Bryant & Stratton College (BSC) is a

private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...

for-profit college Proprietary colleges are for-profit colleges and universities. They are operated by their owners or investors, rather than a not-for-profit institution, religious organization, or government. Because they are not funded by tax money, their lon ...

with campuses in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

, and

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, as well as an online campus. Founded in 1854, the college offers

associate degree An associate degree is an undergraduate degree awarded after a course of post-secondary study lasting two to three years. It is a level of qualification above a high school diploma, GED, or matriculation, and below a bachelor's degree. Th ...

programs at all campuses and

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to si ...

programs at some campuses. The college is approved by the

New York State Board of Regents The Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York is responsible for the general supervision of all educational activities within New York State, presiding over University of the State of New York and the New York State Education Depa ...

and accredited by the

Middle States Commission on Higher Education The Middle States Commission on Higher Education (abbreviated as MSCHE and legally incorporated as the Mid-Atlantic Region Commission on Higher Education) is a voluntary, peer-based, non-profit membership organization that performs peer evalua ...

.Bryant & Stratton College - Accreditation
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History

John Collins Bryant, Henry Beadman Bryant, and Henry Dwight Stratton were early graduates of Folsom Business College in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S ...

, which they later purchased from Ezekiel G. Folsom, who founded his school in 1848. Folsom was a former student of

Platt Rogers Spencer Platt Rogers Spencer (also Platt R. Spencer) (November 7, 1800 – May 16, 1864) was the originator of Spencerian penmanship, a popular system of cursive handwriting. He was a teacher and active in the business school movement. Early life Spenc ...

who developed a standardized style of writing useful in business transactions before the invention of the typewriter. Platt Spencer played a role in the formation of Bryant & Stratton College serving as a partner and teacher at the school which originally focused on bookkeeping and standardized penmanship. Bryant & Stratton College was organized in 1854 to provide practical workplace education, and was formerly known as Bryant and Stratton Business Institute. A year later they developed programs for women. The college became well known in the middle of the 19th century under Platt's influence. In addition to the Cleveland school, Bryant and Stratton established business schools that operated under the name of Bryant & Stratton & Co. International Commercial Colleges in most major US cities. By 1864 as many as 40 to 50 schools existed. Tuition was $40 for an entire program of study. The chain was not without controversy about its marketing and business practices, and it declined in size after the death of Stratton. In 2008, the

private equity In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a t ...

firm Parthenon Capital Partners bought a significant stake in the school. In 2009, Bryant & Stratton was the first college to host an online

graduation Graduation is the awarding of a diploma to a student by an educational institution. It may also refer to the ceremony that is associated with it. The date of the graduation ceremony is often called graduation day. The graduation ceremony is a ...

ceremony on

Second Life ''Second Life'' is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Fr ...

. In 2017, Bryant & Stratton Limited Partnership (family) acquired Parthenon Capital Partners' stake in the schools. In 2018, Bryant and Stratton opened a school in

Racine, Wisconsin Racine ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Racine County, Wisconsin, United States. It is located on the shore of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Root River. Racine is situated 22 miles (35 km) south of Milwaukee and approximately 60 ...

, closed its downtown Milwaukee campus, and moved its Cleveland campus to

Solon, Ohio Solon ( ) is a city in southeastern Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. A suburb of Cleveland, it is part of the Cleveland metropolitan area. According to the 2020 census, the population of Solon was 24,262. The city has been recognized by ''M ...

. In December 2020, Bryant & Stratton College announced that they would be donating the school to their non-profit family foundation. Two years later, the college began changing its status to a nonprofit college although the U.S. Department of Education still classifies it as for-profit.

Organization

Today, there are 19 physical locations and an

online education Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually i ...

division. The board chair of the school is Bryant Prentice III, great-great grandson of John Collins Bryant. The current president of Bryant & Stratton is Francis J. Felser, who has a doctorate from

University of Phoenix University of Phoenix (UoPX) is a private for-profit university headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. Founded in 1976, the university confers certificates and degrees at the certificate, associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree leve ...

. and has worked in various capacities at the school for more than 25 years.

Academics

Faculty

Bryant & Stratton's online faculty consists of 40 full-time instructors and 430 part-time instructors. The Buffalo campus has 33 full-time instructors and 112 part-time instructors.

Programs

Bryant & Stratton College offers associate and bachelor's degrees.

Student Outcomes

According to the College Scorecard, Bryant & Stratton online has an 18 percent graduation rate and a median student debt after graduation ranging from $11,400 to $51,442. Median salary after attending ranges from 17, 859 to 41,937. Six percent of student debtors were making progress with their loans. College Navigator reports an 18 percent graduation rate and a 16 percent transfer-out rate.

Finances

On April 3, 2015, Bryant & Stratton College was placed on a

Department of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...

list to have its finances more closely scrutinized (a process called

Heightened Cash Monitoring Higher education in the United States is an optional stage of formal learning following secondary education. Higher education is also referred as post-secondary education, third-stage, third-level, or tertiary education. It covers stages 5 to ...

). Colleges placed on this list generally have federal funding restricted due to concerns of their financial responsibility.

Athletics

Bryant & Stratton College has Junior College Division II sports at several campuses and actively recruits high school students.

Men's sponsored sports by campus

Women's sponsored sports by campus

Coed sponsored sports by campus

Alumni

Notable students of the school include

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that ...

,In about 1879, Ford studied bookkeeping at Goldsmith, Bryant & Stratton Business College in Detroit, which was at the time part of the Bryant & Stratton College system. ''See'' Steven Watts, ''The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century'' (Random House, 2006), p. 28. Found a
Google Books
R.J. Reynolds and

Joseph E. Seagram Joseph Emm Seagram (April 15, 1841 – August 18, 1919) was a Canadian distillery founder, politician, philanthropist, and major owner of thoroughbred racehorses. Early life Joseph Seagram was born April 15, 1841 at Fisher's Mills, near Hespeler, ...

. *

Lou Blonger Lou Blonger (May 13, 1849 – April 20, 1924), born Louis Herbert Belonger, was a Wild West saloonkeeper, gambling-house owner, and mine speculator, but is best known as the kingpin of an extensive ring of confidence tricksters that operated f ...

, crime boss * Albert Elijah Dunning, theologian *

, car manufacturer, billionaire, philanthropist *

John W. Harreld John William Harreld (January 24, 1872December 26, 1950) was a United States representative and Senator from Oklahoma. Harreld was the first Republican senator elected in Oklahoma and represented a shift in Oklahoma politics.Gaddie, Ronald Keit ...

, senator *

James J. Heffernan James Joseph Heffernan (November 8, 1888 – January 27, 1967) was an American architect and politician who served six terms as a U.S. Representative from New York from 1941 to 1953. Biography James Joseph Heffernan was born in Brooklyn, ...

, US representative * Antonio Joseph, politician *

Shalrie Joseph Shalrie Jamal Joseph (born May 24, 1978) is a Grenadian former professional footballer who is currently a coach with the New England Revolution organization. Youth and College Joseph moved to Brooklyn, New York with his family as a teenager. He ...

, head coach of the

Grenada national football team The Grenada national football team represents Grenada in international football and is controlled by the Grenada Football Association, a member of the Caribbean Football Union of CONCACAF. The team is nicknamed ''The Spice Boys'', a reference ...

* John D. Larkin, founder of

Larkin Company The Larkin Company, also known as the Larkin Soap Company, was a company founded in 1875 in Buffalo, New York as a small soap factory. It grew tremendously throughout the late 1800s and into the first quarter of the 1900s with an approach called ...

* Martin B. Madden, U.S. representative * J. L. R. McCollum, member of the

Wisconsin State Assembly The Wisconsin State Assembly is the lower house of the Wisconsin Legislature. Together with the smaller Wisconsin Senate, the two constitute the legislative branch of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Representatives are elected for two-year terms, e ...

Timothy McVeigh Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001) was an American domestic terrorist responsible for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, 19 of whom were children, injured more than 680 others, and destroyed one-third ...

, American domestic terrorist *

John William Moore John William Moore (June 9, 1877 – December 11, 1941) was a U.S. Representative from Kentucky. Born in Morgantown, Kentucky, Moore attended the public schools and completed a commercial course at Bryant and Stratton College at Louisville in 1 ...

, US representative * R. J. Reynolds, tobacco manufacturer * John D. Rockefeller, oligarch, billionaire, philanthropist * Arthur Schoellkopf, industrialist *

, Canadian businessman (founder of

Seagram The Seagram Company Ltd. (which traded as Seagram's) was a Canadian multinational conglomerate formerly headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. Originally a distiller of Canadian whisky based in Waterloo, Ontario, it was once (in the 1990s) the ...

Distillery) and politician * Charles Woodruff, Brigadier General in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...

Campuses

Bryant & Stratton launched its online division in 1997. The college provides selected degrees over the Internet. According to College Navigator, approximately 40 percent of BSC's students are participating as online students.

New York State New York, officially the State of New York, is a state in the Northeastern United States. It is often called New York State to distinguish it from its largest city, New York City. With a total area of , New York is the 27th-largest U.S. sta ...

campuses can be found in Albany, Buffalo, Syracuse, and six other locations.

has four campuses, including Akron. Virginia has campuses in Hampton, Richmond, and Virginia Beach. In Wisconsin, there are three campuses.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bryant and Stratton College Private universities and colleges in New York (state) Education in Buffalo, New York 1848 establishments in Ohio Universities and colleges in Erie County, New York Universities and colleges in Syracuse, New York Private universities and colleges in Wisconsin Private universities and colleges in Ohio Private universities and colleges in Virginia Universities and colleges in Milwaukee USCAA member institutions