6. How is UOP different in terms of faculty, admission standards, and accreditation from
traditional schools?
traditional colleges and universities. This may be done in part to defend its use of part-time
faculty where tradition, albeit potentially erroneous, would perceive lesser quality than their
Admission standards—UOP appears to have historically placed less emphasis, if any, on SAT
and GMAT-type tests for acceptance. These are typically the mainstay of traditional college and
Accreditation—A common misperception is that UOP schools are not, or lesser, accredited.
7. How do UOP students break down demographically and by degrees sought?
UOP Student Demographics:
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
Gender
Female
67.7%
66.0%
66.0%
63.0%
54.0%
Male
32.3%
34.0%
34.0%
37.0%
46.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
Age:(1)
22 and under
12.1%
14.9%
14.0%
9.7%
9.5%
23 to 29
32.6%
34.3%
34.0%
32.8%
32.0%
30 to 39
32.7%
31.0%
31.0%
33.8%
33.5%
40 to 49
16.2%
14.5%
15.0%
17.2%
18.0%
50 & over
6.4%
5.3%
6.0%
6.5%
7.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
Race/Ethnicity(1)
African-American
28.1%
27.7%
25.0%
26.3%
26.1%
Asian/Pacific Islander
3.3%
3.6%
4.1%
4.0%
4.1%
Caucasian
51.9%
52.2%
53.8%
52.9%
53.1%
Hispanic
11.6%
11.6%
12.0%
11.5%
11.6%
Native Amr./Alaskan
1.2%
1.3%
1.3%
1.5%
1.6%
Other/Unknown
3.9%
3.6%
3.8%
3.8%
3.5%
______________
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
(1) Based on New Degreed Enrollment students
Degreed Enrollment:
Associates
200,800
201200
146500
104500
74000
Bachelors
193,600
163600
141800
138700
140700
Masters
68,700
71200
67700
65300
63400
Doctoral
7,700
7000
6100
5200
4200
470,800
443,000
362,100
313,700
282,300
Associates
42.7%
45.4%
40.5%
33.3%
26.2%
Bachelors
41.1%
36.9%
39.2%
44.2%
49.8%
Masters
14.6%
16.1%
18.7%
20.8%
22.5%
Doctoral
1.6%
1.6%
1.7%
1.7%
1.5%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
Increasingly female; now 2 out of every three students are women.
Two thirds of students btw 23 and 39; half over 30;
Average age getting slightly younger, around 32.
Ethnicity has remained fairly constant – slight increase in African-American population;
Degrees enrolled in increasing the most at the Associate Degree level [could be just doing
Bottom-line – UOP’s demographic appears to be exactly hitting the adult education market,
reflecting both the accuracy/effectiveness of their vision/strategy/tactics; and the serious desire
of that demographic for higher education and training.
8. How is this different from your college or university; or one you contemplated attending?
This will be a brief, but interesting question. The bet would be that most students will not have a
9. What are the key driving forces, and changes in the Adult Education Market/Industry,
UOP’s External Environment, that appear most important for the next several years?
This is the place to start examining the major new regulatory issues suddenly and intensely
The regulators, Congressional official, and critics are concerned with 5 issues:
[which they seek to regulate by tying them all back to an institution’s students being eligible for Title IV linked
88% and rising at UOP.]
1. Quality of the educational experience and offering
The proposed “Gainful Employment Rule” is still being finalized for July 2012, but will
take away a school’s right to participate in Title IV funding if it fails three tests:
industry participants, understandably.
2. Predatory, high pressure or deceptive marketing/sales practices to gain students
Federal law eliminates a school’s right to participate in Title IV funding if they pay
3. Pricing of the educational offering
4. Over reliance on funding tied to the federal government’s Title IV and related loans
or loan guarantees for a college education.
This is the biggee – the “90/10 rule.” If, in any two consecutive year period a proprietary
5. Ability of graduates to repay their Title IV linked student loans.
This concern is to be regulated via what are called “Cohort Default Rates.” A “cohort”
10. What are proponents of the proprietary education industry, and its participants, saying
relative to these Title IV linked issues, and the general negative impressive opponents have
attempted to publicize and act upon?
Arguments defending the proprietary educational industry center on:
the student population the industry serves;
– “independent as defined by the industry, & UOP, as being fully responsible for
its size and lack of accessibility or even the ability of the tradition U.S. higher education
system to serve it;
– there are estimated to be up to 70 million U.S. working adults that comprise the
budget pressure.
the critical need for a competitive society in a knowledge-based economy to have a
competitive in a global economy.
Much of the section excerpted from the Apollo Group’s white paper deal with these issues.
Other points that the Apollo group brought out in that white paper rather impressively which
tangentially address common criticisms of proprietary schools that you might bring up are:
– Average marketing expenditures per new enrollment are actually lower at the UOP on
– UOP’s percentage improvement from freshmen to seniors in MAPP scores compares
reasons.
– Finally, there and in other forums, the Apollo Group and their peers as proprietary
universities, receive.
11. What would you do, if you were a member of Congress or a regulator charged with
deciding how to deal with these issues? What would you recommend, if hired as strategic
advisor to the CEO of the Apollo Group, to help Apollo Group best address these threats? Do
you think it fair to single out the proprietary institutions for the application of these new Title
IV-related regulations?
stakes are very, very big.
Second, a demographic-related factor remains a valid observation that supports UOP’s position:
Education is a potentially wise investment, but it carries risks. Many students fail to graduate.
In the U.S., a third of college students fail to compete their degrees within six years; the most
common reason is financial difficulty. But even those who graduate have no guarantees. Many
which make it less likely that they will complete their degrees.
12. How might the Apollo Group’s Apollo Global, especially where it expands UOP abroad
directly help in this situation?
This is an interesting, global enterprise question for students to ponder. The case gives
expansion; and the introduction the UOP directly under that or other name as appropriate?”
The other side of what Apollo Group represents is really two-fold. First, can it be a way of
13. The other logical question you might want to raise is should Apollo Group pursue UOP-
growth in other ways that also help with being profitable ways to grow, and also reduce UOP’s
risk exposure with things like the 90/10 rule, the gainful employment rule, and the cohort
default rate?
Acquisition of industry participants that have circumstances that reduce UOP measures relative
questions:
A) What type of school would you propose to acquire? [American Public Education, Inc. is one
programs, for credit toward degree completion, and so forth. The third follow-up question in
this regard, harkening to the global financial crisis leading to the Great Recession, is
C) Might the UOP, and the key proprietary academic institutions, have reached the point, given
the assumed need to educate a much broader adult population in the U.S., that they are “too big
IV lending programs?
D) Should the UOP start competing directly for the 18-24 year old student the tradition
universities serve? There is some information in the case about the UOP’s specific decision to
do almost this very thing. In the early part of the decade just completed, they made a strategic
decision to do so and, as you can point out in the age demographics, their under 10% in 2006 to
perhaps with an emphasis on less “independent” young students, is a possibility. But obviously
the UOP has throttled back on this thrust.