Dive Temporary:
- The College of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s school senate is publicly objecting to the state system’s potential acquisition of the College of Phoenix, as soon as a premiere for-profit establishment, however which has since misplaced lots of of hundreds of scholars and important clout within the sector.
- School members registered issues a few potential sale in an undated open letter to the College of Arkansas System governing board and Donald Bobbitt, the system president. They expressed fears in regards to the system’s branding being related to the College of Phoenix, which they are saying has a historical past of poor scholar outcomes and deceptive advertising and marketing in regards to the high quality of its applications.
- The professors urged the Arkansas system to as a substitute make investments funding “right here in the one state in America the place one can nonetheless discover diamonds.”
Dive Perception:
The College of Phoenix was as soon as a powerhouse establishment, enrolling nearly half 1,000,000 college students at its peak in 2010. Its enrollment has since dwindled to just about 86,000 as of fall 2021, in response to essentially the most lately obtainable federal knowledge.
Nonetheless, the establishment bled college students over time amid dangerous press in regards to the for-profit business and alleged deceptive advertising and marketing practices.
The College of Phoenix epitomized this criticism. In a high-profile deal in 2019, the faculty struck a $191 million settlement settlement with the Federal Commerce Fee over allegations it misrepresented its relationships with main employers like Adobe and Microsoft in its ads.
The college has since tried to streamline operations and shake off its dangerous fame. It stated final yr it’s on observe to shut all however considered one of its bodily campuses by 2024. The faculty’s web site lists 10 campuses in California, and one every in Texas, Nevada and Hawaii.
In the meantime, College of Arkansas school stay unimpressed.
Of their letter, they tore into a possible deal, writing that the faculty’s “historical past will linger for years to return, and our campus is on the most danger for affiliation with it.”
“The College of Phoenix has confirmed itself, via strikingly low commencement and retention charges, to be unsuccessful at serving to college students attain their academic targets, anathema to what we do right here,” the college senate wrote.
The precise particulars of a possible sale haven’t materialized. Nonetheless, the system has stated it might use an affiliated nonprofit entity to presumably buy the College of Phoenix and remold it into an impartial, on-line nonprofit.
The Arkansas Occasions, which first reported the prospect of a sale, valued the deal between $500 million to $700 million.
Arkansas officers have stated a licensing association below negotiation with the College of Phoenix might yield about $20 million for the system yearly, a degree school representatives referenced of their letter.
However they wrote they’ve “critical reservations about that sustainability.”
A spokesperson for the system, which enrolls almost 31,000 college students, didn’t reply to a request for remark Thursday.
