The Brooks Institute was a private for-profit art school in Ventura, California. It was formerly the Brooks Institute of Photography and was originally based in Montecito and Santa Barbara.
Brooks Institute offered four majors and two graduate programs. The college was last owned by Gphomestay.
The college had consolidated and moved operations from Santa Barbara to the Ventura Campus before autumn 2015.
The college abruptly announced it was closing on August 12, 2016. The last term was the summer 2016 semester. Enrollment had declined by 90% to 250 students, completion rates ranged from 3% to 40% by program, and there was controversy surrounding advertising using inflated job placement rates, unusual loan policies, and surprise fees.
History
Brooks family
Brooks Institute of Photography was founded in 1945 by Ernest H. Brooks Sr. over a bakery on State Street in Santa Barbara, California. The school's first photography students were primarily World War II veterans supported by the G.I. Bill.
In 1952, the Brooks family purchased the former David Gray estate 'Graholm' after the owner at that time, Herschel McGraw, died. Ernest purchased the property for $61,000. The property was located on Alston Road in Montecito, a community adjacent to Santa Barbara. This served as the home of Brooks Institute of Photography, as well as for Ernest H. Brooks, Sr.'s growing family.
Ernest H. Brooks Sr. stayed on as president of the school until 1971, when he became board chairperson. He died in 1990. His personal passion for underwater photography inspired the underwater still photography and video courses that started in the late 1960s, and continued until the school closed.
At the time of his retirement as president, his son, Ernest H. Brooks, Jr. 'stepped into his father's shoes' and served as the school's president from 1971 until 1999. He continued to expand the Brooks Institute of Photography facilities.
In 1976 Brooks purchased the former Jefferson School in the Riviera neighborhood of Santa Barbara, that had been slated for demolition, and opened the Brooks Jefferson Campus.
Brooks Institute has been involved in many extraordinary projects in recent years, but this forward vision and involvement was happening even in the 1980s when the institute was permitted to photograph the Shroud of Turin. Professor Vernon Miller, then head of the Industrial/Scientific program, led a team of photographers as they photographed the cloth for documentation and study.
Career Education Corporation ownership
In 1999 the Brooks Institute of Photography was sold by Ernest H. Brooks Jr. to Career Education Corporation (CEC), a for-profit higher education corporation. CEC expanded the school. That included the acquisition of an former movie production studio in Ventura in 2002, from which to base the school's motion picture program, later becoming the Ventura Campus for consolidating the entire school.
In 2007, the school changed its name to the Brooks Institute, from the Brooks Institute of Photography.
In 2011, Brooks Institute moved its programs and offices located on the Brooks Jefferson Campus in Santa Barbara to the new Ventura Campus. In 2014 it moved the programs, library, and offices at the Mason Street Campus (Santa Barbara) to the Cota Street Campus in Downtown Santa Barbara, before the final move to the Ventura Campus.
Campus consolidation
In 2013 Brooks announced its consolidation of all its educational programs to the Ventura Campus, and departure from Santa Barbara planned for 2015. From the Cota Street Campus in Santa Barbara, it moved its Professional Photography baccalaureate program in Autumn 2013 and MFA in Photography in Autumn 2014 to its now solo Ventura Campus, where the other baccalaureate programs in Film, Graphic Design, and Visual Journalism were already located.
Gphomestay ownership
In June 2015 the Brooks Institute was sold by CEC to Gphomestay—Massachusetts Homestay Company, a Waltham, Massachusetts-based company that specializes in finding homes for international students studying abroad in the United States. In July Gphomestay announced Edward Clift as president, and Victoria Liptak as provost of Brooks. In August 2016, Edward Clift was dismissed as president and a majority of the board of directors resigned. On August 12, 2016, Brooks Institute announced it was closing and canceled the Fall 2016 semester.