By Christopher Magan

St. Paul Pioneer Press

Aimee Edwards feared her dream of becoming a nurse was slipping through her fingers.

The Inver Grove Heights wife and grandmother thought she had done everything right. She worked hard, saved her money, enrolled in training for her dream job and excelled in her classes.

But in December, about six months before she was set to graduate, Edwards learned the Minnesota School of Business campus in Richfield, where she was studying to earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing, would soon close.

“The closing of our school means we could lose everything,” said Edwards, who also serves as a student advocate and voice for her two dozen classmates. “We are out of money. We are out of time. My life savings has gone to this school.”

Edwards is one of hundreds of students from the Minnesota School of Business and Globe University who spent the holidays trying to determine where they would continue their studies as the chain of for-profit schools prepared to close campuses after a September fraud ruling.

The Hennepin County District Court ruling that the schools defrauded students in their criminal justice program set off a flurry of consequences that led to the institutions being barred from participating in federal financial aid programs, a key revenue stream.

The sudden turn of events didn’t just make Edwards afraid for her future — it made her mad. She thinks the sudden shuttering of the schools is inconsiderate to the students still enrolled.

“I’m very upset. At the school and at the state,” Edwards said. “We were always told by the school this wouldn’t affect us. I understand there has to be consequences for what happened to the criminal justice students. Why is it OK to ruin hundreds of other students’ education? How does that make it right?”

A legal finding of fraud essentially amounts to a death sentence for a college or university, state officials said. To protect students and taxpayers, state and federal laws require that schools found to have defrauded students lose their ability to grant degrees and access to government-backed loans and grants.

For many of the roughly 1,200 students attending Globe and Minnesota School of Business campuses, other institutions stepped up to provide them a place finish their degrees. Other students were able to graduate before the schools started to shut down.