Proposed Merger Blurs the Line Between For-Profit Colleges and Public Universities – The New York Times
Unpacking a complicated deal between the University of Arizona and a scandal-plagued online education company.
Over the last decade, students have left for-profit colleges in droves, driven away by the industry’s reputation for poor quality, fraud and crushing debt. By contrast, enrollment in four-year public universities has increased as students gravitate toward lower prices and trusted brands. What they may not know is that the colleges they’re running from and those they’re running to are increasingly one and the same.
Take the University of Arizona, a 135-year-old public institution with a strong reputation for academic research. Last week, it announced plans to acquire a for-profit online college called Ashford University.
Administrators at Arizona said the deal would advance the university’s land-grant mission to serve adult students, with a bold step toward a technology-driven future. It would also, they said, yield new revenue in a time when the coronavirus pandemic has severely strained university budgets.
But the details of the transaction reveal something more complicated. It is less an acquisition than a long-term partnership.
The current owner of Ashford University is a publicly traded corporation called Zovio. Until its rebranding last year, Zovio was known as Bridgepoint Education. While the company recently acquired a few small start-up firms, Ashford is Zovio’s only major business. They are essentially one and the same.