Briarcliffe College consists of three for-profit career colleges in Long Island City, New York, Bethpage

Bethpage, New York

Bethpage is a hamlet located on Long Island within the Town of Oyster Bay in Nassau County, New York, United States, as well as a census-designated place with borders slightly different from those of the hamlet...

 and Patchogue

Briarcliffe College-Patchogue

Briarcliffe College - Patchogue is a campus of Briarcliffe College located in Patchogue, New York, on the south shore of Long Island in Suffolk County...

 on Long Island, New York. They offer Associate's

Associate's degree

An associate degree is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by community colleges, junior colleges, technical colleges, and bachelor's degree-granting colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study usually lasting two years...

 or Bachelor's degree

Bachelor's degree

A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...

 programs in a variety of areas including Graphic Design

Graphic design

Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

, Criminal Justice

Criminal justice

Criminal Justice is the system of practices and institutions of governments directed at upholding social control, deterring and mitigating crime, or sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts...

, Business

Business

A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...

, Photography

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

 and Technology

Technology

Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...

.

The school system is a subsidiary

Subsidiary

A subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...

 of the Career Education Corporation

Career Education Corporation

Career Education Corporation , founded in 1994, is a postsecondary education provider with campus-based and online curricula. On July 1, 2003, Career Education Corporation merged with competitor Whitman Education Group, Inc., gaining control over the latter's Sanford-Brown Colleges, Ultrasound...

.

History

Briarcliffe was founded in 1966, as a one-year business school in Hicksville, New York. A branch campus opened in 1969 in Mineola/Garden City. This branch was moved to Lynbrook, New York in 1983. In 1979, the New York State Education Department authorized Briarclffe to offer the two-year associate degree in occupational studies. A third campus was established in Patchogue, New York in 1981.

In 1992, Briarcliffe, which had an overwhelmingly female student population, purchased Grumman Data Systems Institute (GDSI), a technical school with a predominantly male enrollment. The combination of the two institutions created a truly coeducational college of approximately 2,000 students. The main campus was moved from Hicksville to the GDSI campus in Woodbury, New York.

In 1994, the college was granted regional accreditation

Regional accreditation

Regional accreditation is a term used in the United States to refer to educational accreditation conducted by any of several accreditation bodies established to serve six defined geographic areas of the country for accreditation of schools, colleges, and universities...

 by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools is a voluntary, peer-based, non-profit association dedicated to educational excellence and improvement through peer evaluation and accreditation...

. The college purchased a quarter-million square foot facility on approximately 20 acres (80,937.2 m²) in Bethpage, New York in 1995. Students from the Lynbrook campus were moved to this new main campus.

In 1997 Briarcliffe became a 4-year college, granting baccalaureate degrees and Career Education Corporation purchased Briarcliffe College.

In 2011, it was reported that the New York Attorney General was investigating "illegal business practices" in five for-profit education businesses, including Career Education Corporation

Career Education Corporation

Career Education Corporation , founded in 1994, is a postsecondary education provider with campus-based and online curricula. On July 1, 2003, Career Education Corporation merged with competitor Whitman Education Group, Inc., gaining control over the latter's Sanford-Brown Colleges, Ultrasound...

, which owns Briarcliffe.