Ashford is closing its campus?

Hmmm, that one slipped by me.

Ashford University prepares for final graduation - Story

 

I think they did this to themselves. I'm from the Quad Cities area, and Ashford was a *real college* that was respected in our area. It used to be called Mount Saint Clare way back when I was small, and then it started to grow - we have a large parochial school population in our community and that was a popular choice. They went online right about when I found this board - I STRONGLY considered enrolling there since it was local AND online (not exceptionally common for a B&M school at that time). I might have posted here about it (or over on IC) but they were offering 75% off scholarships for people with 3.75 GPAs - I was super close to enrolling. I even applied, but went with TESU instead because they gave me credit for prior teaching. Anyway, I've watched this local program devolve into a joke.

 

Well said. I was going to attach a quote about the school from another poster, but I think enough has been said about the school's issues. Hopefully they'll get things on track. I hear Patten is closing their campus soon as well, so no school is immune.

 

Wasn't Ashford a financially struggling non-profit that was bought out by the for-profit company, Bridgepoint? Bridgepoint doesn't seem to be doing too well.

That's interesting. Patten is another non-profit that was bought out by a for-profit company.

 

I'm not sure what, exactly, the school "did to itself" as it will continue to exist. The school isn't closing. They are simply closing their physical campus and going all online. Campuses are expensive to maintain. And if the school's bread and butter is online learning then maintaining a bunch of old, even if beautiful, buildings wouldn't make much financial sense regardless of the tax status of the school.

 

In a sense, they didn't buy a school. They bought accreditation, then dumped the expensive part--the campus, faculty, buildings, and all that junk.

 

The physical campus and school that has operated inside of it since day 1 is gone. What Bridgepoint did was to simple gobble it up and added into their portfolio. They sold their integrity, and it bit them in the bum.

Rich's assessment is correct

 

They were in financial distress and would have closed much sooner. Worse yet, the school would be dead in all forms not just in the form of a campus closure. I'm no Ashford fan as they seem to have quite a few issues. But the school, as it existed prior to acquisition, was no longer viable and was dying.

Of course. The same happened with Patten, Waldorf and many others. But the clearest example of why this isn't necessarily a "loss of integrity" or a great tragedy would be Grand Canyon University. GCU was going under. And it was unlikely that they would generate enough philanthropic interest to save them. Going for-profit pulled that school from the brink. While donors weren't willing to pump money into it investors were more than happy to.

Personally, I think that's the greatest disservice that for-profit schools offer to the broader community. I think we need to allow many more of these small and non-viable non-profit schools to succumb to their economic deaths.

 

Ashford didn't do anything to itself in the context you mean. They changed their accreditation from hlc to wasc. As such, they are closing their campus and moving everything over to San Diego where they will be fully online with no campus. All of their graduations will be held in San Diego now.

 

I thought they had to switch to WASC because their HQ is in California. HLC was threatening them with a revocation of accreditation because most of their operations were outside of their region. I never thought that WASC cared that they had a campus outside their region. There are several RA schools with campuses outside the region of their accreditor.

 

I don't know to which "you" you're responding, but I'll take a shot. What you say and what's been said can both be true; they're not mutually exclusive.

 

I've just learned that Patten will not be holding physical graduation this year :-( It may not even be directly tied to a financial thing for them, it may just be a matter of not having enough graduates to justify it, as there are schools with a good number of enrollments and low graduation rates.

I spoke to one school official at another school who talked about his plan to institute a Diploma graduation model. Ashworth does this and so they always have more than enough demand for a physical graduation ceremony. How do I feel about the Diploma grads being the catalyst for it? Mehhhhh. But hey, it doesn't harm anyone and at least it keeps the ceremonies going every year.

 

??

That's not how it happened. Everything stayed local- our faculty, everything. When they went online, THEY didn't "go online" there were bought by an "online education" company that already had everything in place- business as usual.
I don't know if they were in financial trouble or if they thought that somehow Bridgepoint would be their savior, but what happened in reality is that Bridgepoint came in- ate the college and left our B&M school to die on the vine- which it did (would it have died anyway? I don't know). Was this deliberate to let our B&M die? Maybe. I can't imagine Bridgepoint not deliberately undermining the physical campus in some way- either through funds allocations (restriction) or something else.

I don't know how feasible it is for small private colleges to compete with the larger colleges as "everyone" begins to embrace technology- I'm sure that expanding to offer online options on their own was probably more than a little college in Clinton could handle. I'm sure they assumed Bridgepoint would handle all the heavy lifting for them. In my opinion, I still do believe they did this to themselves.

 

While I think it is a delightfully romantic notion to consider that this naive little college was taken advantage of by a big evil corporation that sucked out their soul and spit out the shell of a once great college, I think that it sort of assumes that there were incompetent people at the helm who were talked into something that they didn't understand.

The president at the time of the acquisition, the late Dr. Michael Kaelke, was a seasoned academic administrator and also served as the president of Sheldon Jackson College, another small school that ended up closing its doors after finding itself in a similar financial situation to Franciscan University of the Prairies.

It was widely reported that the school was in financial trouble and that enrollment had dropped below 500.

Did a corporation, essentially, buy their accreditation? They did. Because beside the accreditation and the real estate there was nothing else they could sell. Had they not "done this to themselves" then they would have closed entirely and the campus would already be a strip mall with a Target, Bed Bath and Beyond and an Outback Steakhouse. It wasn't a financially viable college that was cut down in its prime by shysters. It was a dying college that, in some ways, lives on despite the sale of its campus and its conversion to for-profit status. It's not much of a legacy. But they evidently felt it was better than just being included on the state's list of closed schools.

 

Target, Bed Bath and Beyond AND Outback Steakhouse? You've never been to Clinton.
nonetheless, we see it differently, and that's ok.

 

Dairy Queen, Wal-Mart, and a dollar store?

Add a cemetery and 30 or 40 churches and you have the complete set. Oh, and get rid of that traffic light before someone tries to use it.

 

A few thoughts on this thread . . .

First, on Ashford:

It reminds me of what transpired when Union Institute & University bought Vermont College from Norwich University. They over-extended themselves with the purchase, and ultimately sold off their investment to what would become the rather cool Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Why did Union buy V.C. in the first place? This is speculation, but remember that Union had gotten into hot water with the Ohio Board of Regents, which potentially threatened their accreditation. In a worst-case scenario, they could have packed up and moved from Ohio (where they were accredited by North Central) to Vermont (where they would have come under the New England Association.)

Second, Union traditionally had programs at only two levels – bachelor’s and doctorate. There were no Union master’s degrees. By buying V.C., they gained a few master’s-level programs. Ultimately they integrated the master’s programs into Union when they dumped V.C. Even then, they moved to the more recent online program models and trashed the older (and better) low-residency university-without-walls model.

(Historical note: the non-traditional programs at V.C. were originally affiliated with Goddard College, yet another institution that has been in financial straits for many years, before Goddard sold the programs to Norwich University, which placed them in Vermont College.)

Ah, but I have, and this thread brings back many memories. I spent quite a bit of time in Clinton when I did my dissertation research. Another school in Clinton that had gone down the tubes was the Redemptorist Center, which articulated a sales agreement with the Church of the New Song (a church founded by prison inmates and the focus of my dissertation). The potential purchase created a major scandal that was covered heavily by The Clinton Herald, and I had loads of fun pulling up useful microfilmed articles from the Herald at the Clinton Public Library. (This happened in 1972, and I was able to interview some of the folks in Clinton who were involved in the affair.)

As I recall, it was also the cheapest I ever got away on the road, when I paid $6 a night for a room at the Clinton YMCA. I had visited Clinton in the early 70’s, and re-visiting it for research some 20 years later was a hoot.

In addition to a couple of chapters in my dissertation, the Clinton affair was also covered in a book by Joe Grant called Voices From the Underground, which told the story of the Prisoners Digest International, which had an affiliation with the New Song and was involved in the Clinton hooplah. Majy years after its original issue, a revised version was released a few years ago by Michigan State University Press.
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Disclosure: I hold my Ph.D. from Union, having gone through the program in the good ol’ university-without-walls days before they sold their souls and become another cookie-cutter program. Another Union grad on this forum is Rich Douglas, who was one of the last to graduate under the UWW model. Yet another Union Grad, as a point of trivia, is Jane Sanders, Bernie’s wife and subject of the Burlington College thread on this forum.

 

I guess it doesn't matter, but it matters to me because I was there- and the picture painted in 2016 is not the truth of how everything unfolded. A simple search in my local newspaper pulled stories that help chronicle the timeline:

2001- Decline begins. A business woman was hired to steer the college into the future, making headlines because her background wasn't in education. After 9 months, the story changed to make it as if she was a consultant, she left quietly.

(hire) Colleges break with tradition in hiring presidents | Local News | qctimes.com

(fire) Mount St. Clare College president resigns | Local News | qctimes.com

The real issue? She was pro choice. This was a Catholic University run by nuns.
East Coast religious society questions teachings of Clinton college | Local News | qctimes.com

2002 - The college changed it's name to Franciscan "University" and promoted one of the teachers to President: Michael Kaelke

The Franciscan University will cut ties with church | Local News | qctimes.com

2005 - Kaelke makes a deal with Bridgepoint for all the right reasons. Bridgepoint is going to put butts in the seats and fill the dorms back to the way it was 5 years ago (the problem Sheila was hired to fix)
Everyone in our community freaks out because our other university Marycrest just got bought, but everyone assures Clinton that this keeps the community first. Members of Bridgepoint move to Clinton.
New owners get to know old school | Opinion | qctimes.com

3 months into the transaction Michael Kaelke resigns. Bridgepoint hires their own President.
Clinton university president resigns | Local News | qctimes.com

18 months in- Campus local enrollment goes up 50 students, but it makes the paper- that's a big deal here. Oh, and Bridgepoint enrolls 3500 online students. On-campus enrollment goes up 14% | Local News | qctimes.com


2007 - 90% of the students are online students
It's online class time | Local News | qctimes.com

2009 - funding in Iowa changes for childcare/preschool prompt the college to close their preschool facility that serves 80 children on campus *program had been active for 40 years. The community starts to take notice “The things that established (the college) here are going by the wayside,” she said.
Ashford to close child-care center at the end of the year | Local Education | qctimes.com

2012 - getting outta dodge. Bridgeport is fully operational in CA and tries to shift fully online by seeking WASC accreditation - wouldn't be a problem if they stayed in Clinton. Application denied. Ashford University denied accreditation, will appeal | Local Education | qctimes.com

Accreditation denial appealed- eventually granted - Ashford announces closure of Clinton campus Ashford Clinton campus to close in 2016 | Local Education | qctimes.com

 

A couple of minor adjustments/additions to what Steve reported....

Steve is correct that Union was made up of a bachelor's and a PhD program. But the term "UWW" ("University Without Walls") referred only to the bachelor's degree, not the PhD.

The UWW bachelor's degree was an outgrowth of the Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities (UECU), originally a consortium of schools brought together to consider new and adult-oriented methods for delivering university education. (Originally, the consortium was called the Union for Research and Experimentation in Higher Education.) Eventually, UECU formed as a degree-granting institution in Ohio and was promptly granted candidacy for accreditation. The UWW bachelor's programs were located in many different schools--most, but not all, members of the UECU consortium. Each school operated its own program. UECU also operated one. The PhD, however, was always a UECU thing, operated within it as the Union Graduate School. Unlike the UWW bachelor's programs, the PhD was not operated by the other schools in or out of the consortium.

A piece of trivia: as the UWW programs were being absorbed into their respective universities and the name was falling into disuse, a group of operators opened a school in California, calling it the University Without Walls. They maintained that the UECU never copyrighted the term. (Why am I not surprised?) Eventually, they re-named the school Sierra University. (Not to be confused with La Sierra University.) Eventually eventually, they went away.

Both the UGS PhD and the UWW bachelor's programs were designed around a concept called person-centered (or learner-centered) education, where the learner (largely) determined the goals, methods, and means of demonstrating mastery in the learning process, guided by faculty. As Steve noted, that stuff is long gone from the Union PhD program, and just about everywhere else. No one reading this will ever do a PhD like we did.

 

That was before my time, I'll have to look up Redemptorist Center- I've honestly never heard of it. I spent 2 decades working for the Eastern Iowa Community College District, so when Ashford closes, EICCD will be all that remains in Clinton.