Appreciate access to education
I’ll share one more response, one I almost passed on writing about. When Martin Springborg, a faculty member and technologist at Hennepin Technical College, described how online education can broaden access to higher education, it sounded just too familiar for this readership. But when I followed up with him, I realized that even some of us familiar with online education don’t always appreciate what simple access to education can mean to some students, like those serving overseas.
For him, it’s a professional issue and a personal one. His mother, who lives in rural Minnesota, has multiple sclerosis, “and would not have been able to return to college later in life were it not for online education,” he said. His sister, who has two kids and works full time, also earned her degree online. “As a faculty member, I’ve seen my online classes become increasingly diverse in practically every way possible — in race, age, region, people with disabilities, veterans currently on active duty in other countries,” Springborg said.
On top of the ice cream, that was great food for thought. Is there anything you’d add? If you have direct experience in online education, what do you think is misunderstood? Please let me know, and I’ll share some of the best responses in a future newsletter.
The M&A wave rolls on.
Two trends are emerging in the business of higher education: the rise of mergers and acquisitions and for-profit colleges converting to nonprofit status. A deal announced last month embodies both.
The nonprofit National University System’s purchase of the for-profit, all-online Northcentral University is in some ways a mini-me version of the Purdue-Kaplan deal (just without the part where the acquired organization stays on to run the online programs). The 35,000-student National University, the system’s San Diego-based flagship, already offers dozens of online degree programs. The system’s purchase of the 10,000-student Northcentral will give it an immediate boost in online doctoral degrees, said a university spokesman.
National also just bought the technology platform and curriculum of another for-profit organization — an operation called UniversityNow, which had attracted millions in venture capital but very few students to its college, called Patten University.
National did not disclose what it paid. Northcentral, founded in 1996 and owned by private-equity firms since 2008, was headed by two veterans of the for-profit-college sector. (One, David Harpool, was once the provost at Kaplan University; the other, George A. Burnett, once ran the company that owned the controversial Westwood College chain.)
Pace of M&A activity has picked up
National has bought colleges before. There were nonprofits — John F. Kennedy University, in 2009, City University of Seattle, in 2013 — and the for-profit WestMed, in 2007. Back then, such deals were pretty unusual for nonprofit institutions. But in the past year, it seems, the pace of merger-and-acquisition activity in the sector has picked up. I expect that trend to continue.
I’m not the only one thinking that way. A Moody’s Investors Service “comment” on business models released last month also spotlighted the still-slow but rising trend of college mergers. It also noted that they “continue to be difficult to execute with many preliminary conversations not leading to consummation.”
While we’re on the subject of business models, consider how Paul Quinn College in Dallas (and as of last month, Plano) is upending work-study. It’s a creative approach that manages to both expand work opportunities for students and bring in additional revenue for the institution.
And for a deeper look at that model — and many other insights on business models — check out this just-published report on “Sustaining the College Business Model” by my colleague Scott Carlson.
Got a tip you’d like to share or a question you’d like me to answer? Let me know at goldie@chronicle.com.