Former Republican Gov Mitch Daniels Has Legit Purdue Buy And Integrate For-Profit Kaplan University

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Watch out America, Republicans are out to destroy the academic community. They're merging real universities-good, recognized ones-with For-Profit scam colleges. Mitch Daniels goes from being Republican governor of Indiana to head of the state's prestigious Purdue University-to this:

Purdue University Acquires For-Profit Giant Kaplan University
Kaplan has largely skirted the scrutiny and sanctions that have befallen similar for-profit giants accused of defrauding students.

By Lauren Camera, Education Reporter | April 27, 2017, at 1:32 p.m.

Kaplan University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Jan.4, 2014.

Purdue University is acquiring for-profit giant Kaplan University in order to launch a new, public online university.

Source

Purdue University, Indiana’s flagship public school, is acquiring for-profit giant Kaplan University in order to launch a new, public online university aimed at enrolling non-traditional degree seekers and people looking to beef up their work credentials.

As part of the deal, Purdue will absorb Kaplan’s 15 campuses and learning centers, 32,000 students, and 3,000 employees. All currently enrolled students and employed faculty will transition to the new university, which will use the Purdue name in some fashion not yet identified.

Purdue president Mitch Daniels framed the acquisition as a way to broaden its land-grant mission and expand access to higher education to a different population than it currently serves, including first-generation students, working parents, those in the military and those who may have started a degree but never finished.

“We live in a time when post-secondary education is not merely an option for middle society, it’s essential,” Daniels said Thursday at a meeting of Purdue’s Board of Trustees, which voted unanimously to buy the for-profit. “Not a day goes by that there’s not a study showing people without some post-secondary education … are at a handicap in a knowledge-intensive society.”

The university noted that approximately 750,000 people in Indiana started college but never finished.

“What are we going to do for those who missed their opportunity the first time around and won’t have a fully productive life if they don’t add skills and credentials,” Daniels asked. “Facing that reality, we reach the obvious conclusion that we cannot fully live up to our land grant obligation … while ignoring a number of people this big and a need so plainly unmet.”

The acquisition also adds to Purdue’s portfolio, which currently includes a flagship residential school and three satellite campuses, and plants the school on the map of those offering robust online presence.

“Online education is growing fast and is destined to grow further in ways that none of us can fully anticipate right now,” Daniels said. “Purdue University has been basically a spectator to this growth.”

He continued: “We are not equipped presently to thrive let alone lead in that world. This is not a capability that we could build ourselves. We could try. We could spend millions and millions of dollars … and we might join that group of universities who have blown a lot of money and a lot of energy and have not a lot to show for it.”

Kaplan is currently accredited through the 2025-2026 school year by the Higher Learning Agency, which also accredits Purdue University.

Kaplan, which has been owned by the Washington Post Company since 1984 and where Don Graham is currently chairman of the board, has largely skirted the intense federal scrutiny and sanctions that ultimately befell ITT Technical Institute and Corinthian Colleges, similar for-profit giants accused of defrauding students.

However, Kaplan was named by the Obama administration earlier this year, along with hundreds of other schools, as an institution of higher education that loads students with more debt than they can afford to repay.

Notably, once the deal garners final approval from the Department of Education and the Higher Learning Commission – likely to occur by November, Daniels estimated – the new online university will be a public school, not a for-profit.

Daniels and Graham both rebuffed assertions that acquiring a for-profit school could water down the value of a Purdue degree and that joining forces with Kaplan could open the university system up to criticism.

“No, it supplements our mission,” Daniels said. “For so-called traditional education to remain vital, we have to add dimensions here.”

The venture also got some early backing from at least one high-profile for-profit skeptic.

“I’m excited by this opportunity for a world-class university to expand its reach and help educate adult learners by acquiring a strong for-profit college,” former Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement. “This is a first, and if successful, could help create a new model for what it means to be a land-grant institution.”

According to the terms of the deal, Kaplan will be paid a fee equal to 12.5 percent of new online school’s revenue – as long as it covers operating costs – during each of the first five years. The deal has a 30-year term.

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Type: Question • Score: 6 • Views: 2,367 • Replies: 32

@Blickers,

Maybe Kaplan isnt going to infect Purdue, instead Purdue is going to infuse some of its "real university" requirements into the program. Maybe Kapln merely provides some machinery for more on-line teaching.

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Developing an online presence is the latest thing in the university world. Many colleges and university's have been trying to transition some of their offerings online so as to gain new students.

Always chasing the $.

1 Reply

@McGentrix,

Having a legit university, let alone a state's public university with a well-known tradition of excellence, branch out into the online field is one thing. Presumably, the students who matriculate via the online service will have to prove that they are ready for the course work and have a reasonable chance of being able to absorb the learning that Purdue has to offer. Kaplan, U of Phoenix, and the late unlamented Trump University would accept anyone as a student whether they had a reasonable chance to pass college level courses or not, and stuck those who were not ready for college with an enormous bill when those students inevitably flunk out. For-profit colleges are a racket, and Purdue just joined the racket.

The article said that the students presently in Kaplan will get a degree from Purdue University if they finish, when most of those students didn't have nearly the high school skills to attend college, and the course work at Kaplan can in no way compare to the course work at a real college.

The whole plan sounds like, as Blatham frequently says, a plan to defund the Left. Vastly reduce the academic community in size by substituting cheesy online diploma factories for real colleges, and cut the legs out from under of any academic opposition to the people in power.

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@Blickers,

I am attending a "legit University", accredited and all that jazz and you are seriously delusional if you think "real" college kids are smarter than your average door knob. I have some essays saved from my writing class two semesters ago if you'd like some examples of these shining young stars you believe in.

Trust me, the average high schooler is lucky if they know when the civil war was and even more lucky if they can put a coherent sentence on a piece of paper.

And as a disclaimer, this state university is in the north east and is VERY liberal, so we aren't talking about southern rednecks here, these are properly educated liberal flowers.

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@tibbleinparadise,

Despite your despair, the high school students going to legit colleges have to pass exams, get scores on SATs or ACTs and possibly have to pass state exams in order to graduate. The people going to these for-profit colleges usually didn't have the marks to get into legit college, the work in the classes are not comparable to the work turned in by normal college students and by and large their degrees were worth very little when they graduated.

For-profit college is a scam. If colleges want to expand into online courses, they should do so with an eye of maintaining the standards they have on the campus, not take over a dishonest business and continue in that vein.

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@Blickers,

I think you are being unreasonable in your harsh opinions on this.

Online education is becoming a bigger and bigger component of post-secondary education. I do not know exact numbers, but a kot of students attending online universities like Kaplan and Phoenix are full time workers who do not have time to attend college as a traditional student. They also are older than traditional students. Something like 60% of Kaplan students are over 30.

If the colleges were scams, they would not receive accreditation. I know it's a horrible idea for you, but "for profit" does not mean bad.

So far as your baseless accusations

Quote:

Despite your despair, the high school students going to legit colleges have to pass exams, get scores on SATs or ACTs and possibly have to pass state exams in order to graduate. The people going to these for-profit colleges usually didn't have the marks to get into legit college, the work in the classes are not comparable to the work turned in by normal college students and by and large their degrees were worth very little when they graduated.

I'll just go ahead and say that is total bullshit.

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@Blickers,

I can promise you that college course work is not difficult, special, or challenging. And unless we're talking about MIT or Harvard, your average state university does not require especially good grades or high test scores for admission.

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@tibbleinparadise,

Many state or private Unis, match the "elites" in various programs (like the applied sciences or engineering)

Kaplan , because of its past investigations into their funding "irregularities" , maybe a "TOXIC ASSET" to Purdue unless its cleanly meld into Purdues programs.

I think Purdue sees this as an easy opportunity to further plunge into distance- learning and career certificates by "webinar"

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Is the debate here about 1> For profit college, 2> Online college 3> Kaplan and colleges like that?

The conversation is drifting around a bit and I am curious what is being objected to. I don't have a high opinion of Phoenix online as it seems like a diploma mill and getting a diploma there wouldn't be something I would bring up. Yeah, it's a degree, but is it really emblematic of a higher education?

Online learning is definitely an upward moving trend in Universities across the country. If you are not offering online classes and degree's you are losing students now. Losing students, losing money. Despite a label of "not for profit", all campuses need money to operate. In general, an online student is more profitable than an on-campus student. That means better services for the entire campus.

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@McGentrix,

Personally, I only take issue with "colleges" that have displayed the inability to provide a quality higher level educational experience. They may be for profit, they may be state universities, they may be private, doesn't matter.

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@tibbleinparadise,

Blickers is an intellectual elitist, if they don't teach the "classics" of the liberal arts, then they are not worthy. There are those of us who live in the real world and around average people and the things she talks about that MUST be taught in University I have an issue with. The liberals don't like the fact that there are educations in them that do not contain the term Liberal... If they can't have the chance to indoctrinate you into the liberal way, then you didn't get a real education. You can't effectively become the head of an IT dept or the finance dept of a company if you don't understand how socialism helps people. If you don't take a class in poetry you can't be a nurse because without poetry how can you have a bedside manner?

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@tibbleinparadise,

Quote:

Personally, I only take issue with "colleges" that have displayed the inability to provide a quality higher level educational experience. They may be for profit, they may be state universities, they may be private, doesn't matter.

How many higher education graduates are capabile of actually paying back their student loans? It would strike me that "public schools" are just as bad as "private schools", with their ability to provide and education but no way of taking that education and using it to pay back the loans. The Bernie Bro's/Bra's have proven this with their cry for a free education. When sociology students outnumber engineering students at a school like UW Madison, you should be weeping for our nation.

1 Reply

@Blickers,

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that this buy out was simply a way to gain instant traction and infrastructure. Much like how a company like Amazon or Walmart will buy out some seemingly random web company, they are after something specific and it usually has nothing to do with the company. This buy out saves Purdue the work of building their own online gig. They take Kaplans infrastructure, campuses, IT hardware, etc and tweak the curriculum to match Purdue standards. Bam...instant distance learning. Best of all, they can now start handing out Pell Grants and student loans to all those students that want to stick around.

It's all about the $$$ and how to make more. Do some research on the webs on how much your local University is paying it's administrative staff and coaches. Lots of folks getting rich off the backs of college kids, their parents, and the government.

1 Reply

@tibbleinparadise,

Quote tibble:

Quote:

They take Kaplans infrastructure, campuses, IT hardware, etc and tweak the curriculum to match Purdue standards. Bam...instant distance learning.

That's what they're selling, but it doesn't seem likely. What about the Kaplan students now-do they deserve a Purdue degree? I have no problem with a student over 30 advancing himself or herself while they work. But a Kaplan degree, like all for-profit college degrees, is fairly useless in the real world. Online education does not have to be a scam-but a prestigious institution looking to branch out into online education should maintain its standards, and buying out a scam college indicates that something else is at work here.

What is at work here is political, as Baldimo's posts make clear. Destroy the academic community entirely is the aim. People like Baldimo are just salivating at the thought of closing college sociology departments throughout the nation because too many of their graduates don't see eye-to-eye with the Repubolican National Committee. The idea is destroy the university as a place of learning and replace it with online institutions that resemble trade schools more than universities. All under the guise of being "anti-elitist", while in fact the plan would eliminate a traditional counterbalance to those in power. Buying Kaplan is a move in that direction.

1 Reply

@Blickers,

The liberals in power have the same end goal as the conservatives...more money. Nobody up there gives two shits about me or you or some dumb college kid.

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@Baldimo,

Quote Baldimo:

Quote:

How many higher education graduates are capabile of actually paying back their student loans?

You tell me. Then tell me the percentage of graduates of for-profit colleges who are capable of paying off their loans. Which group is in worse shape?

Why Going to a For-Profit College Doesn’t Pay Off
Laura Lorenzetti
May 31, 2016

Students graduating from for-profit colleges end up making less money than before they walked down that stage to get their diplomas, according to a new study.

Researchers out of George Washington University and the U.S. Department of the Treasury looked at income and debt data from about 1.4 million students to determine the effects on those graduating from for-profit universities, including such brand names as American InterContinental University, the Art Institutes, and DeVry Education Group (dv, -0.79%).

They found that "on average associate's and bachelor's degree students experience a decline in earnings after attendance, relative to their own earnings in years prior to attendance," according to a summary of the report published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The findings are skewed by the high numbers of students who enroll in for-profit schools and end up dropping out before they finish their programs. Students who complete their degrees as well as master's degree recipients at for-profit schools tend to have better outcomes and positive earning effects post-graduation.

However, for the most part, for-profit colleges end up loading more debt on students than public community colleges and generally have a worse outcome when it comes to salaries. Tuition and fees at for-profit colleges averaged over $15,000 for the 2013-2014 school year versus about $8,900 for in-state tuition at a four-year public college, according to the College Board.

"Despite the much higher costs of attendance, earnings effects are smaller in the for-profit sector relative to the effects for comparable students in public community colleges—a result that holds for all but one of the top 10 fields of study," according to the study abstract.

There is one field where for-profit colleges turn out students with better incomes that public counterparts: Cosmetology. But none of the top 10 fields end up generating positive total earnings gains for for-profit students, according to the researchers. The report also clarified that the average effects weren't driven by a few lower performing schools but reflect the industry as a whole.
Source

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@Blickers,

Colleges in general don't care if their students can pay back the loans or not. The government backs the loans, the student is on the hook, and the school gets paid.

Imagine if Max told me "I'll give you $100 to loan out so people can pay you to do a job" Now, let's say you need a job done, I can do it, but you don't have any money. Solution is easy, Max will front the money to you so you can pay me. Do you REALLY think I'm going to care if you can afford it or not? Not my problem, I'm getting paid, the loan is between you and Max.

The colleges make out like bandits at the tax payers expense. It'd be simpler if school were just free and the salaries and costs were controlled by the government to keep everything within budget. Unfortunately that doesn't work either because our government is completely incapable of managing it's own budget.

1 Reply

@Blickers,

Quote:

Researchers out of George Washington University and the U.S. Department of the Treasury looked at income and debt data from about 1.4 million students to determine the effects on those graduating from for-profit universities, including such brand names as American InterContinental University, the Art Institutes, and DeVry Education Group (dv, -0.79%).

They found that "on average associate's and bachelor's degree students experience a decline in earnings after attendance, relative to their own earnings in years prior to attendance," according to a summary of the report published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

I can explain part of this. Most of the people going to these schools are going to be older people and not late teens/early 20's. They have already been working in another line of work and went to school to learn new and different skills. Once they learn these skills and graduate they change careers into their new line of work. In the process, they now have to start out at entry level pay until they get the experience that actually comes with their new line of work. I wonder if they check on those same people 10 years later what the results would be? If they stuck with the new line of work, they will see an increased income that was higher than their previous line of work.

I wonder, do you see a difference between college/trade schools and for-profit/nonprofit educations? I think there has been a turn against trade schools by calling them for-profit and casting them in a bad light.

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@tibbleinparadise,

Quote:

Imagine if Max told me "I'll give you $100 to loan out so people can pay you to do a job" Now, let's say you need a job done, I can do it, but you don't have any money. Solution is easy, Max will front the money to you so you can pay me. Do you REALLY think I'm going to care if you can afford it or not? Not my problem, I'm getting paid, the loan is between you and Max.

If you, as the provider of the service, didn't care, I wouldn't make the loan. There are people who care about more than money. If I am making a loan (particularly for a cause) I care very much about how the money is going to be used.

If I am going to provide loans to people with the intention of doing good, I am going to want the both the recipient of the loans, and the provider of the service, to have similar intentions. I would be happy to give money for my kid to go to Harvard or UMass or any college that I consider decent. I would not be as willing to give them the same money for them to go to Kaplan.

(How did I get dragged into this anyway?)

1 Reply

Former Republican Gov Mitch Daniels Has Legit Purdue Buy And Integrate For-Profit Kaplan University

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