SAE Institute

The SAE Institute (SAE, formerly the School of Audio Engineering and the SAE Technology College) is a private for-profit college with campuses and facilities, including licensed franchise operations, in 50 cities in 20 countries. It was founded in 1976 in Sydney by Tom Misner. It offers courses in audio engineering, 3D animation, multimedia, graphic design, game design, digital filmmaking, and music production.

History

SAE was established by Tom Misner in 1976 in Sydney, converting a small advertising studio into a classroom. Over the next six years, campuses in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth were established. In the mid-1980s, SAE began opening colleges outside of Australia, including locations in London, Munich, Frankfurt, Vienna, Berlin, Auckland, and Glasgow. In the 1990s, SAE opened a European head office in Amsterdam, and locations were opened in Paris, Hamburg, Zürich, Hobart, Cologne, Stockholm, and Milan. SAE also began expanding into Asia in the 1990s, opening locations in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. In the late 1990s, SAE formed the SAE Entertainment Company and launched full university degree programs with the co-operation of Southern Cross University and Middlesex University. In 1999, SAE began opening facilities in the United States, and over the following decade opened locations in Nashville, Miami, San Francisco, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Chicago. In 2000, SAE began licensing franchise schools in India, opening four that year. In 2000s, locations were opened in Liverpool, Madrid, Brussels, Bangkok, Leipzig, Barcelona, Dubai, Amman, Cape Town, Istanbul, and Serbia. Licence agreements were signed for new schools in Qatar, Bogotá Colombia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The Dubai branch offers degree certification accredited by Middlesex University. In the 2000s SAE also acquired QANTM, an Australian production, media and training company, and relocated its head office to Littlemore Park, Oxford and its headquarters to Byron Bay, Australia.

In 2010, the SAE Institute was sold to Navitas, a publicly traded educational services company. Over the next few years, new locations were opened in Romania, Jakarta, and Moskhato. Navitas began taking over the US campuses in 2011, and laid off over 40 US employees in 2014.

SAE Online

SAE Online, formerly SAE Graduate college, was an unaccredited, distance learning, proprietary