> So are the twenty-to thirty other names their university uses.
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meltdarok
http://hometown.aol.com/meltdarok/
February 11, 2007
Troubles Grow for a University Built on Profits
By SAM DILLON
PHOENIX — The University of Phoenix became the nation’s largest private
university by delivering high profits to investors and a solid, albeit
low-overhead, education to midcareer workers seeking college degrees.
But its reputation is fraying as prominent educators, students and some
of its own former administrators say the relentless pressure for higher
profits, at a university that gets more federal student financial aid
than any other, has eroded academic quality.
According to federal statistics and government audits, the university
relies more on part-time instructors than all but a few other
postsecondary institutions, and its accelerated academic schedule races
students through course work in about half the time of traditional
universities. The university says that its graduation rate, using the
federal standard, is 16 percent, which is among the nation’s lowest,
according to Department of Education data. But the university has dozens
of campuses, and at many, the rate is even lower.
In an interview, William J. Pepicello, the university’s new president,
defended its academic quality and said it met the needs of working
students who had been largely ignored by traditional colleges.
But many students say they have had infuriating experiences at the
university before dropping out, contributing to the poor graduation
rate. In recent interviews, current and former students in Arizona,
California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas and
Washington who studied at University of Phoenix campuses in those states
or online complained of instructional shortcuts, unqualified professors
and recruiting abuses. Many of their comments echoed experiences
reported by thousands of other students on consumer Web sites.
The complaints have built through months of turmoil. The president
resigned, as did the chief executive and other top officers at the
Apollo Group, the university’s parent corporation. A federal court
reinstated a lawsuit accusing the university of fraudulently obtaining
hundreds of millions of dollars in financial aid. The university denies
wrongdoing. Apollo stock fell so far that in November, CNBC featured it
on a “Biggest Losers” segment. The stock has since gained back some
ground. In November, the Intel Corporation excluded the university from
its tuition reimbursement program, saying it lacked top-notch accreditation.
It adds up to a damaging turnaround for an institution that rocketed
from makeshift origins here in 1976 to become the nation’s largest
private university, with 300,000 students on campuses in 39 states and
online. Its fortunes are closely watched because it is the giant of
for-profit postsecondary education; it received $1.8 billion in federal
student aid in 2004-5.
“Wall Street has put them under inordinate pressure to keep up the
profits, and my take on it is that they succumbed to that,” said David
W. Breneman, dean of the Curry School of Education at the University of
Virginia. “They seem to have really stumbled.”
In the interview, Dr. Pepicello shrugged off the bad news. Many top
corporations still pay for employees to attend the university, he said,
and the exodus of top officials has resulted from a healthy search for
new directions. “We are reinventing ourselves,” Dr. Pepicello said.
The government measures graduation rates as the percentage of first-time
undergraduates who obtain a degree within six years. On average across
all American universities, the rate is 55 percent. Dr. Pepicello said
this was a poor yardstick for comparing other universities with his,
which serves mostly older students who started college elsewhere.
Alongside the 16 percent rate, the university Web site also publishes a
59 percent graduation rate, but that is based on nonstandard
calculations and does not allow comparison with other universities, he
said. The official rates at some University of Phoenix campuses are
extremely low — 6 percent at the Southern California campus, 4 percent
among online students — and he acknowledged extraordinary attrition
among younger students.
“We have not done as good a job as we could,” he said, adding that the
university was creating tutoring and other services to help keep students.
“The university takes quality in the classroom seriously,” he said. The
university brings a low-overhead approach not only to its campuses, most
of which are office buildings near freeways, but also to its academic
model. About 95 percent of instructors are part-time, according to
federal statistics, compared with an average of 47 percent across all
universities. Most have full-time day jobs. Courses are written at
university headquarters, easing class preparation time for instructors.
The College Board reports the university’s annual tuition and fees as
$9,630, about half the average at private four-year colleges and twice
that of four-year public colleges.
Students take one course at a time, online or in evening classes, which
meet for four hours, once a week, for five or six weeks, depending on
degree level. As a result, students spend 20 to 24 hours with an
instructor during each course, compared with about 40 hours at a
traditional university. The university also requires students to teach
one another by working on projects for four or five hours per week in
what it calls “learning teams.”
Government auditors in 2000 ruled that this schedule fell short of the
minimum time required for federal aid programs, and the university paid
a $6 million settlement. But in 2002, the Department of Education
relaxed its requirements, and the university’s stripped-down schedule is
an attractive feature for many adults eager to obtain a university
degree while working. But critics say it leaves courses with little meat.
“Their business degree is an M.B.A. Lite,” said Henry M. Levin, a
professor of higher education at Teachers College at Columbia
University. “I’ve looked at their course materials. It’s a very low
level of instruction.”
In November, the university’s reliance on part-time faculty caused a
problem with Intel, hundreds of whose employees it has educated. Alan
Fisher, an Intel manager, said the company had decided to pay for
employees to attend only highly accredited programs. Although Phoenix is
regionally accredited, it lacks approval from the most prestigious
accrediting agency for business schools, the Association to Advance
Collegiate Schools of Business.
John J. Fernandes, the association’s president, said the university had
never applied. “They’re smart enough to understand their chances of
approval would be low,” Mr. Fernandes said. “They have a lot of
come-and-go faculty. We like institutions where the faculty is stable
and can ensure that students are being educated by somebody who knows
what they’re doing.”
Dr. Pepicello defended the effectiveness of the faculty, saying
instructors were carefully certified.
Most educators acknowledge that the university has helped traditional
institutions recognize the needs of older students.
Some of the university’s detractors suggest that it has always relied
too much on part-time faculty and raced too quickly through course
material. Others say the university’s academic program was once better
but has deteriorated in breakneck expansion — it has opened 50 campuses
in a decade. Today, even a cursory Internet search will turn up
criticism on sites like
ripoffreport.com and
uopexperience.com.
“Phoenix claims that 95 percent of their students are satisfied, but the
reports we get indicate otherwise,” said James R. Hood, founder of a
similar site,
consumeraffairs.com.
Many reports follow a similar pattern. Students say they liked
recruiters’ descriptions of the classes, but after enrolling concluded
that they were learning too little or paying too much. Many who quit say
they were left with huge debts.
Robert Wancha, 42, a former National Guard commander who is pursuing a
bachelor’s degree in information technology at the university’s Detroit
campus, said that in a computer course last fall his instructor,
Christopher G. Stanglewicz, had boasted that he had a doctorate but did
little teaching, instead assigning students to work in learning teams
while he toyed with his computer.
Mr. Stanglewicz, reached at his home, acknowledged that he had covered
only a fraction of the syllabus , partly, he said, because the
university required him to cram too much information into too few sessions.
“Students get overwhelmed,” he said. Mr. Stanglewicz asserted in the
interview that he had earned a doctorate in economics from the
University of Kentucky. But the authorities there said his name was not
in their records. (Dr. Pepicello said that Mr. Stanglewicz had never
told the university that he had a doctorate, and that he was qualified
to teach.)
Not all students are critics. Yvonne-Louise Catino, 43, of Bloomington,
Minn., who is studying online for a doctorate, said she believed she was
getting a rigorous education. In a week, Ms. Catino said, she might read
eight journal articles and write several essays. “I love the online
environment,” she said, “being able to direct where I want to go.”
But some students said their early enthusiasm had soured.
Stacey Clark, 32, an office manager in East Wenatchee, Wash., enrolled
in online courses in April and was delighted to receive A’s in her first
courses, she said. Later, Ms. Clark decided her instructors were too
disengaged to criticize her work. One returned a 2,500-word essay on
performance-enhancing drugs with an A but not one comment, she said.
“You’re not learning from an actual teacher, you’re teaching yourself,”
Ms. Clark said.
Many students accuse recruiters of misleading them, and the university’s
legal troubles trace back to similar accusations of recruitment abuses.
In 2003, two enrollment counselors in California filed a whistle-blower
lawsuit in federal court accusing the university of paying them based on
how many students they enrolled, a violation of a federal rule.
After the lawsuit was filed, the Department of Education sent inspectors
to California and Arizona campuses. The department’s report, which
became public in 2004, concluded that the university had provided
incentives to recruit unqualified students and “systematically operates
in a duplicitous manner.”
The university paid $9.8 million to settle the matter, while admitting
no wrongdoing. But the department’s searing portrait of academic abuse
aroused skepticism among many educators.
Dr. Breneman was finishing a chapter on the university in a book he
helped edit when he read the report in 2004. He said he found it
“credible and compelling.”
When the book, “Earnings from Learning: the Rise of For-Profit
Universities,” was published last year, it said the university’s
academic model was convenient for working students, but included a
“cautionary note” saying the recruiting scandal had raised “disturbing
questions.”
Those questions are likely to dog the university as it defends itself in
the lawsuit, which a district court had dismissed but an appellate court
reinstated in September. The university could be forced to repay
hundreds of millions of dollars if it loses. It asked the Supreme Court
last month to review the appellate ruling, arguing that an adverse
outcome in the lawsuit could expose it to “potentially bankrupting
liability.”
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
