10-12-2009, 12:27 PM
Will CSU's motto someday be: 'I am a Phoenix'?
Quote:By William Tierney
Special to The Bee
Published: Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 5E
Last Modified: Monday, Oct. 5, 2009 - 10:53 am
It's March 2011. California's next governor calls a morning news conference to make a stunning announcement: The Apollo Group's University of Phoenix will pay $2.3 billion to buy the California State University system.
"The previous administration left us with few alternatives," explains the new governor, who won election on a campaign pledge to end California's chronic imbalance between what it takes in and what it spends. "Selling state parks nets a few hundred million dollars," he continues, "but transferring ownership of CSU to Phoenix will permanently save us billions. And Phoenix says it will increase enrollments."
Far-fetched? Is Phoenix, the nation's largest for-profit university, really a candidate to take over CSU, the nation's largest four-year public university system? Consider:
The 23-campus CSU system, which serves 450,000 students, has struggled to increase enrollment as tight budgets have eaten into its share of the general fund. The most recent state budget brought into full relief the extent of its financial straits. In July, its trustees voted to take no new admissions in spring 2010 and to raise fees by 20 percent, to $4,026 a year. The 47,000 faculty and staff will be asked to take two unpaid furlough days a month.
And the system's money woes will likely continue. The state's jobless rate reached 12.2 percent in August, a postwar record. While the California economy is slowly recovering from recession, many forecasters expect growth to be too tepid to cut into the state's double-digit unemployment through 2011. Continued high employment means less tax revenues. The state's Legislative Analyst's Office projects budget deficits through 2012-13.
This uncertain financial outlook undercuts CSU's primary mission: giving students greater access to quality higher education at an affordable price, keeping them in school and sending them into the labor market with bachelor's degrees.
The problem is that California's need for college-educated workers is outpacing its ability to produce them, and the gap is expected to widen, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. If current trends continue, the state will experience a serious shortfall of college graduates by 2025.
Enter the University of Phoenix, a member of the fastest-growing sector in higher education. In 2007, the number of students enrolled in for-profit universities and colleges totaled nearly 1.2 million, roughly 6.5 percent of all students attending degree-granting institutions. In 1967, 22,000 students were enrolled in for-profits like Phoenix. Apollo, Phoenix's corporate parent, has increased enrollment from about 100,000 to 400,000 since 2000.
Most of Phoenix's current students are part-time working adults, a student-body profile that makes Phoenix a logical candidate to run CSU. According to estimates by the National Center for Education Statistics, many future college-goers probably won't be able to afford school full time and, as such, will not have the same desire for a campus experience as do younger full-time students at traditional colleges. They want to hold a job and/or raise a family as they learn. Many also opt for online learning, and the University of Phoenix is the largest purveyor of such learning.
Phoenix's methods would introduce greater efficiency into California State University. Unlike CSU, it tracks and publicly reports on what students learn in its courses. It puts faculty applicants through an instructor "boot camp" to weed out weak teachers and to ensure that those who graduate are prepared to teach. It keeps tabs on teaching quality as well, and the contracts of weak teachers are not renewed. Contrary to expectations, Phoenix's part-time faculty has proved to be every bit as qualified as full-time faculty in some academic areas, and the graduation rates of its part-time students are comparable or exceed those of their counterparts in traditional colleges.
Phoenix also has the ability to ramp up enrollment in one area and decrease it in another. For example, if more students want to go into business, then business courses will be added until the demand lessens.
Finally, the for-profit university offers a bonus for state legislators weary of years of budget meltdowns. Based on a recent Sallie Mae study, a higher proportion of students at for-profit institutions rely on federal financial assistance than do students at public institutions. With Phoenix's acquisition of the CSU system, lawmakers could look forward to a shift away from subsidizing CSU toward greater federal student subsidies.
Yes, the University of Phoenix has many drawbacks. It has little concern for academic freedom. Tenure is nonexistent. Its ability to adapt courses to the latest findings in scholarship is frequently missing. It lacks transparency and resists any meaningful regulatory oversight. It would likely increase student indebtedness.
But Phoenix is a proven generator of trained graduates ready to enter the work force. At a time when the California economy needs educated workers and its higher-education system is less able to deliver them because of severe budget constraints, a University of Phoenix's takeover of the California State University system may be more plausible than one might think.
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William Tierney is a professor of higher education at the University of Southern Califronia and is the author of numerous books, among them "New Players, Different Game: Understanding the Rise of For-Profit Colleges and Universities."
