Gibbs College

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Katharine Gibbs College was a for‑profit chain of higher‑education schools in the United States, started by Katharine Gibbs. It began in 1911 as the Providence School in Rhode Island, focused on career training for young women, and later expanded to campuses in Boston, New York City, and Montclair, New Jersey, taking its founder’s name. The college offered programs in design, business administration, computer technology, criminal justice, and health care, and it was nationally accredited by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools.

Over the years the Gibbs schools changed owners several times. In 1968, Crowell Collier and Macmillan bought the schools. Macmillan sold them to Phillips Colleges in 1989. K-III Communications (now Rent Group) acquired Gibbs in 1994, and Career Education Corporation (CEC) bought the Gibbs Group in 1997. The chain shut down its campuses in 2009 after an unsuccessful attempt to sell the Gibbs division. The Cranston campus was later sold in 2022 for $16 million to Achievement First, after years of leasing the property.

The Gibbs story began with Katharine Gibbs and her sister Mary Ryan opening the first secretarial school in Providence. Although not originally marketed only to women, World War I labor shortages brought more women into the workforce, and by 1917 the school advertised “Secretarial Training for Educated Women.” The Gibbs schools promoted female empowerment while concentrating on education they believed would be most valuable to women at the time. They distinguished themselves by marketing to women of higher socioeconomic status and teaching social refinements like dressing professionally and etiquette. As feminism grew in the 1960s and 1970s, secretarial programs faded, and Gibbs faced decline under its corporate owners as marketing shifted away from its original niche.

In 1968 the Gibbs family sold the schools to corporate buyers who began rebranding and shifting the focus to other fields, such as design, business administration, computer technology, criminal justice, and medical assisting. In January 2007, the New York State Education Department found deficiencies at the Gibbs New York campus related to faculty qualifications and remedial offerings, limiting new enrollment and threatening closure if improvements were not made.

In fall 2006, Career Education Corporation announced the Gibbs division would be put up for sale. By February 2008, seven of nine Gibbs campuses were slated to close by December 2009, with three campuses (Boston, Virginia, and Melville, NY) converted to Sanford-Brown College and the rest “teaching out.” The Melville campus continued as SBI Campus, affiliated with Sanford-Brown, while the Virginia operation closed in 2013.

For transcripts, Gibbs records were processed through Parchment Exchange, with the official transcript data held by Career Education Corporation or the custodial school. Degree and enrollment verification could be obtained through the National Student Clearinghouse.