East Lyme — Marinello Schools of Beauty announced Thursday that the company would be closing its Niantic campus today following a federal decision to deny its students grants and loans.

The decision to close down the local beauty school came after the U.S. Department of Education earlier this week cited the for-profit Marinello for a variety of financial irregularities, including fabricating high school diplomas, charging excessive overtime and withholding part of students' financial aid.

Marinello announced that it would essentially be ceasing operations nationwide, closing a total of more than 50 sites — some Thursday and others today, including a half dozen in Connecticut affecting some 500 students.

The closings left thousands of beauty-school students in the lurch nationwide, but U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, both Connecticut Democrats, said Thursday that they would be urging the federal government to forgive any loans to Marinello students unable to transfer credits or complete their training. 

Blumenthal added that he hopes the state Office of Higher Education will find a way to ensure students can bring credits earned at Marinello to other beauty schools in Connecticut.

"It is a tragedy for them and for our state that this school has so failed them," he said in a phone interview.

Morgan Hebert, a Marinello student who luckily will complete her studies Friday, said in an interview outside the school that students earlier had been forewarned the Niantic location would be closing in April.

"We weren't as shocked because we were closing anyway," the Ledyard resident said.

The site, she said, was down to only five students in anticipation of the spring closing, and several school officials, including the director, had already left.

But Hebert said she felt bad for the regular customers who used Marinello services for haircuts and beauty needs. A beauty school has been in downtown Niantic for decades, she added.

"A lot of our clients are elderly," she said, "and they get senior discounts."

Hebert said Marinello is the only beauty school in New London County, so students unable to complete their coursework will have to go far afield to find a similar facility, and it's unclear whether other schools will accept transfers of credits.

She added that she was worried about using the Marinello reference in her resume because of its negative association with fraud charges.

"I call on the U.S. Department of Justice now to prosecute any violations of criminal law as vigorously and promptly as possible," Blumenthal said in a statement.

He added in a phone interview that he thinks Marinello officials should be held criminally responsible for any illegal actions and that the company should pay substantial fines so students can receive restitution.

Marinello said it would be helping students determine their transfer options.

Students will be able to visit company campuses at designated times to receive their transcripts and discuss their future, the company said, pointing them to more information at the website www.marinello.com.

According to Blumenthal, Marinello had campuses in East Hartford, Fairfield, Hamden, Meriden, Niantic and Willimantic. Another site in Torrington closed in January.

"To our students and coworkers, we want you to know that we did everything in our power to avoid this unfortunate conclusion and keep your school open," Marinello said in a statement.

Marinello said the closures nationwide will affect about 4,300 students and 800 jobs.

The 110-year-old institution, based in Whittier, Calif., continued to blame the Education Department for not giving it advance notice of the suspension from federal loan and grant programs so it could address the concerns and avoid closure.

"We are confident we would have been able to address them given Marinello’s long history of compliance with regulatory requirements," the company said. "The department waited until we were past the point of no return financially to allow us any opportunity to respond to its unfounded allegations."

The Marinello suspension occurred in conjunction with a probe that also cited dozens of other beauty schools as well as three technical schools.

Sen. Murphy, who along with Blumenthal has pushed legislation to crack down on some for-profit schools that prey on unwary students, pointed out in a press release that for-profit institutions enroll 10 percent of all college students "but account for 44 percent of all student loan defaults."

The Education Department, in a letter to Marinello chief executive Rashed Elyas obtained by The Day, cited financial, programmatic and administrative problems at the company in its suspension letter dated Feb. 1.

It also said the company had made "numerous misrepresentations to students" and "callously disregarded students' financial need" by not providing the full federal funding to which they were entitled.

Hebert, the Marinello student completing her studies today, said she regretted not reading the fine print of her agreement to attend the beauty school.

She said the company had charged her an extra $2,000 for overtime, $6,000 for room and board (when she never lived on site) and $7,000 for unexplained "living expenses."

That's on top of the annual $22,000 cost of attending the school. And it doesn't include so-called overages of $12.50 an hour for not completing her course of study on time, she said.

The local Marinello school, on Pennsylvania Avenue in the same plaza where Dairy Queen sits, previously had been known as the Brio Academy of Cosmetology.

l.howard@theday.com

Twitter: @KingstonLeeHow