Largest for-profit university to close 115 locations

The University of Phoenix, America’s largest for-profit university, is closing 115 of its brick-and-mortar locations, including 25 main campuses and 90 smaller, satellite learning centres. The closings will affect some 13,000 students, about 4% of its student body of 328,000, writes Tamar Lewin for The New York Times.

The institution is also laying off about 800 employees out of a staff of 17,000, according to Mark Brenner, senior vice-president for communications at Apollo Group, which owns the university. Apollo stock closed last Wednesday at US$21.40, down US$6.09, a 22% decline.

Enrolments at the University of Phoenix and in the for-profit sector overall have been declining in the past two years, partly because of growing competition from other, online providers, including non-profit and public universities, and a steady drumroll of negative publicity about the sector’s recruiting abuses, low graduation rates and high default rates.

Late last month, Kaplan Higher Education, a division of the Washington Post Company, announced that it was closing nine of its campuses and consolidating four others.
Full report on The New York Times site