I just was told that Andrew Jackson was sold to a company called Socratic Ventures. ANyone have any idea who they are? Do they own a ton of schools?
Socratic Ventures, LLC is owned and operated by Joshua Pierce as a holding company for his personal and collaborative endeavors in the education sector. Socratic is focused on exploring new business models in education as well as providing corporate finance and strategy development services to the education industry. Though officially founded in 2010, Mr. Pierce started Socratic from his coffee table while attending business school in 2007. Since that time, Mr. Pierce has focused on working with the people and companies ambitious enough to see how the world could work differently but humble enough to take that journey in stride. In other words, Socratic Ventures is some trust fund kid's business experiment. This should be interesting...
Maybe, or maybe he's a self made entrepreneur. Either way I agree this should be interesting to watch! -=Steve=-
I thought the free tuition thing ended a long time ago. My prediction is that within a very short time tuition will triple.
"Socratic Ventures" seems a bit vague. This "overview" seems to be a combination of vague statements with broad generalities to end up saying nothing. What is the "first," and what is the "second" here? The author seems to sacrificing clarity to make himself sound profound.
None of the fluff on that web site says "self-made entrepreneur" to me but you could be right. The cynic in me sees someone else's money as the prime mover behind everything from Joshua's Harvard MBA to his ability to buy AJU. If I were an AJU student or alum, I would be worried.
Perhaps a case of daddy's millions being passed down. "So what are you going to do with it all m'boy?" "Well pop, I hear for-profit higher ed. is all the rage for scamming the big bucks straight from the the Fed these days." "That's my boy!" /tear Or... maybe I'm just being overly creative.
You better hurry up and finish your next degree with them :biggrin: I've been considering doing something with them, I mean their price is just about unbeatable!!! Tuition changes, if up rather than down, would affect my decision.
The kid is a state school (undergrad) educated person who earned him money working in investment banking. He has a philanthropic side, or at least it would appear so based on his work with the New York Charter School System. He only graduated last year, but he is running a VC, which means he is investing not only his, but other people's money. I'll be honest, I asked some staff here at HBS that interact with students on a regular basis if they remembered him, people had positive things to say and trust me, if the staff thinks a student is a prick and you inquire about him/her, they will give you their honest feedback. Based on that, I'm giving Joshua the benefit of the doubt.
Joshua Pierce has five years experience in the venture capital and financial analysis world, following his undergraduate work at Texas A&M and his Harvard MBA. 2007 — 2009, Project Manager, New Products, Edison Schools (A conservative school-voucher-oriented company, whose model was operating partnerships with troubled school districts. Recommended by the Wall Street Journal, Hoover Institution, and many others, their stock soared to $40 a share. Then came the revelations that their reported earnings, well, weren't there. Stock plunged to 14 cents. In 2008 they lost their last sizeable client, the Philadelphia public schools, and seem to be foundering.) May 2005 — July 2007 (2 years 3 months) Analyst, The Riverside Company, quite a large venture capital business with 185 professionals and a value in the billions. 2004 — 2005 (1 year ) Analyst, Salomon Smith Barney, the very large investment banking company.
Wow. This is great information... and a miracle of the internet, no? Some guy in Texas asks about some guy who bought some school in Alabama, so some guy in Massachusetts asks some guys who once knew the guy who bought the school who also attended the same school that the guy in Massachusetts works in.
Saltman, K. (2005). The Edison Schools: corporate schooling and the assault on public education. The Edison Schools: corporate ... - Google Books
It just doesn't make any sense, though. If he intends what you suggest, the structure is awkward. He's trying to link a subject with the object of a prepositional phrase.
Hmm, this is interesting indeed. I wonder how much he paid for AJU. It is a good investment i'd assume. And it is a good school... It's gone through DETC accreditation... I wonder how he's going to improve the school. BTW, Anyone know how much it takes to start or buy a school such as that? **I wouldn't mind starting a school like that**
Awkward, true, but it does make grammatical sense, even if it does not make semantic sense. Instead of saying "first" and "second" he could have said "former" and "latter."
