Motto | We Rise |
---|---|
Type | Private for-profit university |
Established | 1976 |
Founders | John Sperling John D. Murphy |
Parent institution | Apollo Global Management and Vistria Group |
Accreditation | HLC |
President | Chris Lynne |
Academic staff | 2,727 (2022) [1] |
Total staff | 4,578 (2022) [1] |
Students | 76,000 (2022) [1] |
Undergraduates | 60,700 (2022) [1] |
Postgraduates | 13,100 (2022) [1] |
2,200 (2022) [1] | |
Location | , , United States (headquarters) |
Campus | Online, 1 campus under direct control [2] |
Website | phoenix |
University of Phoenix [3] (UoPX) is a private for-profit university headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. [a] Founded in 1976, the university confers certificates and degrees at the certificate, associate, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree levels. It is institutionally accredited by the Higher Learning Commission [4] and has an open enrollment admissions policy for many undergraduate programs. [5] The school is owned by Apollo Global Management and Vistria Group. [6]
University of Phoenix was founded in 1976 by John Sperling and John D. Murphy. [7] [8] In 1980, it expanded to San Jose, California, and launched its online program in 1989. [9] Much of UoPX's revenue came from employers who were subsidizing the higher education of their managers. Academic labor underwent a process of unbundling, in which "various components of the traditional faculty role (e.g., curriculum design) are divided among different entities, while others (e.g., research) are eliminated altogether". [10]
In 1994, UoPX leaders made the parent company, Apollo Group, public. Its enrollment exceeded 100,000 students by 1999. [11] [12] Senator Tom Harkin, who chaired hearings on for-profit colleges, said, "I think what really turned this company is when they started going to Wall Street." [13] The sentiment was echoed by Murphy in his book Mission Forsaken: The University of Phoenix Affair with Wall Street. In 2004, Murphy thought that "the University of Phoenix abandoned its founding mission of solely serving working adult learners to admit virtually anyone with a high school diploma or GED." In terms of revenue, UoPX began to rely less on corporate assistance and more on government funding. [14] In 2007, The New York Times reported that the school's graduation rate had plummeted and that educational quality had eroded. [15]
In 2000, the federal government fined the university $6 million for including study-group meetings as instructional hours. In 2002, the Department of Education relaxed requirements on instructional hours. [16] [17]
A 2003 lawsuit filed by two former university recruiters alleged that the school improperly obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in financial aid by paying its admission counselors based on the number of students they enrolled, a violation of the Higher Education Act. [16] The university's parent company settled by paying the government $67.5 million, plus $11 million in legal fees, without admitting any wrongdoing. [18] [19]
In 2004, the Department of Education alleged that UoPX violated Higher Education Act provisions that prohibit financial incentives to admission representatives, and pressured its recruiters to enroll students. [20] UoPX disputed the findings but paid a $9.8 million fine as part of a settlement where it admitted no wrongdoing and was not required to return any financial aid funds. [21] [22] [23] The university also paid $3.5 million to the Department of Labor to settle a violation of overtime compensation regarding hours worked by UoPX's recruiters. [24] [25] UoPX settled a false claims suit for $78.5 million in 2009 over its recruiter-pay practices. [26]
In 2008, Pereira O'Dell became the lead ad agency for UoPX for a reported $220 million. [27] During the 2008–2009 fiscal year, the UoPX student body received more Pell Grant money ($656.9 million) than any other university [28] and was the top recipient of student financial aid funds, receiving almost $2.48 billion. [29] The university's graduation rate was 17 percent, according to federal data that measures first-time, full-time (FTFT) undergraduate students who complete their programs at 150% of the normal time. [30] University of Phoenix has been the largest recipient of federal G.I. Bill tuition benefits [31] and the largest for-profit recipient by Pell Grant assistance funding. [32]
In 2009, the Department of Education produced a report claiming the untimely return of unearned Title IV funds for more than 10 percent of sampled students. The report also expressed concern that some students register and begin attending classes before completely understanding the implications of enrollment, including their eligibility for student financial aid. In January 2010, the parent company Apollo Group was required to post a letter of credit for $125 million by January 30 of the same year. [33] In 2010, UoPX came under government scrutiny after its Phoenix and Philadelphia campuses were found to have engaged in deceptive enrollment practices and fraudulent solicitation of FAFSA funds. [34]
In 2010, UoPX claimed a peak enrollment of more than 470,000 students with a revenue of $4.95 billion. [35] A 2010 report found that its online graduation rate at the time was only five percent. [36] Later in the year, the university paid $154.5 million for 20-year naming rights for advertising purposes of the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. The company terminated the naming rights deal on April 11, 2017, [37] and on September 4, 2018, the stadium's naming rights were acquired by State Farm. [38]
In August 2010, an ABC News investigation identified a UoPX recruiter who sought new students from Y-Haven, a homeless shelter in Cleveland, Ohio. Another University of Phoenix recruiter falsely claimed that the university's Bachelor of Science in Education degree would be sufficient to qualify the producer[ clarification needed ] to teach in Texas or New York. [39]
In a December 2010 Bloomberg article, former UoPX senior vice president Robert W. Tucker noted that "at critical junctures, [co-founder] John [Sperling] chose growth over academic integrity, which ultimately diminished a powerful educational model". [40] At its peak, UoPX operated more than 500 campuses and learning sites. [41] The university began to focus on opening new resource centers for online students to provide spaces for alumni to network and current students to seek assistance from professors and peers. [42]
In August 2011, Apollo Group announced it would buy 100% of Carnegie Learning to accelerate its efforts to incorporate adaptive learning into its academic platform. [43] Controversies concerned its marketing and recruitment practices, instructional hours, its status as one of the top recipients of student aid, and a student body carrying the most student debt of any college. [44]
In 2013, the Department of Defense ended its contract with University of Phoenix for military bases in Europe. [45] U.S. military commanders at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, allowed UoPX representatives to advertise and place promotional materials in high-traffic areas. Access was provided in exchange for cash. [46]
Murphy wrote in Mission Forsaken (2013) about the school's degeneration from a provider of working adult continuing education programs to a money making machine whose sole criterion for admission was eligibility for federally funded student loans. [14] [47]
In 2014 the Department of Education's Office of the Inspector General demanded records from the school and Apollo Group going back to 2007 "related to marketing, recruitment, enrollment, financial aid, fraud prevention, [and] student retention". [48] In the same year, Arthur Green, a former UoPX enrollment advisor, sued the school and claimed that it had violated the US False Claims Act. According to Green, he was fired for uncovering billions of dollars in fraud. [49] [50] Five years later, the case was dismissed in 2019 after the US Department of Justice under William Barr decided not to take the case and the records were sealed. [51]
In 2014, UoPX partnered with 47 historically black colleges and universities to offer UoPX classes that transfer to these institutions. [52] 142,500 students enrolled on August 31, 2016, [53] and 119,938 during the 2016–17 school year.[ citation needed ] During this time, the university continued to spend tens of millions of dollars on marketing and advertising, including $27 million on internet paid search advertising. [54] The Brookings Institution reported that UoPX spent $76 million on advertising in 2017. [55]
From 2009 to 2015, University of Phoenix received an estimated $1.2 billion of federal money issued through the G.I. Bill. The university enrolled almost 50,000 such students in 2014, twice as many as any other institution. [56]
In October 2015, the Department of Defense suspended the school's ability to recruit on U.S. military bases and receive federal funding for educating members of the U.S. military. [57] After protest from senators John McCain, Jeff Flake, and Lamar Alexander, the suspension was lifted in January 2016. [58] [59]
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) began investigating the university in 2015 in regard to an advertising campaign it ran from 2012 to 2014. [60] [61] On December 10, 2019, UoPX agreed to pay a settlement of $191 million related to charges that it recruited students using misleading advertisements. [61] NPR reported the amount included $50 million in cash (which was later distributed as checks to more than 100,000 former students), [62] [63] as well as a $141 million cancellation in student debt, though the cancellations "won't affect student borrowers' obligations for federal or private loans". [64] The institution admitted no wrongdoing as part of the settlement, which was at the time the largest FTC settlement against a for-profit school. [61]
In 2015, MarketWatch reported that UoPX students owed more than $35 billion in student loan debt, the most of any US college at the time. [65]
Between 2010 and 2016, enrollment declined by more than 70 percent [66] amid multiple investigations, lawsuits, and controversies. [67] [68] [69] [70] [71]
In 2016, Apollo Education Group shareholders filed a class-action lawsuit against the corporation, arguing that it withheld information leading to large losses in stock prices. Several of the allegations related to UoPX's recruiting of military personnel and veterans. [72] [73]
In February 2016, Apollo Group announced its sale to a private investment group comprising Apollo Global Management, the Vistria Group, and the Najafi Companies, for $1 billion. Former U.S. Department of Education deputy secretary Anthony W. Miller, partner and chief operating officer of Vistria, became chairman. [74] The sale was approved by both the Department of Education and the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). [69] [75] [76] [77] [78] In December 2016, the U.S. Department of Education approved of the sale of Apollo Education Group to Apollo Global Management. The company provided a letter of credit for up to $385 million. [79] In February 2017, after the takeover by Apollo Global Management, UoPX laid off 170 full-time faculty members. [80] According to the 2019 academic report, degreed enrollment was 87,400. [81]
In March 2020, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced that they had suspended certification for G.I. Bill funds for new students at UoPX, citing a history of deceptive recruiting practices. [82] [83] The VA withdrew its threat of sanctions in July 2020. [84] The same year, UoPX received $6.5 million in CARES Act funding [85] and $7.4 million in the second round of COVID-19 relief funds. [86] In 2020, UoPX began experimenting with micro-campuses, giving the centers a "WeWork vibe". [87]
In 2021, Bloomberg reported that Apollo's higher education investment had gained about 50 percent in value: from its $634 million initial investment to $956 million. [88] UoPX also received $3.4 million in aid through the American Rescue Plan. [89]
In 2021, UoPX continued to close campuses, including Atlanta and Salt Lake City. [90] The Phoenix, Arizona campus was the only location accepting new in-person students. [2] UoPX would later announce that only one campus would remain open in 2025. [91]
The University of Phoenix was one of 153 institutions included in student loan cancellation due to alleged fraud. The class action was brought by a group of more than 200,000 student borrowers in 2019, assisted by the Project on Predatory Student Lending, part of the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School. [92] A settlement was approved in August 2022, stating that the schools on the list were included "substantial misconduct by the listed schools, whether credibly alleged or in some instances proven." [93] [94] In April 2023, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the settlement and allowed to proceed the debt cancellation due to alleged fraud. [95]
On September 20, 2023, the Biden administration canceled nearly $37 million of federal student loan debt for more than 1,200 borrowers who were enrolled at the University of Phoenix between September 21, 2012, and December 31, 2014. [96]
In April 2024, the University of Phoenix and California Attorney General Rob Bonta resolved an investigation into UoPX's use of military student recruitment tactics from 2012 through 2015 via settlement, where the university agreed to pay out $4.5 million in penalties and other fees. [97]
Apollo Global Management has been attempting to sell the University of Phoenix since 2021. [98] A number of schools and systems were approached, including Tuskegee University, [99] UMass Global, the University of Arkansas System, and the University of Idaho (U of I). [100]
In April 2023, the University of Arkansas System Board voted against the proposed sale. [109]
In May 2023, the University of Idaho announced a deal to acquire the University of Phoenix. The total cost would be $685 million raised through bonds. [110] A new entity was created for the purchase by U of I ultimately named Four Three Education. [111] The Higher Learning Commission approved a "continuation of accreditation" for the school under Four Three Education. [112] The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (U of I's accreditors) completed a review of the potential acquisition and continued accreditation, determining that the deal “does not constitute a substantive change” for the University of Idaho. [113]
Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador sued the University of Idaho, alleging that the acquisition was being pursued in violation of Idaho's Open Meetings Law. The case was brought to trial and dismissed in January 2024. Labrador appealed the decision, taking the case to the Idaho Supreme Court. [125]
In March 2024, the Idaho legislature passed a resolution urging the Idaho State Board of Education to overturn its May 2023 vote endorsing the acquisition. [126] Later in the month, Idaho's Senate State Affairs Committee brought SB 1450 to the floor, which intended to restructure Four Three Education into an independent body corporate politic rather than a not-for-profit, [127] but the Idaho Senate narrowly voted the bill down, with 14 yes votes to 19 no votes. [128] After passing the May 31st deadline of the original purchase agreement, both sides agreed to an extension, creating a new end date of June 10, 2025. In the agreement, Phoenix will reimburse the U of I $5 million, covering some of the legal fees related to due diligence of the purchase agreement. A non-exclusivity structure was also agreed upon, where Phoenix would be allowed to either seek a new buyer or undergo an initial public offering during negotiations. If Phoenix does not come to an agreement with U of I by the deadline, the university owes the U of I another $5 million. If Phoenix is bought by another school or seeks an IPO, it agreed to pay the U of I $15 million as a "break-up fee". [129] [130]
UoPX has an open admissions policy by which most of its undergraduate programs are accessible to anyone with a high school diploma, GED, or their equivalent. Prior to 2010, the university recruited students using high-pressure sales tactics, including assertions that classes were filling fast, [21] by admissions counselors who are paid, in part, based on their success in recruiting students. [131] The university recruits students and obtains financial aid on their behalf, [21] such as the Academic Competitiveness Grant, Federal Pell Grant, National Science & Mathematics Access to Retain Talent Grant (National SMART Grant), Federal Direct Student Loan Program, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant, Federal Direct PLUS Loans, Federal Perkins Loan, and the Wounded Warrior Project. [132] In the 2017–18 award year, 51,990 UoPX received the Federal Pell Grant. [133]
Besides postsecondary degree-level programs, the school offers continuing education courses for teachers and practitioners, professional development courses for companies, and specialized courses of study for military personnel. [134] Students spend 20 to 24 hours with an instructor during each course, and are required to collaborate on learning team projects. [135]
Students have access to class-specific online resources, which include an electronic library of textbooks and other course materials. Some academics and former students argue the abbreviated courses and the use of learning teams result in an inferior education. [16] [131] UoPX has been criticized for lack of academic rigor; Henry M. Levin, a professor of higher education at Teachers College at Columbia University, called its business degree an "MBA Lite", saying "I've looked at [its] course materials. It's a very low level of instruction." [16] The university's "corporate articulation agreements" provide an alternative assessment program for people working at other companies to earn college credit for training they have completed at their jobs. To qualify for college credit, students either write an "experiential essay" or create a professional training portfolio, [136] the latter of which is a collection of documents such as transcripts from other schools, certificates, licenses, workshops or seminars. [137]
UoPX has been regionally accredited since 1978 by the HLC. In May 2013, the university's accreditation status was placed on "notice" for a period of two years (with allowed retention of their regional accreditation) by the HLC, due to "insufficient autonomy relative to its parent corporation". The HLC Institutional Actions Council First Committee (IACFC) concerns centered on the university's governance, student assessment, and faculty scholarship in relation to Ph.D. programs. [138] [139] In June 2015, the HLC determined that the University of Phoenix had resolved those concerns. [140]
University of Phoenix has 18 programs with business, healthcare, nursing, counseling and education having programmatic or specialized accreditation. Some individual colleges within University of Phoenix hold specialty accreditation or are pre-accredited by accrediting agencies that are recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.
UoPX was ranked 386th out of 391 schools in the 2021 Washington Monthly list of national universities. [149] The university is ranked #331-440 in the 2022 edition of the U.S. News & World Report National Universities. [150]
UoPX is a subsidiary of Apollo Global Management and Vistria Group. [151] The president is Chris Lynne and the chief academic officer is John Woods. [152] Lynne previously worked at Arthur Andersen, Education Management Corporation, Northcentral University, and HotChalk. [153] Woods has a PhD in higher education administration from Bowling Green State University. [152]
According to the College Scorecard, the University of Phoenix student body's ethnic composition is 39 percent unknown, 26 percent white, 20 percent black, 11 percent Hispanic, 2 percent multiracial, with 1 percent each for Asian, American Indian/Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander as of July 2022 [update] . [154] The 2020 Academic Annual Report for UoPX indicated women make up two-thirds of the student body, the average student age is 37, and more than 83 percent of its students are employed while in school. [155] The 2020 report also noted that 21% of the student body were affiliated with the military, of which 41% are women. 26% of 2020 graduates were military-affiliated graduates. [156]
In 2020–21, 1,316 students used Department of Defense Tuition Assistance and 7,380 students used G.I. Bill funds. [157] University of Phoenix has been a partner of U.S. Army University and has had a presence at a few military bases. [158]
The institution depends almost entirely on contingent faculty: about 97 percent of Phoenix instructors teach part-time, compared to 47 percent nationwide. This reliance on part-time faculty has been criticized by regulators and academic critics. Most of the classes are centrally crafted and standardized to ensure consistency and to maximize profits. No faculty members get tenure. [16] [131] Adjuncts earn approximately $1000–$2000 per course. [159] Approximately 21 cents of every tuition dollar is spent on instruction. [160]
According to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, the student to faculty ratio is 110 to 1 in the Arizona segment. [161] The university reported 76 full-time and 3,143 part-time faculty in its Arizona segment; full-time faculty make up 2 percent of the total faculty. [162]
In 2016, a Brookings Institution study estimated University of Phoenix's five-year student loan default rate at 47 percent. [163] The College Navigator lists University of Phoenix's overall graduation rate at 15 percent. [164] According to the College Scorecard, of student debtors two years into repayment, 32 percent were in forbearance, 28 percent were not making progress, 13 percent were in deferment, 11 percent defaulted, 7 percent were making progress, 5 percent were delinquent, 2 percent were paid in full, and 1 percent were discharged. [165]
Phoenix alumni in the government sector include Howard Schmidt, [166] Mary Peters (1994), [167] and Brad Dee (1991). [168] In the private sector, alumni include former MBA Chair at the Forbes School of Business & Technology and radio host Diane Hamilton. In military and law enforcement, alumni include Kirkland H. Donald [169] and Harold Hurtt (1991). [170] Former MSNBC anchor and a host of NBC's Early Today Christina Brown is also an alumna of the university. [171]
Athletes who have earned degrees from the university include Shaquille O'Neal (2005), [172] Lisa Leslie, [173] Michael Russell (2012), [174] and Larry Fitzgerald (2016). Fitzgerald graduated with a bachelor's degree shortly before his 33rd birthday (he began college in 2002 at the University of Pittsburgh) and was a spokesman for UoPX. [175]
Several American policymakers have been affiliated with University of Phoenix and Apollo Education. Former secretary of the Department of Education, Margaret Spellings, is a member of the Apollo Group Board of Directors. [176] Jane Oates, a former staffer for Senator Ted Kennedy and the Department of Labor, became the Apollo Group's vice president for external relations in 2013. [177] Nancy Pelosi's close friendship with Sperling has been documented by Suzanne Mettler in Degrees of Inequality. [178] University of Phoenix has community partnerships with Boys and Girls Clubs of America, the American Red Cross, and the Junior League. [179] [ self-published source? ] In 2016, University of Phoenix partnered with the ASIS Foundation to provide scholarships for students studying for security-related degrees. In March 2016, the first ten scholarship recipients were announced. [180] In 2017, the Vistria Group was part of the deal with Apollo Global Management to take over the schools. Vistria included two friends of Barack Obama: Miller and Martin Nesbitt. [75] In 2019, the Apollo Education Group was the third largest higher education lobby, and has 18 lobbyists at the federal level. [181] In 2021, UoPX demanded that the Republican Attorneys General Association refund a donation of more than $50,000 after the organization was allegedly involved in instigating the 2021 United States Capitol attack. [182]
The University of Idaho is a public land-grant research university in Moscow, Idaho. It was the state's sole university for 71 years, until 1963.
John Glen Sperling was an American billionaire businessman who is credited with having led the contemporary for-profit education movement in the United States The fortune he amassed was based on his founding of the for-profit University of Phoenix for working adults in 1976, which became part of the publicly traded Apollo Group. Sperling brought the business model of higher education to the forefront, a model that employed the scientific management of higher education to the forefront: diminishing the power and importance of labor, increasing the importance of technology, marketing and advertising, and as University of Phoenix cofounder John D. Murphy explained, maximizing profit. For ventures ranging from pet cloning to green energy, he has widely been described as an "eccentric" self-made man by The Washington Post and other media.
The University of Arizona Global Campus is a public online university affiliated with the University of Arizona. The university announced a deal to acquire Ashford University in 2020 and completed the deal in 2023.
The Art Institutes (AI) were a private for-profit system of art schools in the United States.
Walden University is a private for-profit online university headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It offers bachelor's, master's, doctoral, and specialist degrees. The university is owned by Adtalem Global Education, which purchased the university in August 2021. The institution is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
Grand Canyon University (GCU) is a private for-profit Christian university in Phoenix, Arizona. The university offers degrees in over 200 areas of study and is administratively divided into 9 colleges. As of September 2023, more than 100,000 students were enrolled online and in person, making it one of the largest Christian universities by enrollment.
Apollo Education Group, Inc. is an American corporation based in the South Phoenix area of Phoenix, Arizona, with an additional corporate office in Chicago, Illinois. It is privately-owned by a consortium of investors including The Vistria Group, LLC and funds affiliated with Apollo Global Management, LLC.
In the United States, higher education is an optional stage of formal learning following secondary education. It is also referred to as post-secondary education, third-stage, third-level, or tertiary education. It covers stages 5 to 8 on the International ISCED 2011 scale. It is delivered at 3,931 Title IV degree-granting institutions, known as colleges or universities. These may be public or private universities, research universities, liberal arts colleges, community colleges, or for-profit colleges. U.S. higher education is loosely regulated by the government and by several third-party organizations.
Everest College was a system of colleges in the United States, and with Wyotech, made up Zenith Education. It was until 2015 a system of for-profit colleges in the United States and the Canadian province of Ontario, owned and operated by Corinthian Colleges, Inc. In 2021, former Everest students were made eligible for automatic student loan debt relief through the US Department of Education.
Argosy University was a private for-profit university with campuses throughout the United States owned by Dream Center Education Holdings (DCEH), LLC and Education Management Corporation.
South University is a private for-profit university with its main campus and online operations in Savannah, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1899, South University consists of its School of Pharmacy, College of Nursing and Public Health, College of Health Professions, College of Business, College of Theology, and College of Arts and Sciences. The university is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.
Zovio, formerly Bridgepoint Education, Inc. (BPI), was a publicly held, American for-profit education services company. It was the online program manager for one online university, the University of Arizona Global Campus, until the contract termination was announced August 1, 2022. In April 2019, the company changed its name to Zovio, moving its headquarters to Chandler, Arizona. In 2020, the company sold Ashford University to the University of Arizona. Zovio also owned Waypoint Outcomes and Fullstack Academy and traded on NASDAQ under the ticket symbol ZVO.
Education Management Corporation (EDMC) was a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based operator of for-profit post-secondary educational institutions in the United States and Canada. The company was founded in 1962. At its peak in 2011, Education Management Corporation operated 110 schools through its higher education divisions: Argosy University, The Art Institutes, Brown Mackie College, and South University, and enrolled 158,300 students.
California College San Diego (CCSD) was a private college in San Diego, California. The college was one of four educational institutions affiliated with the Salt Lake City–based Center for Excellence in Higher Education (CEHE). It awarded associate, bachelor's, and master's programs in healthcare, business, and technology. The college was accredited by Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC) and was affiliated with Stevens-Henager College for providing online education.
CollegeAmerica was a private for-profit college with its main campus in Denver, Colorado. The college was one of four educational institutions affiliated with the Salt Lake City-based Center for Excellence in Higher Education (CEHE). It was founded as the training division of Control Data Corporation. Although it was previously accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges, all institutions owned by CEHE were placed on probation in September 2018 because "the inputs, resources, and processes of CEHE schools are designed and implemented in a manner that is not designed for student success." After losing accreditation at one of its campuses in April 2021, the company froze new enrollment at all of its campuses before closing them all by the end of 2021.
Fortis College is a private for-profit college with multiple campuses throughout the United States. It was established in 2008 and is operated by Education Affiliates and owned by JLL Partners.
For-profit higher education in the United States refers to the commercialization and privatization of American higher education institutions. For-profit colleges have been the most recognizable for-profit institutions, and more recently with online program managers, but commercialization has been part of US higher education for centuries. Privatization of public institutions has been increasing since at least the 1980s.
Purdue University Global, Inc. is a public online university that is a separately accredited part of the Purdue University system. Its primary focus is educating working adults.
Cumer Scott Green is an American businessman and academic administrator serving as the 19th president of the University of Idaho in Moscow. Green took office in July 2019, and has been characterized as a "non-traditional" choice for the role, as he has neither a doctorate nor a background in higher education.
For-profit colleges, also known as proprietary colleges, are post-secondary schools that rely on investors, and survive by making a profit. They include for-profit vocational and technical schools, career colleges, and predominantly online universities. For-profit colleges have frequently offered career-oriented curricula including culinary arts, business and technology, and health care. These institutions have a long history in the US, and grew rapidly from 1972 to 2009. The growth of for-profit education has been fueled by government funding as well as corporate investment, including private equity.
{{cite web}}
: External link in |title=
(help)