Dive Brief:
- The Federal Trade Commission is looking back to January 2011 in a wide-ranging probe of potentially deceptive practices at the University of Phoenix.
- In a corporate filing, parent company Apollo Education Group announced that it received the civil investigation demand July 28 and plans to cooperate fully.
- Apollo will have to provide documents and information about a variety of business practices, including marketing, recruitment, enrollment, financial aid, tuition and fees, academic programs, academic advising, student retention, billing and debt collection, complaints, accreditation, training, and military recruitment.
Dive Insight:
The probe by the FTC follows a host of investigations at the federal and state level looking into the business practices of for-profit colleges and universities. In general, the sector’s worst actors have been accused of illegal marketing schemes that target disadvantaged or military students and collect their federal financial aid dollars without providing a quality education or marketable job skills.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was one of several government bodies to sue Corinthian Colleges, in that case for pushing students into risky private loans to cover the cost of tuition and engaging in illegal debt collection practices from there. Corinthian closed its doors with its accreditation intact, a fact that has led to greater calls for accountability from accreditors across the industry.