Thursday, February 13, 2025, 8:56PM |  33°
MENU
Advertisement
A person looks out from a classroom window in Jan. 2019 at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in the Strip District.
3
MORE

House Democrats subpoena Education Dept. officials in probe of Art Institutes' collapse

Steph Chambers/Post-Gazette

House Democrats subpoena Education Dept. officials in probe of Art Institutes' collapse

WASHINGTON — House Democrats filed subpoenas on Thursday to compel three staffers at the U.S. Department of Education to testify before Congress as part of an investigation into the agency’s role in the collapse of the Art Institutes, the Pittsburgh-based college chain that folded last year.

The demand for witness testimony comes almost three months after the House Education and Labor Committee published a report that accused the Trump administration of failing to protect Art Institute students.

The committee’s report, published after a year-long investigation that reviewed nearly 1,600 pages of supporting documents, has argued the school’s owners knowingly deceived students about a loss of accreditation.

Advertisement

The committee has alleged the department knew about the accreditation issues and attempted to help the schools cover it up by, among other things, passing a rule allowing schools to retroactively accredit their courses.

The empty lobby, with student work still displayed on the walls, at the soon-to-close Art Institute of Michigan in Novi, Mich., on July 27. The school opened in 2008 and has taught hundreds of students from suburban Detroit in the fields of creative studies, including animation, graphic design, culinary arts, fashion and photography.
Daniel Moore
Art Institutes decline: At proud Michigan trade school, a sense of confusion and betrayal

The department has strongly denied those accusations, saying its rule allowing retroactive accreditation has no connection to the accreditation issues at the Art institutes.

Yet the committee has argued the department has failed to provide information it has requested, relying thus far on leaked documents from a source it has not identified. 

The committee’s chair, Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., wrote Thursday in a letter accompanying the subpoenas that the department had effectively stalled the investigation by ignoring requests for information, dumping unrelated documents and blackening useful documents with unexplained redactions.

Advertisement

The committee provided a correspondence log showing 109 times the committee and department had traded communications since the investigation started on July 16, 2019 — to no avail, Mr. Scott wrote.

“Due to the department’s obstruction, the committee’s only available avenue to obtain an accurate understanding of the department’s role in the Dream Center collapse is to pursue depositions of the knowledgeable Department officials under subpoena,” Mr. Scott wrote.

The subpoenas, reviewed by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, show the officials were requested to appear before the committee during separate hearings on Nov. 6, Nov. 10 and Nov. 16.

The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Academic support faculty member Dave Majocha of Greensburg carries his belongings, Thursday, Jan. 31, 2019, after his position was terminated at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, in the Strip District.
Daniel Moore
Art Institute of Pittsburgh to close in March, affecting more than 2,100 students

On Friday, Angela L. Morabito, the department’s press secretary, said in an emailed statement that the subpoenas were “wholly unreasonable” because the committee had refused to review all the documents first. She wrote the department had cooperated and offered the committee the chance to review relevant documents.

“Instead of conducting business in a lawful, rational, and responsible way, the unhinged Democrats have resorted to badgering career civil servants to carry on what is nothing more than a witch hunt,” Ms. Morabito wrote.

The finger-pointing in Washington comes after the sudden and dramatic closure of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and several other campuses long owned by Pittsburgh-based Education Management Corp. 

The for-profit education company sold those schools in 2017 to Dream Center Education Holdings, a nonprofit affiliated with a Pentecostal church that had no experience in higher education. The $60 million deal involved dozens of colleges that enrolled roughly 60,000 students and employed about 15,000 faculty and staff.

The new owners promised the nonprofit status would breathe new life into beleaguered schools that had seen precipitous drops in enrollment.

But the complicated nature of the deal — and Dream Center’s ties to for-profit schools — also drew questions from the country’s six regional accreditation agencies. Accreditation, higher education's way of enforcing quality-control measures, reviews finances, academics, policies and other measures to ensure schools are meeting minimum standards.

Dream Center shuttered about half the schools it bought, then the rest were transferred to federal receivership. 

The Art Institute of Pittsburgh closed abruptly on March 8, 2019, shocking many of its graduates.

The closures displaced of thousands of students across the country and caused student loan defaults that could cost taxpayers up to $1 billion, Mr. Scott’s committee has estimated. 

Daniel Moore: dmoore@post-gazette.com, Twitter @PGdanielmoore

Story updated at 8:55 a.m. on Oct. 23, 2020.

First Published: October 22, 2020, 8:18 p.m.

RELATED
In a 2017 file photo, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos speaks during a dinner hosted by the Washington Policy Center in Bellevue, Wash. Effective this week, Ms. DeVos has repealed the gainful employment rule, a signature Obama-era effort to rein in unscrupulous for-profit colleges. Pittsburgh-based Education Management Corp., now in bankruptcy, blamed the rule for its problems.
Daniel Moore
After lobbying by for-profit colleges, Trump administration scraps rule on 'gainful employment'
The U.S. Department of Education offices in Washington, D.C. House Democrats are questioning department officials about their role in the collapse of Dream Center Education Holdings, which purchased the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and dozens of other schools from Pittsburgh-based EDMC in 2017.
Daniel Moore
Congress investigates Education Department in wake of abrupt Art Institute closures
Sheldon Crossland, 21, carries books out of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in the city's Strip District on Monday, March 11, 2019. Crossland, of Hagerstown, Md., said he took six classes and worked an internship in his last semester at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and graduated with a degree in Photography in December 2018.
Daniel Moore
The Art Institute blame game: House Democrats, Education Department spar over schools' collapse, accreditation woes
SHOW COMMENTS (2)  
Join the Conversation
Commenting policy | How to Report Abuse
If you would like your comment to be considered for a published letter to the editor, please send it to letters@post-gazette.com. Letters must be under 250 words and may be edited for length and clarity.
Partners
Advertisement
A cutout batter sits in the bullpen at Pirate City, the spring training facility of the Pittsburgh Pirates, during a spring training baseball workout in Bradenton, Fla., Sunday, Feb. 22, 2015.
1
sports
Joe Starkey: Bad news Pirates outdid themselves on Day 1
The administration of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro -- shown last week delivering the annual budget address -- on Thursday filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration over the freeze of federal funding. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
2
news
Gov. Shapiro and Pa. agencies sue federal government over Trump administration funding freeze
Hockey legend Mario Lemieux hands Canada forward Sidney Crosby a commemorative banner prior to the first period of 4 Nations Face-Off hockey action against Sweden in Montreal, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025.
3
sports
Jason Mackey: Fenway Sports Group's tepid relationship with Mario Lemieux must improve
A customer picks up a dozen eggs to buy  in a Giant grocery store in McLean, Va. on Jan. 28, 2025.
4
news
These grocery stores around Pittsburgh have put purchase limits on eggs
Salem’s Market beat out three other finalists in 2021 for the right to operate the Hill District store.
5
business
Hill District Salem's Market halting operations one year after opening
A person looks out from a classroom window in Jan. 2019 at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in the Strip District.  (Steph Chambers/Post-Gazette)
Taylor Lank, a graphic design student, leaves The Art Institute of Pittsburgh in the Strip District in 2019.  (Steph Chambers/Post-Gazette)
The U.S. Department of Education offices in Washington, D.C. House Democrats are questioning department officials about their role in the collapse of Dream Center Education Holdings, which purchased the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and dozens of other schools from Pittsburgh-based Education Management Corp. in 2017.  (Daniel Moore / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Steph Chambers/Post-Gazette
Advertisement
LATEST news
Advertisement
TOP
Email a Story