Pittsburgh Career Institute juggles refunds, transfers, job losses as closure approaches

The president of a Pittsburgh for-profit career school that is headed for closure says its leaders sought a new accreditor and even considered selling the school but ultimately decided it had to close.

Patti Yakshe said that her health care training school, Pittsburgh Career Institute, itself faced no sanctions from regulators. But the institute was forbidden by the U.S. Department of Education from admitting new students until a replacement was secured for its institutional accreditor, the Accrediting Council of Independent Colleges and Schools.

The department on Aug. 19 revoked that body’s recognition as an institutional accreditor and gave schools it accredits 18 months to find a replacement.

Even if a new accreditor was in place by the first quarter of next year, something Yakshe said was a possibility, the school could not absorb the financial hit.

“I can’t pay the bills if I don’t have students coming in the doors,” she said.

She did not specify the amount of money being lost and did not identify any potential buyers.

“I feel bad for my students. They have every right to be upset,” she said. “I feel bad for the staff. They are all good people.”

One hundred and eighty students enrolled at the Downtown Pittsburgh school are affected by the announcement, according to Jacklin Rhoads, communications director for state Attorney General and governor-elect Josh Shapiro.

Thirty school staff will lose their jobs, Yakshe said. Her school announced the closure in a letter posted to its website last Thursday and what it was doing to help students finish studies, seek transcripts and transfer to other institutions.

The last day of formal classes is Nov. 23. The school is set to officially close Dec. 31 and hopes to graduate 40 students by then.

News of the closure last Thursday stunned students, some of whom began the day expecting to take tests or receive instruction but soon found their school would be moving toward a teach-out and closure within weeks.

It’s not clear nearly a week later what students’ prospects are for refunds, how much student debt collectively is owed and what would happen if certain credits are not accepted at other schools.

According to its website, PCI offers 2-year degrees and other credentials and lists six programs: dental assistant; diagnostic medical sonography; medical assistant; respiratory therapy; surgical technology, and veterinarian technology.

The institute on Seventh Avenue Downtown charges full-time tuition and fees of $15,866 a year in 2021-22, not counting $11,557 for off-campus room and board plus other expenses, down from $20,458 in tuition and academic fees in 2019-20, according to the most current data form the U.S. Education Department. Women accounted for 95% of enrollment last year.

Kristin Edwards, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Education, said staff there were working to address many of the questions facing the institute’s students.

She shared a link to a web page on her department’s site that referenced the closure and outlined loan forgiveess, refunds and how to file claims and secure assistance.

Yakshe said 10 for-profit and not-for profit schools are working with the institute to facilitate transfers, among them the Community College of Allegheny County, Westmoreland County Community College, Bidwell Training Center and Tennessee-based South College, which has a campus in Cranberry.

Yakshe said students who opt not to transfer or are unable to can apply for loan forgiveness under the federal “Closed School Discharge.”

The school’s refund policy does not mention the school’s impending closure.

In the letter posted to the institute’s website last Thursday, Yakshe said, “While the last day of instruction is scheduled for Wednesday, November 23, 2022, PCI will retain representatives on campus until December 31, 2022, to work with students completing externship and clinical programs and to assist other students with transfers and transcript requests.”

After a several years process that included appeals and litigation, the U.S. Education Department during the summer backed an earlier recommendation to remove AICS recognition for “among other things, that ACICS failed to demonstrate it could effectively evaluate, monitor, and enforce quality standards for schools,” the department said in a release.

ACICS currently accredits 27 schools that enroll nearly 5,000 students. When the department ceased recognition for a time starting in 2016, ACICS accredited 237 schools that enrolled 361,000 students, according to officials. Schools that are not accredited face loss of eligibility to deliver student aid.

Michelle Edwards, president and chief executive officer of Washington, D.C.-based ACICS, could not immediately be reached for comment.

On its website, the council said as of early September it intended to move toward orderly dissolution of the corporation and added: “Furthermore, while we maintain that ACICS has been in substantial compliance with any objective, consistent, and reasonable interpretation of the recognition criteria, the organization will not appeal the August 19 decision.”

The U.S. Education Department said it was allowing an “18-month period for schools currently accredited by ACICS to find another accreditor to continue offering federal student grants, loans, or work-study funds,” according to the agency’s release. In the meantime, those schools were provisionally certified.