The Art Institute knot

Congressional inquiry is a starting point

A compendium of documents numbering some 74 pages reflects chaos and, perhaps, conspiracy within the entity behind the abrupt shutdown of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in March.

Perhaps nothing reveals the character and nature of Dream Center Education Holdings as an internal email dated June 6, 2018, from an unnamed Dream Center admissions official who resigned after being instructed to mislead students about the status of accreditation at four Art Institute campuses. The memo reads: “Our team was told to

‘ punt’ on any questions we received about that status and to change the conversation to a more favorable topic. ... My heart breaks for the students who have trusted us so completely.”

The stealthy shuttering of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh locked out students and broke rules set by accreditation agencies that outline the right way to properly close a school.

The situation has caught the attention of Congress. House Democrats are saying the U. S. Education Department may have worked behind the scenes to shield Dream Center from responsibility. Dream Center is a California nonprofit that took control of the Art Institute college chain from Pittsburgh- based Education Management Corp. in 2017.

Rep. Bobby Scott, D- Va., chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, contends Dream Center executives knowingly deceived students about the loss of accreditation at four Art Institute campuses last year and that the U. S. Education Department knew about it and passed a rule to help Dream Center restore that accreditation. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos strongly denies the accusations and has presented documents that demonstrate that discussions were held in 2008 about allowing retroactive accreditation.

Dream Center officials have blamed EDMC for misrepresenting the financial losses of the schools, but confusion and mismanagement at Dream Center helped to fell the organization.

The greatest failure was lack of transparency, which begs an answer as to whether a criminal conspiracy to misrepresent and defraud was in play. In June 2018, the PostG-azette reported that Art Institute campuses in Michigan, Illinois and Colorado had lost accreditation five months earlier, though Dream Center had continued to market the schools as accredited. Meantime, unwitting students completed two terms of courses that were unaccredited. Money and time down the drain.

The situation is a knotted mess that demands congressional inquiry at the least and perhaps the forensic capability of federal law enforcement.