Yes, Phoenix again
Last week, Bloomberg reported extensively on University of Phoenix. Highlights include:
…While Phoenix has succeeded in drawing students, most don’t graduate, leaving them without degrees and often burdened by loans. Only 8.9 percent of Phoenix students without prior college experience complete a degree in six years, including 5 percent of those who attend classes online, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, in Washington. The national graduation rate is 56.1 percent for four-year schools and 30.9 percent for two-year schools….
…. Phoenix’s dropout rate means the school needs to recruit 250,000 new students a year — equivalent to six University of Michigans — to maintain current enrollments, said former Apollo manager Mark DeFusco, now an education investment banker at Berkery, Noyes & Co. in New York.
“The replacement curve is astronomical,” DeFusco said. “You have to feed the beast.”….
….In tape-recorded telephone calls heard by Bloomberg News, Axia recruiters told Wall Street researchers posing as potential applicants that its credits could be transferred to Harvard University and Columbia University. Those schools don’t grant transfer credit for online undergraduate courses, the universities’ spokesmen said in e-mails…
…Simon Saffery, 30, a Hawaii resident, transferred to Phoenix’s online program as a junior in 2006 and graduated last year with a 3.9 average out of 4.0 in computer science. He said he has applied for 25 entry-level information technology jobs without receiving a single interview. Almost half of the openings he sought were at Apollo itself, Saffery said. He is unemployed, owes $45,000 in student loans and may declare bankruptcy, Saffery said….
This report is quite lengthy, but well worth a read because it repeats many of the themes mentioned here at this site.
