NEC Blames School Closures in Yearly Loss of $9.6 Million : Finances: Revenue for the Irvine vocational education firm dropped from $375 million to $355.9 million.

Citing the closure of 14 vocational schools because of tougher federal criteria for paying back student loans, National Education Corp. reported a 1993 loss of $9.6 million dollars, or 32 cents a share.

That contrasted with a profit of $515,000, or 2 cents a share, for the previous year. The Irvine-based company, which operates 33 vocational schools across the nation, had revenue of $355.9 million for the year ended Dec. 31, compared to $375 million for the previous 12 months.

For the fourth quarter, however, National Education showed income of $2 million, or 7 cents a share, marking the first improvement in corresponding periods since the third quarter of 1992. For the same quarter a year earlier, the company showed a loss of $687,000, or 2 cents a share. The company reported three-month revenue of $96 million, down from $102 million for the final quarter of 1992.

The annual loss resulted in part from one-time charges including $23.6 million set aside to cover costs of the company’s planned closing of 14 vocational schools. Also included was $9.2 million for a write-down of assets.

Those losses were partially offset by a gain of $21.3 million from the initial public offering of stock in the company’s Steck-Vaughn Publishing Corp. subsidiary, which makes and sells books for school libraries.

Jerome Cwiertnia, president and chief executive officer of NEC, said the company has stopped enrollment in about a third of its technical schools. NEC eventually will shut down those schools after current students have completed their classes.

“Students face increasing difficulty in obtaining federally guaranteed loans,” Cwiertnia said. “We felt that, rather than attempting to do financing ourselves, we would cease enrollment in those areas.”

In Tuesday’s trading on the New York Stock Exchange, NEC stock closed at $7.13 a share, up 25 cents.