CFPB Debt Collection Complaint Ranking*:

#66 of 2,458 Companies

Lawsuits, Penalties, or Sanctions:

Dismissal of Fair Debt Collection Practices Act claims against ECMC is Reversed and Remanded by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Location and Contact Details:

1 Imation Place, Bldg. 2
Oakdale, MN 55128-3422
Phone: (309) 828-5226
Fax: (877) 435-8073
David Hawn, President and CEO
Dan Fisher, Executive VP and Ethics Contact

Business Model:

ECMC Group, Inc., (Education Management Corporation) was founded in 1994. It acts as a guarantor for student loans made by banks and other private lenders. The company provides national federal student loan bankruptcy servicing and federal student loan program administration and debt collection services.

The subsidiaries of the ECMC Group are:

  1. Education Credit Management Corporation (ECMC). It is a non-profit company that provides support for the administration of the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) as a student loan guaranty agency;
  2. Zenith Education Group. Zenith is one of the largest nonprofit providers of career education in the U.S. It was established in 2014 to turn-around the failed for-profit Corinthian College;
  3. ECMC Servicing Corporation. It is a provider of loan servicing solutions for private student loan lenders and holders; and.
  4. Premier Credit of North America. Established in 1999, it is an accounts receivable management company and a longtime partner of the U.S. Department of Education, the Indiana state government, and universities and guaranty agencies nationwide.

In 2014 ECMC purchased a sizable portion of the failed Corinthian College campuses (56 out of 107 campuses) including Everest and WyoTech campuses but the purchase has been described as “highly misleading” and “worse” than originally thought.

Zenith Education Group is a subsidiary of ECMC. ECMC created subsidiary Zenith to oversee the transformation of the failed Corinthian Colleges, but the Department of Education fired the law firm hired by ECMC and Zenith to independently monitor the turn-around. 

ECMC’s General Counsel Dan Fisher says borrowers “rarely” succeed at discharging their student loan debt in bankruptcy proceedings.

*Ranking determined by the overall number of debt collection complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) as of year-end 2015 and should be considered in context of company size and/or market share. See the CFPB debt collection complaint database in real-time here.

Michael F. Cardoza, Esq.
Connect with me
U.S. Marine & Consumer Financial Protection Attorney helping victims of ID theft and Credit Reporting errors.