Heritage College, a for-profit school with Kansas City location, abruptly closes down

Heritage College, a for-profit college offering programs in various medical fields, announced late Tuesday that it shut down its 10 campuses, including its location in south Kansas City.

The school said it ran out of cash.

“The reason for the campus closures is that Heritage does not have the cash to continue to run its business,” Heritage wrote in a posting on its web page. “Numerous factors contributed to the circumstances including declining student population and a continued, decreased demand for the services of for-profit schools.”

Heritage College was run by Weston Educational Inc., a Denver company. Keypath Education Inc., an advertising firm in Lenexa that serves the for-profit education industry, sued Weston Educational on Oct. 19, saying the college operator had not paid $444,330 in invoices. The filing said that Heritage College’s business operations told Keypath’s attorney in a Sept. 21 email that the company had cash flow issues and could not pay the invoices at that time.

The college did not respond to questions about how many students were enrolled at the Kansas City location. Heritage’s Kansas City location was accredited by the Accrediting Bureau of Health Education Schools.

Heritage College is the latest for-profit college to close down. ITT Technical Institute closed its campuses, including those in Kansas City and Overland Park, in September. ITT’s decision to close came after the U.S. Department of Education banned the enrollment of students who relied on federal financial aid.

The for-profit education business, generally, has come under scrutiny by regulators and education professionals who say the industry is rife with deception and fraud and leaves students with too much debt and too little in the way of career opportunities with the degrees they receive.

Heritage College said it did not shut down because of wrongdoing.

The college faces a False Claims Act lawsuit in federal court by two former employees at its Kansas City campus who accused the college of changing student grades and falsifying enrollment numbers. A judge dismissed the case in favor of Heritage College in 2015, but the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision.

Heritage College did not respond to a question about whether that lawsuit factored into its decision to close.

This story was originally published November 2, 2016 at 5:26 PM with the headline "Heritage College, a for-profit school with Kansas City location, abruptly closes down."