Career College of Northern Nevada (CCNN) abruptly closed on Friday, replacing its website with a closure notice and literally locking students out of the building.  The company that owns the Sparks, Nevada-based for-profit school also declared bankruptcy on Friday. 

In the website notice, the school directs students to a U.S. Department of Education web page that provides information on students’ rights to have their federal loans cancelled in the event a school closes, plus websites for the Nevada state oversight commission and the school’s private accrediting agency, ACCSC. 

A 2019 school catalogue still posted online says the school is owned by Career Colleges, Inc., “a privately held corporation.” The Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing, in Nevada federal court, identifies the company as Career Colleges, Inc., and is signed by Larry Nathan Clark, identified on the document as the company’s president. 

As is often the case when for-profit schools suddenly shut down, students seem to have been left without adequate information or resources about their options for transfer and student loans. The CCNN website notice says that “Student records have been turned over to the State of Nevada Commission on Postsecondary Education,” but the commission’s website currently says the agency, “has not received transcripts from Career College of Northern Nevada. Requests for transcripts will not be processed until the records are received.” 

The apparent difference of opinion over the location of the transcripts is more troubling, as is the whole situation, when one notes that CCNN president Larry Nathan Clark, who is known as Nate, apparently sits as a member of the Nevada Commission on Postsecondary Education (and was previously the chair of that body).

CCNN offered associate’s degrees and certificates in fields including information technology, HVAC repair, and health care. Federal data shows the school had about 300 students enrolled.  Last year, the cost of attendance was just over $26,000 for students in the school’s largest program, welding. 

Federal data also shows that in the 2021-22 academic year, CCNN took in $3.6 million in taxpayer-funded student aid, out of $5.6 million in overall revenues.

KRNV-TV News4 in Reno spoke with Brian Warne, who was two months from completing a nine-month HVAC program at CCNN. He said he learned of the closure from watching a TV report. He told the station, “I contacted teachers, fellow classmates and they had no idea either. Everybody was left in the dark.” Warne said he had about $1,000 of his own tools in the school, but he couldn’t get inside to retrieve them. 

The TV station said it left multiple voicemails and emails with CCNN president Clark, but he didn’t respond.

A 2005 article in Northern Nevada Business Weekly reports that the school had been owned since 1989 by Clark’s parents. In a 2014 article in the same publication, Clark is quoted as saying, “I own the school. My job is day-to-day management and regulatory affairs and accreditation.” When asked about the main challenges he faced, Clark said, “The U.S. government and state attorneys general across the country are investigating trade schools. There is a reputation in this industry created by some colleges that have sort of ‘predatory’ enrollment practices. I pride myself on the fact that we are the exact opposite of that.”