at Concordia University.
Mr. Mueller earned his Master of Arts in Education degree
and his Bachelor of Arts degree in Education from Concordia University."
saved Grand Canyon University from insolvency.
Find him. Stop him from doing it again.
PBS, heavily subsidized by taxpayer grants, could not exist on its own. Neither could any institution of higher education, whether it is non-profit or for-profit.
Nevertheless, PBS broadcast a heavy-breathing episode called "Colllege, Inc," calling on for-profit schools to be tethered by even more government regulation. I have studied at a wide variety of schools and taught at three - a community college and two for-profits (Grand Canyon University and the University of Phoenix). I found most of the episode to be an excellent satire about what journalism could be, if reporters only had some integrity.
The journalistic technique used for this show is called the focus feature, which begins with one person, zooms out for the big picture, and concludes with a follow-up about that individual.
In this show, the focus is on Michael Clifford, an Evangelical with no college training but a knack for turning small colleges into profitable online schools. The prime example shown is Grand Canyon University, which became insolvent when its funds were lost to the biggest charitable scandal in history - the Arizona Baptist Foundation, a ponzi scheme promising investors a 15% return on their savings. They lost 90% instead.
GCU was going to close, so one man bought it for a group of investors. The transformed a bankrupt Baptist school of 3,000 students into a profitable online school of 40,000 students. They have spent millions on the local campus in Phoenix.
My former boss at UOP, Brian Mueller, is my current boss at GCU. He comes originally from a Missouri Synod school.
GCU has retained its Christian identity without having a religious requirement. I have an atheist in one class, but most denominations are represented. A university is quite different from a denominational school. A denomination's seminary teaches people to be loyal to the organization and to play the political game. A university emphasizes academic merit and allows freedom of expression.
GCU is well run, its biggest problems coming from expansion. The TV show failed to explain that exponential growth is full of growing pains, such as having servers shut down from rush hour demands.
The students and staff at GCU are thoughtful, considerate, and appreciative. I teach Old Testament, New Testament, church history, Christian world view, and communication. Many of my professors were world famous scholars, so the students are getting their money's worth. Online schools want PhDs, while denominational schools get those who play the political game and have the right last names.
Community Colleges
I learned computers at Glendale Community College and taught there as well. Community college tuition is heavily subsidized by taxpayers and by adjunct faculty working at low wages. Very few faculty at GCC are tenured, so the majority of teaching is done by adjuncts who make about 25% of a full-time salary, without any benefits. Therefore, when the PBS journalist seethed that an online school charges five times what a community college does, he was missing the facts by a wide margin. A community college is a valuable addition to any town, but the system has limits, such as offering only an associate's degree. No one will get a bachelor's degree or a master's from a community college, and any graduate program is more expensive than an associate's program, for obvious reasons.
University of Phoenix
I earned a master's degree in education, online, from UOP, after earning a PhD from Notre Dame and a master's from Yale, so I can do some comparisons.
An online education consists of discussions and weekly assignments, including work with learning teams. I found the MA program challenging, and it led to more work in online education.
I normally teach graduate courses in education year around. My students have often been employees and managers at UOP/Axia, so I know how their system works from that perspective. They want to do a good job because so much time and money is wasted if the wrong people start the program and drop out.
UOP has about 450,000 students, according to the program. The school had only about 150,000 when I began teaching there in 2002, but I do not take all the credit for its enrollment growth.
UOP is an opportunity school (like community colleges and the famous City College of New York, now CUNY). Everyone is accepted but not all graduate. My boss at Glendale Community advised bearing down on the class from day one and getting rid of the 2/3rds who did not belong. Nevertheless, the day one enrollment kept the school afloat.
UOP grew because traditional universities run their programs for the benefit of tenured faculty. Full-time working adults could not complete a degree program at the state or private schools in California, so John Sperling devised a way to make an alternative work for them. He was so successful that the education establishment took away his accreditation. He moved to Phoenix and obtained accreditation from a different regional commission and became a billionaire. He wrote an autobiography, but I heard no references to it on the PBS show. Rebel with a Cause.
Some Glaring Problems with College Inc
All online schools were treated alike, and they were discussed as if they are exactly the same. Not all community colleges are the same. Mine, GCC, was especially good in computer science. I understand it was better than the others in Phoenix.
Contacting prospects and asking them to enroll was considered a horrible sin, yet non-profit colleges hire people full-time to do that. Non-profits also arrange student loans and hire people to move the applications forward. All schools need educational loans because few students have the funds to pay tuition.
Making a profit was the dark theme of the show. Non-profits depend on large endowments, alumni giving, and taxpayer funds.
For-profits are just as regulated as the non-profits. In fact, the loyalist alumni of traditional schools are quick to point out any flaws they find in a competing school. Many of my online students have wasted their time at a state university known for being a party school. As the student said in "Animal House," seven years of my life down the drain.
Students at for-profit schools are serious about getting an education, and there are many free services available to help them get through the program. No one wants them to fail, so software is used to track lazy instructors and inactive students.
ASU versus a For-Profit
I wanted to get credits in writing or literature, because that was hampering my ability to get writing classes to teach. I contacted Arizona State on their website and gave them all my contact information. I never heard from them. When I contacted a for-profit school, they worked with me immediately and I eventually earned 20 credits in journalism. So the taxpayers supported a staff that did not respond at ASU, while a for-profit school responded with their own staff time, their own money.
PBS is a socialist operation, so no one should be shocked that they hate a profitable enterprise. Regulation is seen the answer to everything, but no school escapes the reach of the higher education commission. I heard many discussions about why a program was offered or not offered, based upon accrediting groups and individual state requirements. Some states have fought to keep for-profit schools from competing with their own home-grown institutions.
If regulation of for-profit schools were the answer, then Detroit would be a boom town, run on solar powered yogurt, manufacturing cars that converted easily into compost. Instead, MoTown is no town to live in, only to escape from.
to buy naming rights for the Cardinals' new stadium.
UOP subsidized a tax-payer project.
The horror! The horror!
