Editor’s Note: Dr. Fardad Fateri built Irvine-based International Education Corp. into one of the largest systems of postsecondary career education in North America.

When I first started teaching at a university in the late 1980s, I loved it! I knew then that I had discovered my purpose.

Then, when I became an administrator, I realized that higher education has a problem: it has a one-track focus in preparing students. Students in traditional academia do well by reading, writing and learning theories, but many people don’t learn that way—they learn visually or by hands-on training. Traditional American education was missing this key aspect. There was a complete void of training in vocational education using a structured and disciplined methodology.

I went to our dean and asked, “Why don’t we offer full-term vocational training to prepare students for entry-level jobs in high-demand verticals like healthcare?” He said, “No, that’s not what we do, and the faculty senate would never allow it.”

To this day, higher education is still operating in a bubble because they ignore the needs of the marketplace. Currently, companies like Oracle, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon all have their own training verticals that are as large as many university programs. This trend will continue to put traditional colleges out of business.

Iranian Upbringing

My father was a self-made man who started working at 13. He got into the cotton business in the northern part of Iran and became the largest exporter of cotton to Europe. He later became a developer, building high-rises in Iran.

I was born in Tehran, where I lived until I was 12 years old. Then my parents sent me to a boarding school in Switzerland called Institut Le Rosey, where I developed many lifelong friendships.

After the Iranian revolution in the late 1970s, my parents decided Iran wouldn’t be a place they wanted to stay and raise their family. The United States was the ultimate destination for Iranians with the necessary resources.

Life in Orange County

When I was 18, I started at UCI. At that time, UCI was a small school and not as prestigious as it is today. I probably wouldn’t have been accepted today! I received a great education with a degree in social sciences with a specialty in psychology.

I couldn’t secure suitable professional employment, so I pursued my master’s degree, followed by a PhD in psychology. I always held full-time jobs while attending school full-time. I originally wanted to become a clinical psychologist. But I realized that I didn’t have the attributes to be a good clinician, so I chose organizational psychology, specializing in leadership. In this then-emerging field, I learned from the best.

The City of Irvine has always attracted Iranians because of its safety and the quality of education. To this day, the largest share of Iranian Americans in Orange County lives in Irvine.

In the 1980s, Iranians held the end of the Persian New Year celebration at Irvine’s Mason Park called Sizdeh-Bedar. The event was a total disaster because it was unplanned. Larry Agran, who was then the mayor, was quoted in the local newspaper saying that participants at the event were barbarians. Whenever people think about Iran, they think about the ruling regime in Iran, but most of us are very different.

I met Mayor Agran to tell him about the rich history of the 3,000-year-old Persian culture. He listened and soon after, he put me, a 25-year-old, in charge of organizing the Persian New Year celebration. This Sizdeh-Bedar event became the largest gathering of Iranians outside Iran, usually attracting about 35,000 people. I organized the event for ten years and as a result, I became friends with Larry, who has returned to become mayor.

Education’s Big Problem

After earning my Ph.D., I became a professor at a San Diego-based university, now called Alliant International University, one of the largest producers of psychologists in the country. I eventually went to DeVry University for about 10 years, where I became its president.­

My colleague David Moore co-founded Corinthian Colleges, which did very well through a series of acquisitions, growing to 120,000 students at more than 100 campuses. David convinced me to join Corinthian as chief academic officer to revamp and streamline their programs and consolidate their numerous different brands.

After David retired, I left in 2007 to join International Education Corporation (IEC), which at that point was a struggling school with nine campuses. Everybody thought I was crazy to leave Corinthian Colleges because I was doing so well and the stock was then at an all-time high. Personally, doing well financially didn’t make me happy. As an educator, I needed to make a meaningful difference in the lives of tens of thousands of students who have historically been ignored and avoided by traditional higher education.

I hired the best talent in post-secondary education, and together we transformed IEC into one of the largest systems of post-secondary career education in North America. We scaled the business so that it offered relevant and timely programs in high-demand verticals in healthcare and skilled trades.

We spent ample resources learning what employers needed and where the gaps in employment existed. Our marketing experts were the first higher education entity to start working with TikTok to reach potential students.

If it wasn’t for schools like the ones operated by IEC, thousands of students would be on welfare because there wouldn’t be an avenue for them to receive vocational training and secure employment. Graduation ceremonies became my favorite events to attend as I would watch up to 20 family members celebrate a milestone achieved.

The Exit

I loved what I did, often working 18 hours a day, seven days a week. In 2020, the stress caused a retinal detachment in my right eye. After three terrible surgeries on my right eye, I eventually found a competent surgeon at UCLA who saved my right eye, but the recovery was the worst experience of my life. I had to be face down for six consecutive weeks. I couldn’t watch TV. I couldn’t read. I couldn’t be on conference calls. I promised my family that I would leave the company and set up a transition plan.

I hired and trained new executives, including a new CEO and CFO. My investors, including Nicolas Berggruen, a long-time friend and a Le Rosey schoolmate, were delighted with our accomplishments. I took a struggling small company and turned it into one of the largest career education companies in North America with a best-in-class enterprise valuation.

When the Biden Administration came into power in 2021, the U.S. Department of Education was appointed with many far-left ideologues who deliberately planned to eliminate private career education companies. The new leftist extremists employed former “ambulance chasing” attorneys to target private career schools like ours.

They used the power of the federal government to harass us with groundless investigations. We provided them with 1.5 million files and documents. After wasting millions of dollars of taxpayer money reviewing documents over two years, the federal investigators could not prove any wrongdoing. But the bureaucrats warned me the investigations would continue for years regardless of the findings. Knowing these ideologues had access to endless resources at their disposal, I had to find a creative solution to save my company, my employees and my students.

Since I was looking to exit IEC anyway, I volunteered to resign if these political appointees left my company, employees and students free of future abuse. They agreed.

I still haven’t stopped being an entrepreneur and found that I love real estate, particularly medical properties. I think healthcare is recession proof. Everybody needs to go to a doctor, and I don’t think generative AI will replace a dentist in the foreseeable future. We now own properties with over 100 tenants, including UCI Health as well as CHOC.

I continue to learn and grow and thus far, it’s certainly been a fulfilling journey for me in the best country in the world!