The Lincoln Group of Schools is a group of for-profit tertiary level vocational institutions consisting of 31 campuses and 5 training sites in 15 states in the United States. Each campus is owned and operated by Lincoln Educational Services Corporation (NASDAQ: LINC), a provider of career-oriented post-secondary education. Lincoln Educational Services operates through the following brands: Lincoln Technical Institute, Lincoln College of Technology, Euphoria Institute of Beauty Arts and Sciences, Lincoln Culinary Institute, Lincoln College of New England, and Florida Medical Training Institute. All Lincoln campuses offer open enrollment.
Lincoln stock has lost almost 90% of its value since 2010 and several campuses have been closed.
In 2014, The New York Times reported that 50% of Lincoln's programs fail the gainful employment test. This means that a significant number of former students cannot repay their student loans.
In late 2014, Lincoln Education's Chief Financial Officer, Cesar Ribeiro, resigned and LINC refinanced their loan with Bank of America.
The founder and first President of Lincoln was J. Warren Davies. The first Lincoln Technical Institute was established in 1946 in Newark, New Jersey, to serve World War II veterans returning from overseas. At Lincoln, these veterans found training programs to help them learn career-specific skills, and transition into civilian careers in installation and servicing of air conditioning and refrigeration equipment. Automotive courses were added in 1948. Lincoln established traveling schools to offer NAPA-certified training, which certified over 11,000 mechanics between 1955 and 1965.
In 1969, Ryder acquired Lincoln Technical Institute and two other technical schools with campuses in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. By 1977, Lincoln Technical Institute had ten campuses in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington, DC. Lincoln Technical Institute acquired court reporting school The Cittone Institute and its three campuses in 1994, leading the group to have 14 campuses by the school's 50th anniversary in 1996.
Stonington Partners and Hart Capital purchased Lincoln Technical Institute in 2000. The school continued expanding, acquiring Denver Automotive and Diesel College and Computer-Ed Business Institutes in 2001, Lincoln College of Technology in Nashville (previously the Nashville Auto-Diesel College) in 2003, and the Southwestern College of Business and New England Technical Institute in 2004.
Lincoln Educational Services Corporation made its initial public stock offering in 2005, trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol LINC. California Regent Richard C. Blum (Dianne Feinstein's husband) was a key investor, with $24,000,000 in stock.
Also in 2005, the group acquired the Euphoria Institute of Beauty Arts and Sciences. Further acquisitions include the Harrison Career Institute in 2007, Briarwood College in December 2008 and the Baran Institute of Technology schools (Baran Institute of Technology, Connecticut Culinary Institute, Americare School of Nursing, Engine City Technical Institute, and Clemens College) in 2009. Lincoln completed the purchase of Florida Medical Training Institute in 2012.
Lincoln Educational Services faced an investor lawsuit on behalf of those who purchased company stock between March 3, 2010, and August 5, 2010. The plaintiffs alleged that Lincoln Educational Services issued a series of materially false and misleading statements related to its business and operations in violation of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The case was dismissed by the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey in September 2011. In October 2014, Massachusetts state attorney general Martha Coakley announced an investigation into Lincoln's for-profit schools in the state of Massachusetts.
According to a U.S. Senate investigation, the three-year student loan default rate from 2006 to 2009 for students attending Lincoln Group schools was approximately 27 percent. A United States Department of Education 2013 update on the default rate found a 45 percent graduation rate at Lincoln Technical Institute in Pennsylvania, and a 49.1 percent default rate. called it a "Red Flag school", one which has "a higher loan default rate than graduation rate."
The company announced the closing of five campuses in 2013 after new federal regulations prevented students without high school diplomas from receiving federal tuition assistance. The closures included campuses in Dayton, Ohio; Toledo, Ohio; Cleveland, Ohio; Florence, Kentucky; and two in Cincinnati, Ohio. A sixth campus closed in Hamden, Connecticut, in April 2014, and a seventh at the Melbourne, Florida, campus of Florida Medical Training Institute closed in December 2014.
Lincoln Educational Services operates under 5 school names: Lincoln Technical Institute, Lincoln College of Technology, Lincoln College of New England, Lincoln Culinary Institute, and Euphoria Institute of Beauty Arts and Sciences .