Already under constant fire from Capitol Hill Democrats screaming for tighter regulations, the for-profit college sector now has bigger problems on its hands.
The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Bridgepoint Education Inc. over the compensation of admissions staff members, the company announced Monday in a corporate filing. The for-profit is also facing a serious accreditation challenge for its Ashford University, which is scrambling to retain regional accreditation.
The University of Phoenix, the nation’s largest for-profit university, is closing 115 of its brick-and-mortar locations, including 25 main campuses and 90 smaller satellite learning centers. The closings will affect some 13,000 students, about 4 percent of its student body of 328,000.
Last week the for-profit behemoth University of Phoenix said it would close 115 locations. The move comes on the heels of a late September decision by Kaplan Higher Education to stop new enrollment at nine of its sites and consolidate four campuses.
Advertisements touting for-profit universities are everywhere. Schools such as Apollo Group Inc. (APOL)’s University of Phoenix peddle instruction in person and online, promising that students can earn their degrees on their own time, in their own homes -- even in their pajamas.
The University of Phoenix spent the most money on Google Adwords -- roughly $170,000 per day -- in the third quarter of 2012, according to a recent report by Wordstream, an online advertising consulting firm, cited by the Daily Mail. Ask.com, Amazon.com, Zappos.com and Hotels.com came in second, third, fourth and fifth, respectively.
Grand Canyon University, selected last month as the recipient of a 217-acre campus in Northfield, Mass., that was to be given to a Christian institution, has decided that it will not accept the property after all.