OT: Purdue buys for-profit Kaplan University, 32k students
This is fascinating. Purdue buys a troubled, for-profit university to get access to the adult education market and to expand the student base. I guess the assumption is that you buy capability that already knows how to reach and deliver into this segment since Purdue would take too long to build the capability internally. Granted, it can be debated how effective Kaplan was in actually educating its students, I would hope Purdue would bring more rigor. I am intrigued with how this may affect Purdue's brand or if they are able to tier their offering without brand dilution.
If they are successful, does that spur other collegiate M&A? What would be the best college merger in terms of awesomeness?
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-prestigious-public-university-wants-…
Purdid
Oh no you Purdidn't!
is Pur-stupid. Did I do it right?
I think 3-9 comments on this joke is enough. Did I do THAT right?
I cannot tell if I am being Purduped...
Purdue paid one dollar to acquire Kaplan University’s assets and Kaplan will continue to run the school with essentially the same staff and faculty. In return, Kaplan will be entitled to a fee worth 12.5% of the new public, nonprofit benefit corporation’s revenue, according to documents that Graham Holdings filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
"Mr. President, we just bombed Russia. Citizens want to know if this increases the chances that they'll be drafted for war"
"It's a moot point"
Purdue Alums are fairly asking if the value of their degree is going to be diluted in the near future. Just because the deal has been done doesn't mean people can't ask about future consequences
Nice work on successfully inserted your political belief in a non-political conversation. "Former Republican governor" not just former governor. That really has nothing to do with the fact that his response was not a good one.
They did
So does this mean Purdue can build a football field at those locations and hold "on-campus" satellite camps there? Asking for a friend.
Signed,
JH
It's hard to be the first one to do something revolutionary, so this could blow up in Purdue's face, but it might not, which could mean a massive payoff in PR, prestige and...dollars(?).
My guess is that the longterm mission is about bringing credibility and quality to the online classroom, which we all know is a realm facing major stigma. If Purdue could accomplish that, they'd have effectively created a "way out" from under a worsening education bubble.
The bubble was largely born because too large a percentage of the population is needlessly attending college in search of diplomas with weak ROI. Online education *should* be much cheaper than traditional schooling, and -- aside from lacking laboratory and other hands-on components -- there's no theoretical reason why it can't approach that same level of quality. And the hands-on aspect could be partly solved if, say, Purdue's online version worked with urban trade schools to have their courses (cheaply) supplement trade schools education.
If West Lafayette could manage sensible costs and credibility/quality, they could also diminish (or outrightly erase?) concerns about the predatory nature of the Kaplan brand.
It won't be all, but it will be a lot.
In my company (Fortune 500 tech company), we do almost all of our training remotely. And we can't afford for it not to be effective, since the people we train have to then be billable on what they learned.
It's more and more unusual to have people fly in for on-site education.
That's not the model you want to use for everything, but it can apply to many situations.
The internet reports that Purdue bought Kaplan University because Kaplan was putting together a football program, and was about to field a team that could kick Purdue's butt.
In the same report, we learn that Rutgers is negotiating to purchase Paramus High School because Paramus was getting ready to challenge Purdue to a cross-town rivalry game.
Online colleges have a lot of room to grow. As a teacher we basically need to get a master's degree and online colleges are way better for that.
Brick and mortar colleges are limited as you have to be able to commute to it from where you live, they are over priced, and their Master's in Education degrees are an absolute joke where you learn nothing. High School classes are more difficult than the Master's in Education classes I took at GVSU. I am sure GVSU has other fine programs...their Master's in Education is a sheer joke - I can go on with countless details if anyone wishes.
I have since been working on another degree from an online institution and it is (1) more affordable, (2) more rigorous than GVSU's joke of a program, (3) no commute, (4) more options of what to study, and (5) more flexible with your time.
When my brother got his Masters in Education the teacher didn't do more than show up. Their final thesis was supposed to be 80 pages; one guy did 10, copied it 8 times and turned it in. Got an A.
Was this at Trump University?
I'd like to see the institutional rates per credit hour you are comparing. I am finishing a graduate degree and my total investment was around $20k as an in-state student @ CMU.
UOP is about 25-28k ... varies
DeVry is about 35k
Davenport is about 23k
Undergrad degrees at these "schools" are way more than state colleges.
Finally I will say that many people view the quality of for profit schools with skepticism. Your GVSU degree would be more respected than any of these 3.
#1 On GVSU: I am sure GVSU has many fine programs and overall is a nice school. Their Master's Degree in Education is a total joke, period. One class, the professor would spend 20 minutes reading children stories to us every class period. Another class we would do activities half of the days like making air balloon cars to race down the hallway. I had am instructor (they don't have PhDs) who would pop in videos and leave the room. I had an instructor start crying in the middle of class while debating me. I had a professor cancel the "semester project" worth 30% of our final grade on the day that it was due, because we were doing a fine job, it was summer, and students complained...I could go on and on. It is a joke. It was a total joke.
I will swear on my grandmothers grave that my classes in high school were more rigorous than GVSU Master's in Education classes.
#2 On Cost: GVSU charges $628 per credit hour, plus I have to commute and I have to pay for parking and then they make me buy books that we never read for anything.
The online school I am using just RAISED their price to about $350 per credit hout and I don't have to pay for gas or parking and they have never made me buy a book that we never used.
#3 On Respect: I don't care that GVSU is more respected than my other online university, because #1 my employer contractually will give me a raise no matter the school as it is accredited and #2 although GVSU has some great programs - their Master's in Education is a joke.
I've wondered about the implications of market pressures more lately because I live in New York where the state just made tuition at state school free (with some asteriks). I get that you want to train your next generation of engineers, scientists, doctors, etc., but didn't we just remove market pressures from the equation. In ten years, are we going to have 10,000 alums with degrees in Art from a SUNY school that have no real job placement prospects?
Seems like market pressures will correct some of the stuff in the college industry, but New York is heading in the opposite direction
If UMich ever devalues my degree by purchasing one of those clown schools, I'm going to be angry.
But once you get 10 years of experience in the field does your degree really matter?
If anything purchasing a school like this would devalue the degree for recent grads and future grads. Not alumni who have been working in industry for a decade or more. At that point your work history speaks for itself.
I agree that work experience matters more with increasing distance from "the degree," but I've been amazed more than once at how much value people place on those things years after doing so would seem to be reasonable.
Ask anyone in Club Kellogg (MBAs), Club Stanford (Silicon Valley), or, best of all, Club Harvard (lots of places).
But those are alumni networks. Do you think alumni networks would somehow disappear due to a percieved devaluation of an institute?
The last I heard, they were also in talks to buy St. Joseph, a small private school about 40 minutes north of Lafayette. I'm curious if that deal is still happening.
I hadn't heard that. Thanks for the update...I'll have to look into this.
If you've never heard of St. Joseph's College, it's a football footnote, as it's where the Bears used to camp--it's the setting for "Brian's Song".
If you have to ask what that is I will be in the corner applying for retirement.
I think OSU will try to purchase this college, since it is more aligned to their curriculum.
On the topic of for-profit schools, I think it will be very interesting to watch Grand Canyon University's basketball program in the coming years. Next year they are out of the transtition phase and will most likely make the NCAA tournament. They are currently in the WAC and have an athletic budget that dwarfs the rest of the conference. It will be interesting to see what the reaction is when the only for-profit D-I school is in the tournament, and what could potentially come of that. To think that there are stockholders that have an interest in an NCAA tournament game could be unsettling to some.
So who's going to buy the DeVry Institute? MSU or Rutgers?
Ten years ago I took online courses with Kaplan for my real estate license in Texas. The content, delivery and overall experience was easy and efficient. Great product for continuing education and certifications. Not sure I would recommend it for a real degree.
Most are loan sharks disguised as diploma mills, nothing more. Here in California, we have watched the Corinthian Colleges driven out of business by the feds after bilking veterans and poor inner city kids, turning them into indentured servants to their enormous student loans taken out to earn worthless degrees in highly marketable skills such as retailing.
Purdue is buying the content delivery and distance learning infrastructure, corporate park leases and student-customer base.
Is Purdue prestigious? Solid and respectable? Absolutely. In some engineering areas, I might even bump up to "strong", but prestigious? I am not sure.
Purdue is a top 10 engineering school. Currently US News has them at #8. By comparison Michigan is at #5. So yeah, I'd say Purdue is a prestigous engineering school.
https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/en…
Yeah, but who goes to Purdue for a degree other than Engineering? That is like going to Georgia Tech for a degree in the arts. You go to the school for what it is good at. And Purdue is one of the best Engineering schools in the country.
Since Michigan is only #27 in national universities and #5 in engineering would you say that outside engineering Michigan isn't prestigious?