For-Profit Art School Company Sued for High Pressure Sales Tactics

The New York Times reports on a whistle-blower case involving a for-profit education company that is substantially owned by Goldman Sachs. The company’s chairman and former CEO is Maine Senator Olympia Snowe’s husband and the company owns a number of art schools.

The Department of Justice and four states on Monday filed a multibillion-dollar fraud suit against the Education Management Corporation, the nation’s second-largest for-profit college company, charging that it was not eligible for the $11 billion in state and federal financial aid it had received from July 2003 through June 2011. […]

Education Management, which is based in Pittsburgh and is 41 percent owned by Goldman Sachs, enrolls about 150,000 students in 105 schools operating under four names: Art Institute, Argosy University, Brown Mackie College and South University.

For-Profit College Group Sued as US Lays Out Wide Fraud (NY Times)