Posted on 04/28/2017 9:32:36 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The higher education industry is overdue for a shakeout. For decades, it has pushed up tuition at three times the rate of inflation and increasingly relied on students indenturing their futures with huge debts that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. Meanwhile, technological change in the form of online education has flourished as a low-cost alternative, and for-profit universities, free from the archaic practices of traditional higher education (including tenure) have grown luxuriantly under what amounts to a price umbrella maintained by traditional universities.
Able to focus on career preparation and free from the academic fashions that inject political correctness into the curriculum, private higher education became such a threat that the Obama administration cracked down on it. To be sure, the price umbrella has attracted some dodgy operators, and there have been abuses where students have borrowed easy money available under federal student loan programs and acquired education of dubious value. But there have also been many graduates of reputable programs, such as those of Kaplan and DeVry, who have launched careers.
Yesterday, it was revealed that Purdue University, a Big Ten land grant college with a historic focus on engineering, has acquired for-profit Kaplan University, which itself had been years ago acquired by Graham Holdings, an investment vehicle for the family that had owned the Washington Post. This is an unprecedented move, combining the efficiency, online expertise, and career focus of a private sector school with the prestige, academic and financial resources, and depth of a highly esteemed public university.
In revealing the acquisition, Purdue’s president, former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, revealed a strategy at work:
Purdue President Mitch Daniels said the school wanted to stay true to its land grant mission of educating as many people as possible, but he recognized it couldn’t build an online presence alone.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
This is not going to enhance the prestige of Purdue. I cannot see this helping Purdue’s graduates find employment.
Interesting. Purdue and IU were one unified campus in Indiana (Fort Wayne) and just parted ways.
My real concern is - Will this have any impact on Harry’s Chocolate Shop ?
May be Harvard will acquire Capella and Yale will take over ITT Tech. YAY
Under Mitch Daniels, Purdue has kept tuition frozen for several years. It certainly helped with #2 son. I give Daniels credit for going this direction. The trend is clearly going toward a more internet based economy and there is no reason to think that higher education will not sooner or later follow the trend. He’s positioning Purdue to be in front of the trend.
Consider that Sears led the way in catalog sales, but didn’t make the jump to a serious internet presence. Their lack of vision led to bankruptcy. Daniels is attempting to avoid that.
Their football team still sucks though.
“degrees” from kaplan, devry, Phoenix, et. al. are often viewed so negatively that many recruiters and HR personnel automatically toss résumés showing such “degrees”, and many people with these “degrees” figure that out and leave them off their job applications.
fundamentally, most of these “degrees” are scams and these “universities” exist solely because of Federal student loans being handed out like candy. students are being fleeced because these “degrees” are nearly worthless, and loans are almost impossible to pay back and are not dischargable via bankruptcy, and thus represent a lifetime millstone around a young person’s neck.
That being said, many degrees offered by traditional colleges don’t offer much better prospects.
Basically, the whole college degree thing has turned into one gigantic scam because of endless Federal student loan money unless the degree is a STEM degree from an accredited institution that is accredited by a reputable accreditation organization.
If everyone with a Kaplan degree gets it rebranded Purdue, they’re gonna be pretty happy.
online education has flourished ???????????
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.