Capella U., an Online For-Profit University, Plans Initial Public Offering of Stock

The Chronicle of Higher Education 4/19/2005

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http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2005/04/2005041903n.htm

SEC filing here:

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1104349/000095013405007574/c93867s1sv1.htm

 

What I found most interesting in the SEC filing is that 47% of their revenues come from doctoral programs.

With 12,000 students in total, that's a lot of doctoral students.

 

Where do I sign up?

(to purchase stocks -- not for a doctoral program)

 

Why do they even want to go public? They are making tons of money and they do not have to answer to shareholders.

Well get ready for rate hikes ahoy . Gotta increase the bottom line ya know.

To me their tuition is already too high, and this will probably make it far worse in the years to come. They aren't even on the radar screen for my Masters.

BTW how come they had almost 8.2 million in tax expense benefits?

 

Because they can sell up to 49% of their stock, make more money, and still not answer to the shareholders.

 

Yes, thats a lot. Thats always been their niche: grad students. They used to be called The Graduate School of America. Somehow the name was changed and now we have Capella (I never thought it was a good name for a university btw).

They now have over 5 disciplines with a combined total of 21 doctoral specializations. The school of psychology has 5, human services has 6, education has 7, and the school of business administration has 3. The average number of students per doctoral specialization is over 250. However, over half of these usually do not make it into the dissertation stage.

S

 

Perhaps the founders want to cash out a little bit. It's been more than a decade now.

 

I'm in one of their psychology doctoral programs. It would not surprise me at all to learn that there's a 50% drop out rate.

 

Hey, You again!

I'm a student there but now I think I'm gonna purchase their stocks too. By the time I'm done I think I will have my tution payed off with money I make from the same school! I just wished that I could make a profit from USF as well

Take care,
S

 

I believe Capella's doctoral program admission requirements are a 3.00 cumulative college/university GPA and an accredited Master's degree.

 

Actually, while it is true that the original core group of stockholders could arrange to keep 51% of the company and thereby outvote the 49% who are new shareholders, if that 51% were to somehow to manipulate things to the disadvantage of the 49%, they could be subject to shareholder lawsuits. Also, the Board of Directors had better have good director's liability insurance policies, if indeed they were planning on such shenanigans.

 

Gosh! My memory might be slipping in my old age, but I think I saw somewhere that 50% is the wash rate for doctoral programs generally, not just at Capella!

 

Hi Paul,

Yeah, I think that's probably right. BTW, one of the advantages of Capella is that it gives students substantial credit for their masters (except for the clinical psyd).

I hope I wasn't read as saying that there were NO admission requirements for Capella, just that the school (at least the General Psychology program) will pretty much admit any and all who meets basic entrance requirements (While he was the Psychology Program Director Bruce Weitz called their admissions approach 'inclusive').

I'm not arguing with this, or criticizing it.. However, combined with a marketing program that understandably empahsizes ease/convenience, I can see how there's a high washout rate.

Regards,
GME

 

Hi Paul - I've just been out surfing the net and decided to do something unusual (for me anyway), I visited some of the other "DL" websites. It's a bit funny to me because it seems that they spend most of their time talking about the events and people here at degreeinfo. That brings me to my point. While I was visiting a website called onlinelearningdirectory I ran across a person who seems to be posting under your name. I didn't think it was you as you are typically quite civil at degreeinfo and this person was extraordinarily nasty. I mean, he was talking about hitting people over the head with rocks, he was talking about "taking" women (I'm sorry but I couldn't tell if he was referring to beating up women or raping women as the word is used in both contexts) and in general he seemed to be rather sociopathic. My first thought was to return here and let you know so that you might contact the administrator of that website and try to put an end to that person posting under your name. I've gotten the impression that you're a bit of a religious person and so I can only imagine how you must feel about someone expressing such ideas in your name. I mean, people might actually come to believe that it's you posting this trash. In any case, I'll let you know if it continues. After all, you might have some grounds for legal action.
Jack
(sorry for being off-topic here, I'll do better with my future efforts)

 

Hi GME,

When I applied to Capella three years ago, I had to submit two letters of recommendation, turn in a letter of intent and schedule an interview with Dr. Yasgor, the chair of the I/O program in psychology. The interview lasted over an hour. And, yes, I had a 3.8 GPA and a Masters degree coming in. What was your experience during the admission process? Did they also schedule an interview with you?

S

 

Hi S,

Transcripts and two letters of rec. They said an interview was required, but one was never scheduled and I was notified that I was accepted.

Again, I have no particular criticism of this. You can run a fine program with this kind of admission policy (I actually work for a master's program that has a similar approach).

But I think the model can easily end up with a high washout rate.

Regards,
GME

 

I went to onlinelearningdirectory.com and cannot find a link to any forums. Most certainly what you are describing is not me and I would be interested to find out where this is taking place.

 

Hey GME,

thats ok, I understand what you are trying to say and for the most part, I agree with you. I was just curious about your experience during the admission process.

I met some great students at the seminars, and some that, well, you could tell they were not going to last. Still, at least the residency requirements filters out students who are only looking for a 100% online doctorate degree. Not that there is anything wrong with this, but I personally like the residency component as it provided me with the opportunity to do a lot of networking with fellow students. It also gave the chance to meet and talk with my instructors & my committee face to face.

Take care,

S