Career Education Corporation Enters Texas Market With Acquisition of Texas Culinary Academy.

Business Editors/Education Writers

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 1, 2001

Career Education Corporation (NASDAQ:CECO) announced today that it has acquired the assets of Texas Culinary Academy (TCA) in Austin, Texas. The transaction provides the company with its first campus in Texas. Terms were not announced.

CEC also said it is acquiring additional space for TCA. The new facility will accommodate the school's expansion and growth, including the addition of the world-renowned Le Cordon Bleu culinary arts program. CEC currently offers Le Cordon Bleu programs at seven U.S. campuses.

"TCA has a well-recognized and respected name and a long operating history, and will further reinforce our national leadership in culinary education," said John M. Larson, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Career Education Corporation. "It also provides us with a solid foothold from which to broaden our presence in Texas, one of the primary geographic markets we have targeted for expansion."

The TCA acquisition marks Career Education Corporation's first acquisition of a non-profit institution. "TCA's governing board recognized that CEC could provide TCA with the financial and operating resources to succeed in an increasingly competitive educational environment," said Todd Steele, senior vice president of strategic planning and development at Career Education. "We believe our operating formula of educational excellence and institutional growth, as a for-profit entity, will appeal to other high-quality not-for-profit institutions."

Founded in 1986, TCA offers an associate degree in culinary arts. Harvey M. Giblin, president, will continue in his current role.

"Joining the nation's preeminent culinary education organization will enable Texas Culinary Academy to offer its students exciting new educational opportunities in a variety of culinary arts fields," Giblin said. "The Le Cordon Bleu program has spurred enrollment at every CEC campus where it has been introduced, and we anticipate a strong positive response from students in the Texas market as well," he said.

In addition to the new Austin campus, CEC operates eight other culinary arts programs: Atlantic Culinary Academy in Dover, New Hampshire; California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, California; California School of Culinary Arts in Pasadena, California; The Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago; International Culinary Academy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Program at Brown Institute in Mendota Heights, Minnesota; Scottsdale Culinary Institute in Scottsdale, Arizona; and Western Culinary Institute in Portland, Oregon.

Career Education Corporation (www.careered.com) is one of the world's largest providers of private, for-profit postsecondary education in the career-oriented disciplines of visual communication and design technologies, information technology, business studies and culinary arts. CEC operates 38 campuses throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, with more than 31,000 students enrolled as of July 31, 2001. CEC colleges enjoy long operating histories and offer a wide variety of master's degree, bachelor's degree, associate degree and diploma programs. The CEC family includes American InterContinental University (six campuses), the International Academy of Design & Technology (eight campuses), the Katharine Gibbs Schools (nine campuses), Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Program North America (seven campuses), AIU Online and other well-known educational institutions.

The forward-looking statements contained in this release are based upon various assumptions, and certain risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those stated. Factors that could cause such differences include costs and difficulties associated with opening new campuses and in integrating acquisitions, costs associated with E-learning operations, changes in the regulatory environment and those matters disclosed in Career Education Corporation's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Career Education Corporation assumes no obligation to update those forward-looking statements.