Enrollments Plunge at Many For-Profit Colleges

No, our Admissions Officers are paid a straight salary, not a sliding scale according to how many students are enrolled. When I first arrived, my office was in the admissions office and I used to listen as they answered questions from potential students. When students asked about how much money graduates could make, our admissions officers would give them the URL for the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. Measured growth has been a viable strategy for my institution for fifty years. It is possible to be financially viable without having to engage in deception.

 

Well, I can't really speak to that (I think that they all deserve raises, but they don't work for me). I can say that thanks to their efforts, we are not shrinking. :wink:

 

That is a lesson that many in corporate America need to learn.

 

In my experience teaching for UoP at the undergrad level (Bachelor's, I've never taught an Associate's level course for them), it's been somewhat rare for me to see a student with an Associate's degree from UoP or Axia (another UoP section) move on to the Bachelor's level. It certainly has happened, but it seems like most students I've had who held Associate degrees earned them somewhere else, then went for a Phoenix Bachelor's degree.

I have absolutely no idea what the possible implications of that are, I'm just passing along my personal experiences.

 

Read this (Keiser University drops lawsuit against community college - Schools - MiamiHerald.com), and then tell me if such cases do not contribute to the abandonment of expensive for-profit schools by potential students.

 

I think the best way to reduce the high cost of a college education is to eliminate federal subsidies and low interest subsidized loans that result in too much money chasing too few goods and inflate the cost of higher education.

 

In a recent meeting with investors to discuss the fourth quarter 2011 results, the Apollo Group CFO stated that:

So Apollo expects that UoP enrollment will continue to fall over the course of the 2011-2012 academic year. It will be interesting to see how low it can go. UoP's enrollment has already fallen by more than 95,000 students since the peak in 2010, and so it seems quite probable that the losses will exceed the 100,000 level as the current academic year progresses. Further losses, to 125,000 or maybe even 150,000, seem possible.

This has to be one of the most dramatic enrollment swings in the history of higher education. Of course, these numbers only apply to UoP, but it wouldn't be surprising if other for-profit schools were facing similar issues.

 

I would like to see the same rules apply to non-profits as well. Really, how about those $50K or more art history degrees?

 

This might have an effect also in the enrollment of online doctorate students. As the primary market for online doctorates seem to be online adjunct positions, with less students you will require also less online adjuncts. If online doctorate graduates see that there is no market for them, they will be less likely to enroll in online doctorate programs.

I believe that when a product or service does not add value to the economy, the product or service becomes obsolete and loses value.

If society realizes that these programs are not graduating the right people, it might be possible that they become obsolete in the short term.

Only time will tell.

 

While some reasonable regulation of for-profit colleges may be necessary, I disagree with the idea that the true value of a university education lies in a quickly realized good income. After graduating from Arkansas State University (an RA School) in 1982 with a B.A. in Political Science, it took me three years to find a job with a good income. After graduating, I flew back to my home in New Jersey and went back to my old summer job of working on the back of a garbage truck. I think a lot of folks in the Humanities and Social Sciences have had similar experiences. A college degree is what you make of it. It's not an automatic free ticket to the good life.

 

Keiser's lawsuit would not have had much effect on the enrollment patterns of the large publicly-traded for-profit schools (which most authors seem to believe are the only for-profit schools). The silly thing is that Ms. Miller, Florida State College's counsel seems blissfully unaware that in their blissful ignorance of the actual motivation behind the Dept. of Ed's. actions, those at Florida State College believe that new regulations will only affect their for-profit competitors. I wonder what she will say when the (over) regulators come knocking on her institution's door.

By the way, in my city, our local for-profit unviersity's undergraduate tuition is a whopping $7 per hour more than our taxpayer-subsidied state university (and online courses are less expensive than at the state university) and is HALF that of our local "non-profit" private university. Now, which is really expensive?

 

While enrollments are certainly down at Kaplan, Apollo/Phoenix, etc., they do not appear to be down at Capella, Walden, Jones International or at my institution. On the other hand, my former institution, California State University-San Bernardino (not a for-profit), has had such drastic enrollment issues that they have had to discontinue or consolidate a number of degree programs.

 

That is a big surprise to me. A CSU campus with enrollment issues? CSULB and CSUF are busting at the seams, I'm told. I suppose that there is not as much demand in San Bernardino.

 

It amazes me that some always think for-profit automatically means more expensive. USF is like $365 per graduate credit for in state tuition and $765 for out of state and AMU is $325. Granted, AMU does not compare in repuation to USF but for-profits are not the devil!

 

Perhaps CSUSB has had enrollment issues with specific majors, but as of this year, the campus as a whole is having no enrollment problems -- on the contrary, they are literally turning qualified students away. CSUSB was officially declared an "impacted campus" for 2011-2012, which means that they now have more qualified applicants than they can take. The announcement is posted at the CSUSB admissions website:

So qualified applicants from CSUSB's "defined local area" (basically San Bernardino and Riverside Counties) can still get in. But CSUSB is now turning away qualified applicants from other parts of the state, unless they are interested in a specific program that still has room.

Furthermore, the CSU system expects CSUSB to remain "impacted" for 2012-2013.

 

Most of the LA-area CSUs are now officially classified as "impacted". This includes Long Beach, Fullerton, Los Angeles, and San Bernardino. Northridge is impacted for incoming freshmen, but not for upper-division transfers. Dominguez Hills and Channel Islands are not currently impacted.

Fullerton is one of the most impacted campuses statewide. Not only does the campus get more applicants than it can handle, every single major at Fullerton now gets more applicants than they can handle.

 

Yes, I should have been more specific. I taught in the College of Education's graduate program, which, like other CSU campuses, had to consolidate programs due to declining enrollments. According to the department chair, the MA in instructional technology was suspended (even though it is still listed on the websites) and interested students were steered into an MA in 'STEM Education."

I was not considering the undergraduate programs, which, for many campuses, are, indeed, "impacted." I neglected to make that distinction clear. However, "impacted" simply means that colleges/programs have more applicants than they have available spaces for them. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that "California's public-college enrollment declined by 165,000 during the past academic year, even as the number of people trying to get into college grew." So, even though more people are trying to get into college, the colleges' ability to accommodate them (due to decreasing tax allotments) are causing a net decrease. This is what happened to my former institution. So the California public colleges are, actually, having "enrollment problems," albeit different enrollment problems than some of the larger for-profits.

 

Apollo Group (= University of Phoenix) announced their sixth straight quarter of enrollment decline.
Since the enrollment peak in 2010, their enrollment has fallen by over 20%.
They have lost more than 100,000 students.

476,500 3Q 2010
470,800 4Q 2010
438,100 1Q 2011
405,300 2Q 2011
398,400 3Q 2011
380,800 4Q 2011
373,100 1Q 2012

On the plus side, UoP saw an uptick in new enrollments relative to 1Q 2011.
Should have numbers for 2Q 2012 next week.

 

UoP enrollment has fallen for a 7th consecutive quarter.
Enrollment is now down by more than 120,000 students (or more than 25 %) since the peak in 2010.

Another way to look at it: since the peak in 2010, UoP has been shrinking by an average of about 190 students per day.

476,500 3Q 2010
470,800 4Q 2010
438,100 1Q 2011
405,300 2Q 2011
398,400 3Q 2011
380,800 4Q 2011
373,100 1Q 2012
355,800 2Q 2012