The “Virginia College grows as more seek job skills - Everything Alabama Blog”

Virginia College grows as more seek job skills - Everything Alabama Blog

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 06:28 AM PST

Published: Tuesday, December 07, 2010, 8:30 AM

Birmingham-based Education Corp. of America is in a growth mode, opening new locations of Virginia College in response to demand as more folks seek to boost their job skills amid the downturn.

Virginia College, whose Palisades campus has 2,600 students and includes the Culinard Institute and a cosmetology school, opened a new campus in Macon this year and in January will begin classes at campuses in Richmond and Spartanburg, S.C.

Pending regulatory approval, a Virginia College campus should begin accepting students in Savannah, Ga., in April.

As the nation tries to emerge from the worst recession since the 1980s, ECA chief executive Tom Moore says the company sees opportunity for growth. The company employs 3,000 people in its 12-state territory, including 770 in metro Birmingham.

The company has added 1,000 workers over the past year and invested $25 million in new campuses and programs as its enrollment has reached a record 20,000 students. To meet its growing demand, ECA relocated its corporate headquarters two years ago into the former HealthSouth headquarters building on Grandview Parkway just off U.S. 280, where it leases 50,000 square feet and employs 150 people.

"We are more visible locally as Virginia College and Culinard, but ECA is an educational company with national reach -- a major player in the field," Moore said. "Our mission is to provide transformation through education."

ECA's newest venture is Ecotech Institute, which is in its second quarter of instruction on a campus location in Denver. Ecotech is preparing graduates for careers in the new clean tech economy and came about in response to the booming green economy, and the need for well-trained people, Moore said.

"The more we talked with employers, the more convinced we were that we could help meet that need by starting a new school in Denver," he said. "We expect to have over a thousand students enrolled next year and will move into state-of-the-art labs and classrooms -- really a working model of clean-energy technology -- in a few weeks."

Still, for-profit career colleges have been operating under a cloud.

Birmingham-Southern College business professor Stephen Craft, who starts Jan. 1 as the new business dean at the University of Montevallo, said Monday he has concerns about the accreditation system at for-profit career colleges compared to traditional institutions such as Montevallo, the University of Alabama and Auburn University.

"My concern is the quality of education you receive in for-profit career colleges isn't as great as you get in traditional colleges," Craft said. "I'm interested in seeing what comes out of the ongoing federal government investigation into for-profit colleges because there are some legitimate concerns."

The U.S. Education Department this summer proposed rules to tighten regulation of for-profit colleges, which last year received more than $24 billion in federal loans and grants. The Government Accountability Office in August presented the findings to a U.S. Senate committee of a three-month investigation in which federal officials posed as prospective students and applied for admission to 15 for-profit colleges in Arizona, California, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.

The inquiry found four cases in which campus officials encouraged applicants to commit fraud and examples at every school of officials lying about or misrepresenting their programs. No school in Alabama was named in the probe.

Moore said ECA's institutions are accredited and pledge to meet the needs of the businesses they serve.

"Yes we are a for-profit business, but unless we deliver a valuable education to our students and provide well-trained and motivated employees for the companies that hire them, we don't make a profit nor do we stay in business," he said. "Our schools do not compete with community colleges or traditional universities. They continue to serve a vital role. We offer an alternative."

Join the conversation by clicking to comment or e-mail Williams at rwilliams@bhamnews.com.

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