fail.

    Objectively though, the EDMC business model and the student population enrolled are a conflict of interest. That’s hard enough without the slurs to the company or the personal attacks on employees. Pittsburgh aside, many of the jobs are in Phoenix. Have you been to Phoenix? There’s not a lot of jobs or opportunities here in academia. If you don’t work for UOP or EDMC, I guarantee you will be working in a school set up just like it with the same employee pool. Just what are we supposed to do?

  15. It is a serious tragedy that EDMC employees are losing their jobs. There are executives and directors who own this responsibility. However, in the end, this is the product that EDMC defends–that EDMC is anything more than a diploma mill is utter deception.

    This is an actual assignment for a doctoral level class. I’ll let you be the judge of the adequacy of this student for a loan for her education.

    This was the “post” or one of two assignments each week. It was given an “A”. The Class was L7101. Please read it carefully and decide if this person is worthy of getting your tax dollars for education, if this school is doing this person a service by allowing them entrance and sustaining them in school, and if this student might ever become employed, at the doctoral level, in anything but a workfare program? Do you think that a school that allows this student entrance and allows this student to be deluded that they are “doctoral” material is a rip off con job?

    By the way, all five of the sources are to be cited in APA style, there are none as you can see and yet this student received an “A”.

    Assignment:

    “Using theInternet, find at least five resources by Robert Quinn and Peter Vaill. Almost all of their leadership literature suggests that exemplary leaders must transform themselves before they can effectively lead and motivate anorganization. Respond to this suggestion drawing upon at least 3-5 peer-reviewed references. In a Word document, compare and contrast your personal style with the following leadership practices discussed in Kouzes and Posner: Model the way. Enable others to act. Encourage the heart. How do your leadership practices differ from the ones discussed in Kouzes and Posner? Discuss how you plan to decrease the differences. How will you incorporate these practices into your personal leadership style? Develop personal change strategies to incorporate these leadership practices into your personal leadership style.

    Students’ “A” submission:

    Module 6 Discussion Question 1Model the way:

    I really don’t have one leadership style I try to be veryflexible. In my leadership role I try to encourageeveryone. I don’t believe in the words I can’t because I know aperson can do the impossible if they put fourth an effort. Thereare times I would like to quit but I realize that you must talk the talk awalk the walk. You must be self motivated and be able to motivateothers in an organization. As a leader the main time you stop modelingthe way that’s when you realize how many people were modeling them selvesafter you. As a mother of six I must set the example. Myeldest daughter when I went to college and graduated she told me she wasgoing to do the same thing. Many times she wanted to give up but Iencouraged her that she could do anything she put her mind to. Enabling others toact: I was told that Icould be hard at times but I had to learn not to show favoritism. Toget a team to work together can be difficult but by giving everyone the sameinformation and keeping an open line of communication every thing will cometogether. Within the church I have people working in positions they hadnever worked in before many would complain that they are not prepared but bymotivating them they would do the job and it would always turn out betterthan what they expected. Believe it or not but they would come and tellme thank you for believing in them. Many times people can see what youcan achieve before you do. There were two ladies that wanted to do fundraisers around the same time. One came and was complaining that theother lady was trying to hinder her project. After explaining to her thatthey had to different project in two locations I told do what you can andallow her to do hers, and it was going to turn out better the sheexpected and it did. Getting to know their personality typeshelps a lot also. Within the church I try to encourage as many peopleas I can to stay in school and to take classes in the local college becauseyou don’t know what you can do until you do it. In essence what I am sayingis support you worker ideas and actions build their confidence level up intheir abilities and integrity them motivate them and pay attention to theirfeelings. Encourage the heart: First you must find theirstrengths and build on them. We all have weakness but don’t allow theweakness to weigh you down build on them. Reward your employees in words andgifts this builds trust and lets them know how much you appreciate them. Oncethey take on a project I don’t interfere with it if they ask my onion thenand only them do I give it. If something doesn’t work out I don’t beatthem up with it because I see it as a part of the learning process. There will be times thing want work in your, favor but learn from it.

  16. I actually attend the Art Institute of Washington now and most of the professors here just got laid off this wednesday. Its a shame because we pay so much money for an education that we did not realize was false from the beginning. According to staff here, they are laying of professors who teach full time and actually care for the students and replacing them with those who can work part time with no benefits.

    In the graphic design department this is the second time this year that they have done layoffs. Those who are higher up claim that, because of a merger program, to combine the graphic design and the web design program, explains why they had to lay off so many outstanding professor, but we all know that were getting scammed because they want to pay less money while we pay more. This is ridiculous to me. I have three quarters until I graduate and I feel that this school is extremely unstable. Every student here can vouch for this too.

    They make it so hard to graduate. We spend more money, and go ahead try and leave cause your credits are barely transferible. If I where to this all again I would never in my life go to this school and you can take that to the bank.

  17. There were more layoffs on June 27 – supposedly 10% of the central office. Employees were vaguely notified that there MIGHT be personnel cuts on June 25 – not enough time to prepare. No explanations were given as to why some employees were cut, but others who have been doing the same job for fewer years were not.

  18. They have a 12% graduation rate. this is a place to go if you want Student Loan debt, not a Degree or Diploma. The bottom line for these bums is the bottom line in the pockets of the Corporate Executives, nothing more and nothing less. I wasted 5 and a half years of my life at this place. What a joke it was…and is…

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