South University-Montgomery

South University was founded in Savannah, Georgia , in 1899 as Draughan's Practical Business College. [ 3 ] The private school taught accounting, banking, typewriting, bookkeeping, and shorthand. The South family acquired the institution in 1974 and changed its name to Draughan's Junior College. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] In 1986, that name was changed to South College. In 2001, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accredited South College at the master's level and the school was renamed South University. [ 4 ] This name change resulted in a 2002 legal dispute with Sewanee: The University of the South , which had registered the name "The University of the South" with the U.S. Patent Office . [ 6 ] The issue was resolved in 2003, with both schools retaining their names. [ 7 ] In 2003, Education Management Corporation (EDMC) acquired South University. The following year, the university expanded from its main campus in Savannah, Georgia, to eleven other locations in the United States and began offering online courses. By 2013, 52 percent of South University students were enrolled entirely online. [ 8 ] Period of multiple ownerships (2010s) In 2015, EDMC, South University's former parent company, was found to have violated the False Claims Act on multiple occasions through its student recruitment practices and marketing strategies. As part of the settlement, the university was ordered by the federal court to forgive more than $100.8 million in student loan debt held by more than 80,000 former students. [ 9 ] U.S. Attorney David J. Hickton of the Western District of Pennsylvania stated that "[c]ompanies cannot enrich their corporate coffers at the expense of students seeking a quality education, or on the backs of taxpayers who are funding our critical financial aid programs ...

Today's global settlement sends an unmistakable message to all for-profit education companies: the United States will aggressively ferret out fraud and protect innocent students and taxpayer dollars from this kind of egregious abuse." [ 10 ] In December 2016, South University was placed on probation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) due to financial concerns regarding its parent company at the time, EDMC. [ 11 ] [ 12 ] South University was removed from probation in December 2017 after the sale to Dream Center Education Holdings and SACS approved the university's conversion to not-for-profit status (although the U.S. Department of Education classifies the institution as for-profit. [ 13 ] ). [ 14 ] South University's Savannah campus South University's Savannah campus (which includes its online students) celebrated its largest graduating class in the institution's history in June 2017, when more than 3,500 students received degrees. [ 15 ] On October 17, 2017, the university's former parent company, Education Management Corporation , reported that it had sold its schools to the Los Angeles-based Dream Center Foundation , a non-profit organization. [ 16 ] [ 17 ] [ 18 ] [ 19 ] In 2019, South University fired a large majority of its workforce including the online support staff located in Chandler, Arizona , closing the site. South University was expected to be transferred to Education Principle Foundation. [ 20 ] [ 21 ] In the meantime, all South campuses were operated independently. [ 22 ] The court-appointed receiver Studio Enterprise, giving the university until April 11, 2019, to negotiate to separate South and remaining Art Institute schools from the Dream Center Education IT Platform by September 11, 2019.

Writing for the Republic Report , David Halperin opined that "should they fail to agree, the plan of reorganization will likely fail, thereby dooming South University and the Art Institutes." [ 23 ] The court-appointed receiver has also reported that "there is a 'scattered matching of revenues and expenses' among all the former EDMC schools, making it difficult to determine the true financial picture at the schools in receivership and those controlled by Education Principle Foundation." [ 24 ]

South University Austin, Round Rock, Texas (300 students) South University Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia South University Columbia, Columbia, South Carolina (510 students) South University High Point, High Point, North Carolina South University Montgomery, Montgomery, Alabama (361 students) South University Orlando, Orlando, Florida South University Online, Savannah, Georgia (7,707 students) South University Richmond, Glen Allen, Virginia (442 students) South University Savannah, Savannah Georgia (787 students) South University Tampa, Tampa, Florida (712 students) South University Virginia Beach, Virginia Beach, Virginia (240 students) South University West Palm Beach, Royal Palm Beach, Florida (528 students)