Maxie Burch knew something was wrong when his campus e-mail account stopped working one recent morning. Then a maintenance man showed up to change the locks on his office door at Grand Canyon University, where the associate professor of Christian studies had taught for eight years. At 3:30 that afternoon, two security guards and a university official arrived to escort him from the campus.
Yet another private-equity investor has entered the for-profit higher-education industry. Liberty Partners, a $1.8-billion fund based in New York City, announced on Wednesday that it had acquired...