As Kaplan Sale Faces Final Hurdle, Purdue President Criticizes Faculty Opponents

Purdue University’s president, Mitch Daniels, and some of its faculty members are still sparring over the institution’s proposed purchase of Kaplan University.

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The Indiana Commission for Higher Education and the U.S. Department of Education have already approved the deal, and the regional accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, is scheduled to review the proposal in a hearing this week. The Lafayette Journal & Courier reported on Monday that some faculty members said they would travel to Chicago for the hearing in an effort to stop the acquisition.

“Our main goal is just to encourage the commission to consider sending this deal back to the Board of Trustees and to include proper faculty and student input,” said Alberto Rodriguez, chair of Purdue’s University Senate.

Daniels pushed back against the faculty protest, according to the newspaper, and specifically criticized a petition that raised concerns about Kaplan’s being under government investigation.

“Anyone who has signed that letter has been misled,” Daniels said. “By now, I don’t know how. These things have been refuted. If that had been turned in on a term paper, you’d have given it an F.”

The deal has been contentious since it was announced, in April. Some faculty members and other observers have questioned the university’s motives and said they feared that the quality of the university’s degrees could suffer. Critics of the plan have also complained that faculty members weren’t included in the decision-making process.

Others raised concerns that Kaplan, a for-profit chain, would retain control of its institutions while benefiting from the association with Purdue, prompting questions about whether the new entity could be considered a public university.

Daniels has argued that the move will allow Purdue to better serve adult students and expand its online offerings, the newspaper reported.

Kaplan has 29,000 students online and in person in Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. Under the deal, the Kaplan name would be dropped and the institution would be called Purdue University Global.

Chris Quintana is a breaking-news reporter. Follow him on Twitter @cquintanadc or email him at chris.quintana@chronicle.com.