Bloomberg reports that the private equity firms Apollo Global Management and Vistria Group are considering a sale or an initial public offering for the for-profit school they jointly own, the University of Phoenix. Unnamed sources told Bloomberg an IPO could occur as soon as the third quarter of 2025. For the past two years, Phoenix’s
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That school, part of the prominent Paul Mitchell beauty chain, had violated the rules of the accreditor, the National Accrediting Commission of Cosmetology Arts and Sciences, requiring that institutions maintain sound finances. Paul Mitchell The School Knoxville needed accreditation to survive. Federal law prohibits students from using federal financial aid like Pell Grants at unaccredited
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Today I presented brief comments at a meeting of NACIQI, the U.S. Department of Education’s advisory committee charged with reviewing the performance of the private accrediting agencies that oversee quality and integrity at American colleges and universities. With only three minutes allowed for my comments, I delivered a slightly shorter version of the remarks below:
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  A nonprofit advocacy group sued Meta this week, contending that the tech giant’s Facebook and Instagram platforms facilitate the targeting of ads for for-profit colleges to Black users, while disproportionately steering ads for public and non-profit colleges to white users. The lawsuit, filed in the District of Columbia Superior Court on behalf of the
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A for-profit college owner whose schools were in direct violation of the rules of their accreditor, ACCSC, has returned to a seat on the board of that accreditor after only a brief absence. Carol Palacios, executive director of Miami’s Atlantis University, was serving as chair of the commission at ACCSC around the time that board
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In testimony Monday before a joint committee of the Idaho legislature, University of Idaho president C. Scott Green seemed a little less committed to the deal he has relentlessly touted for more than a year and a half — for his school to buy, for $685 million, the huge for-profit University of Phoenix from private
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In 2020, the University of Arizona acquired Ashford University, an online for-profit college that a California court later found guilty of having deceived students about job prospects, transfer opportunities, and degree costs. Feeling pressured to better compete in the online education market — especially as Arizona State University broadened its virtual options — University of Arizona leaders recast
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For-profit companies that help colleges create and recruit students into online programs cannot represent themselves as part of those institutions, nor can they claim that their virtual credentials are equivalent to in-person ones, the U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday. Doing so would likely be considered misrepresentation and could result in the Education Department fining
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