Lindenwood University acquires Michigan-based for-profit vocational college

Dive Transient:
- Lindenwood College, a nonprofit in Missouri, Thursday finalized its acquisition of Dorsey Faculty, an 89-year-old for-profit technical establishment primarily based in Michigan. Neither establishment has publicly shared the acquisition value.
- Lindenwood’s buy permits it to develop into the profession schooling sector and create the next schooling system that may assist a extra numerous set of scholars, based on an FAQ on the university’s website. The acquisition may even diversify Lindenwood’s income streams, the personal college mentioned.
- The establishments will proceed to function individually, protecting their respective names and workers. Dorsey’s chief, John Barnes, will keep on as president and CEO and can report back to John Porter, president of the Lindenwood Training System. Porter may even proceed to function Lindenwood’s president.
Dive Perception:
Lindenwood’s board of trustees accepted a structural change to the Lindenwood College nonprofit company in late 2022 to permit for the acquisition of establishments that could not simply be built-in in a single establishment. The company modified its title to the Lindenwood Training System earlier this 12 months.
“That is our first step within the plan to construct a community of faculties that may present life-long schooling resulting in profession development,” Porter mentioned in a campus e mail asserting the finished buy.
It’s anticipated Dorsey will pursue recognition by the U.S. Division of Training as a non-profit larger ed establishment throughout the coming months, based on Lindenwood.
Lindenwood turned taken with buying a technical faculty when it heard from native faculty superintendents that they had been sending virtually half of their college students to profession and vocational coaching after commencement, based on the FAQ.
Dorsey was interesting to the college as a result of it has grown throughout a time when a lot of its Midwest opponents both left the world or closed. In 2021, Dorsey Colleges turned Dorsey Faculty when it started providing affiliate diploma applications. The establishments are at the moment exploring enrollment pathways for Dorsey graduates who is perhaps taken with a Lindenwood program.
Dorsey additionally has a monitor document of stability, sturdy branding and scholar success, based on Lindenwood.
These components appear to hold in opposition to many notable for-profit establishments which have confronted accusations of poor scholar outcomes and misleading gross sales pitches.
An identical deal, if greater in scale — the College of Arkansas system’s potential acquisition of the College of Phoenix — has been met with pushback from Arkansas school over considerations the for-profit would diminish its model. In 2019, the College of Phoenix agreed to pay $191 million, most of it in canceled scholar debt, to settle Federal Commerce Fee allegations its ads misrepresented its relationships with main employers.