Brown Mackie College


Brown Mackie College was a system of for-profit colleges located in the United States. The colleges offered bachelor's degrees, associate degrees, and certificates in programs including early childhood education, information technology, health sciences, and legal studies. Brown Mackie's schools were most recently owned by Education Management Corporation.
In 2016, 22 of 26 campuses started closing as Brown Mackie's parent company faced major legal and financial problems related to consumer fraud.
Several Brown Mackie colleges were nationally accredited by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, which subsequently lost its accreditation power.
On June 11, 2016, it was announced that 22 of 26 Brown Mackie campuses were closing. The Akron campus was closed in September 2006. The remaining campuses were sold in 2017.

History

The original Brown Mackie College was founded in 1892 in Salina, Kansas, as the Kansas Wesleyan School of Business. In 1938, two of its former instructors, Perry E. Brown and A.B. Mackie, incorporated the school as The Brown Mackie School of Business. The school was licensed by the Kansas Board of Regents to grant associate degrees in 1986.
Between the 1930s and 1990s the school in Salina, and other schools that would later carry the Brown Mackie name, were managed by several different organizations before being purchased by American Education Centers in 1993. In 2003, Education Management Corporation acquired eighteen schools from AEC, including the original Brown Mackie College. The following year, EDMC rebranded all of the AEC schools under the Brown Mackie name. Throughout the mid-to-late 2000s, EDMC expanded the Brown Mackie system through the construction of new Brown Mackie colleges.
In 2011, investigations into the recruiting practices of the school were launched by the Attorneys General of Kentucky and Indiana.
Beginning in the spring of 2012, Brown Mackie began a pilot program to test the use of iPads and e-textbooks in place of traditional textbooks. Later the program was expanded to all 28 schools in the system. In preparation for the transition, Brown Mackie partnered with Apple Inc. to train faculty members help students with the iPads. By February 2013, 13,000 Brown Mackie students were participating in the program.
In 2014, Brown Mackie College teamed up with the Smart Horizons and Cengage to recruit low-income high school dropouts for high school completion. The program would be offered at Brown Mackie schools in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Miami, Phoenix, St. Louis, North Canton, and Louisville.

Closings, and sale

In June 2016, parent company Education Management Corporation announced plans to close 22 of 26 Brown Mackie campuses. The last three campuses were sold to Ross Medical Education Center in 2017.

Schools and programs

Brown Mackie colleges offered degrees at the bachelor's and associate level as well as academic certificates. Areas of study at the schools included early childhood education, information technology, health sciences, and legal studies.
In May 2013, Education Management Corporation reported that it owned 28 Brown Mackie College campuses with a total enrollment of 17,000 students. More recent numbers are unavailable. According to Brown Mackie's website the system has "over 25 schools."

Campuses


The official mascot for the Brown Mackie College-Salina teams was the Lions. The Lions participated in three sports: baseball, basketball, and softball. The Lions were part of the NJCAA and were an affiliate member of the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference.
The Kansas City campus briefly fielded athletic programs under the nickname "Cougars."

Lawsuits, investigations, and settlements

In 2015, EDMC, Brown-Mackie's parent company, agreed to forgive more than $100.8 million in student loan debt held by more than 80,000 former students.
In 2016, eleven former Brown Mackie nursing students in Tucson, Arizona, sued the school for consumer fraud. The plaintiffs alleged that the poor training they received left them unable to be gainfully employed. The plaintiffs expected to graduate in 2015 until a state nursing board investigation found some of the school's faculty were unqualified and were using veterinary supplies to teach students how to care for human patients. The Arizona nursing board barred the Brown Mackie students from taking the practical nurses licensing exam and ordered the school to retrain the students at the company's expense.

Loan Forgiveness

Thousands of former Brown Mackie College students will receive loan forgiveness as part of a legal settlement with the US government. Part of the settlement forgives more than $100 million in student loans to students who left Brown Mackie within 45 days of their first term between 2006 and 2014. Each qualifying former student and each of the credit reporting agencies were to be notified of the settlement, and the settlement will be paid through 2022.