Ashford to merge and become independent non-profit university

Well, this is some great news in my opinion. As a current student on track to graduate in May, I have nothing bad to say about the university other than the negative press that always pops up.

 

I have to admit that I didn’t know that Ashford and URockies were related. Hopefully the merger will result in improving Ashford (the Ashford component) rather than dragging down URockies.

 

It’s true. Their prices are quite high. But I’ve never heard any complaints about the quality of their programs.

 

So which one of those universities are facing financial difficulties? Being cynical, but if they were both doing great then there will be no need for the merger.

 

Being a for-profit publicly traded company (BPI), they have to consistently grow profits for shareholders. That's not exactly an easy task for a college. Removing that aspect puts the focus solely back where it should be.

 

The parent BPI is going to break off into some kind of online school servicing business model

https://www.thestreet.com/story/14520136/1/ashford-university-and-university-of-the-rockies-plan-to-merge-and-become-an-independent-non-profit-university.html

 

This seems all to similar to the Grand Canyon proposal a couple of years ago. BPI remains for-profit sells it's services to the non-profit. It would be interesting to see how the divestiture of assets between the two comes into play. As in the GCU proposal, it seemed as though the school was the building and the students. Curriculum and most everything else remained with the for-profit entity. I believe that is what essentially killed the deal(and that was with HLC which traditionally is less strict than WASC).

 

BTW, HLC approved GCU's revised non-profit conversion plan about two weeks ago. https://www.chronicle.com/article/On-Its-2nd-Try-Grand-Canyon/242752