Lincoln Tech

Lincoln Tech is an American group of for-profit postsecondary vocational institutions headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey.^[1] Each campus is owned and operated by Lincoln Educational Services Corporation (Nasdaq: LINC), a provider of career-oriented post-secondary education.

Lincoln Tech

Type	For-profit
Established	1946
President	Scott M. Shaw
Non-Executive Chairman	J. Barry Morrow
Location	Parsippany , New Jersey , United States
Website	lincolntech.edu

History

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.^{[citation needed]}

Lincoln Educational Services Corporation made its initial public stock offering in 2005, trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol LINC.^[2]

In 2014, The New York Times reported that 50% of all Lincoln schools failed proposed gainful employment regulations.^[3] Sixty of Lincoln Tech's programs had passing rates, thirteen had "zone" rates, and five programs failed.^[3]

Lawsuits and investigations

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.^[4]

In 2013, USA Today, based on data from 2009 to 2010, called one of the company's 31 campuses a "Red Flag school", one which has "a higher loan default rate than graduation rate."^[5]

In October 2014, Massachusetts state attorney general Martha Coakley announced an investigation into Lincoln's for-profit schools in the state of Massachusetts.^[6]

In 2015, Lincoln Educational Services agreed to repay approximately $1 million to graduates of its criminal justice program in Somerville and Lowell, Massachusetts. The Massachusetts' Attorney General found that students were unable to find work in their fields of study, and the company included unrelated jobs in its placement data. According to the Boston Globe, "The school also allegedly told recruiters to 'establish unhappiness, create urgency,' and 'bring out the pain' to pressure prospective students to attend the school instead of military or community college. The for-profit school instructed recruiters to contact students at least seven times within the first three days to convince them to enroll."^[7]

In 2022, Lincoln Educational Services was one of 153 institutions included in student loan cancellation due to alleged fraud. The class action was brought by a group of more than 200,000 student borrowers, assisted by the Project on Predatory Student Lending, part of the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School. A settlement was approved in August 2022, stating that the schools on the list were included "substantial misconduct by the listed schools, whether credibly alleged or in some instances proven."^[8][9] Lincoln Educational Services challenged the settlement. The Supreme Court rejected the challenge in April 2023.^[10]