Corinthian Colleges abruptly shuttered their doors over the weekend. Not only did they close up shop, they did it in a big hurry and without any warning.  If you’ve never heard of that particular school group, don’t be surprised. They were one of a slew of mega-for profit-education groups that targeted down and out kids desperate for job skills. Chances are you’d see their TV commercials late, LATE at night or during any of the varied, lurid daytime talk shows.

The trade school commercials would go a little something like this: “Are you a huge loser? A huge, unemployed loser? A huge, unemployed loser with zero education? If so, stop being a dreg of society and get your sorry ass back to school.  There are tons of mad-crazy jobs out there if you have the right mad-crazy skills. So call SCHOOL X today and get started, you loser. We can help your sorry ass make some decent bling because learning equals earning. But Lord knows, we can’t help if you don’t call. So call now. Call. Now. Are you calling? Why not, dumbass? Call NOW!”

This might very well be my favorite parody of those infamous ads:

I’m wildly familiar with those commercials, because I wrote and produced a bulk of them for Corinthian during the heyday of the recession.  I couldn’t churn them out fast enough. (Mine, however, did NOT involve folks screeching at the camera. My commercials were, shall we say, a bit more refined.) At the time, I figured I was helping the downtrodden get untrodden. Turns out, I was merely a pawn in the game of “putting asses in classes” … an endearing term by which my commercials were judged. Did my ads make the phone ring or garner an internet lead? You bet they did, because nearly every TV spot I’d create would A) be cleverly cajoling and B) cater to the lowest common denominator.

Now I realize what shysters Corinthian turned out to be … leaving thousands of students in the lurch and besmirching the reputation of career colleges forever. The school had a meteoric rise, followed by a spectacular fall from grace. Once the Department of Education uncovered an ungodly amount of student debt fraud, the college started to implode upon itself like a crooked Supernova.

If there’s one thing I did learn while working in the education sector, it was the perseverance of the kids attending these classes. Many had nowhere else to turn to get back on their feet. And believe me, there are plenty of legit schools out there providing a worthwhile education. I hope those students get paired up with a school that truly has their best interests at heart.

I, meanwhile, am going to go take a Silkwood shower and see if I can somehow cleanse myself of the legacy of producing work for that particular school.