Dive Brief:
- The San Diego campus of the University of Phoenix has been barred by California from enrolling more veterans in programs where they accounted for more than 85% of student enrollment.
- The ban was implemented after an audit by the California State Approving Agency for Veterans Education, a veterans watchdog group, determined that the campus had gone over the federal 85% threshold in seven of its programs.
- The university, owned by for-profit Apollo, says only one of its programs went over that mark, that it voluntarily stopped additional veteran enrollments in that program and that it expects the audit results will be revised.
Dive Insight:
Has the pendulum swung too much toward painting the for-profit colleges as the bad guys? That’s basically the contention of Steve Gunderson, president of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, who told the Wall Street Journal that the recent investigations of for-profit colleges launched by federal agencies and state attorneys general amount to an ideological war against the schools. In the case of the University of Phoenix in San Diego, the California veterans agency didn’t uncover any other problems in its audit, and it reported that the school didn’t use recruiting tactics that were misleading or overly aggressive.