CDM Institute in Marlton closes abruptly

Students enrolled at the Marlton campus of CDM Institute reported Friday that the New Jersey-based chain of technical and vocational schools appeared to have gone out of business with no warning or explanation.

A sign posted Friday on the door of the Marlton location read "CDM Institute is closed," with no additional information.

CDM's website offered no indication that the for-profit, nine-location chain had closed its doors, and did not say how many students were enrolled.

Calls to numerous phone numbers posted on the website also went unanswered.

Based in Wayne, Passaic County, the chain has seven other locations in New Jersey, including Toms River and Vineland, as well as one in Wilmington. There also appears to have been one in Allentown.

Francis Norris, director of career services at the Wilmington campus, said employees had not been paid for three weeks and "supplies started dwindling" even earlier.

He said he and the other 100 employees were notified at 4 p.m. Wednesday that the schools were closing and that they would not be paid for January. When he asked for the phone numbers of his students so he could break the news to them, Norris said he was told to "leave immediately."

He said each of the nine sites typically enrolled between 25 and 75 students.

Norris said that he and the others were given no explanation for the closure, but that he had heard the school had lost its license in New Jersey to train nurses' aides and medical assistants. That information came too late Friday to verify with the state Department of Education.

He said he had heard that CDM's owner and chairman, Mark L. Miller, had been trying to bring in investors but that a deal fell through midweek. A call to Miller's cellphone was not answered.

CDM's website describes it as a "private licensed training institute" that offers technical training to adults in business, drafting, and design, and entry-level medical careers such as phlebotomy.

Lisa Greenstein, 31, of Philadelphia, said she had chosen CDM for a five-month certificate program for medical assistant because the $7,000 tuition was well below what other area programs charged, some costing as much as $17,000.

Greenstein said a tuition loan she obtained through CDM, which apparently was sold later to American Student Financial Group (ASFG), a California-based processor of student loans, had an interest rate of 15.9 percent.

"We're trying to call the owner," said Kevin Jasper, chief operating officer of ASFG. "They've gone dark on us, too."

Jasper said that if CDM has closed, his firm would not hold students responsible for their loans and would "get in line along with everybody else" in any bankruptcy proceeding.