Information began to leak this previous week that the general public, state-run College of Arkansas system was in talks to purchase a lot maligned for-profit, on-line faculty, College of Phoenix.

It’s removed from a certain factor that the acquisition will occur. Even when particulars are hammered out, approval from regulators and different authorities isn’t sure. The Biden administration, for instance, might fairly block the switch or approve it, and for a similar causes.

But when a deal comes collectively and wins regulatory blessings, it gained’t be the primary time a big public faculty has scooped up a for-profit.

Purdue College purchased for-profit Kaplan College and the College of Arizona purchased for-profit Ashford College. Generally, these have been each closely criticized and reputationally damaging. In each offers, the acquisition has basically allowed the homeowners and operators of the for-profit faculties to maintain making revenue – because of extremely uncommon offers during which the general public faculty and the investor faculty operators proceed to share tuition earnings, albeit underneath the way more palatable banners of Purdue and Arizona.

There’s lots to hate about these offers. Greater than lots, truly.

Though, if Arkansas finally ends up shopping for Phoenix, I’ll see the deal as excellent news.

An acquisition will likely be excellent news to my ears as a result of it’ll probably imply the tip of the College of Phoenix and, by extension, the official finish of the highway for exploitive, for-profit training suppliers. Closing College of Phoenix will likely be symbolic, true. But it surely’s a fairly huge image.

For years, College of Phoenix was the most important on-line, for-profit faculty within the nation, in all probability the world. It was making fortune stacked on fortune for its traders, at one level enrolling greater than 470,000 college students with a income of practically $5 billion – a lot of it coming from taxpayers. In the present day, its enrollment is about 83,000 – simply 17% of its peak.

This isn’t the College of Phoenix’s fault. Over little greater than a decade, enrollments at for-profit faculties have evaporated. Since 2010, 40% of all for-profit faculties have closed as enrollments dropped greater than 50%. Although, for-profits did see a roughly 5% enhance in enrollments throughout the pandemic – probably fueled by rising at-home time and big direct promoting. Nonetheless, even placing apart the waterfall of fines, sanctions, investigations and inquires which have plagued the for-profit trade, it’s been a foul dozen years to be a for-profit faculty.

The quickly declining fortunes of for-profits triggered the Kaplan and Ashford gross sales and spurred different investor-run colleges into dodgy preparations which permit them to fake to be non-profit colleges although their managers and traders don’t change.

However earlier than and all through this decline, the College of Phoenix has been the undisputed bellwether of the enterprise mannequin – drawing fawning reward from pundits, sponsoring soccer stadiums and kind of defying the collapsing market round it. That it could be wolfed up and closed up – no less than as a model – is large. That it’s doubtlessly being consumed by a public faculty is poetic.

If the Arkansas/Phoenix deal permits the varsity to basically keep in enterprise underneath a cleaner nameplate – as the opposite offers have – that will likely be tragic. And cynical. And costly and dangerous for college students and so forth. Placing rotten apples in a barrel with good apples gained’t make them good – it’ll solely poison the whole lot.

However even when the deal is a foul one, seeing the College of Phoenix title come off the buildings it adorns, seeing its web site disappear, will really feel like a victory. That the one time titan of for-profit-ism in training, the courageous new mannequin in huge, profit-driven on-line training, is gone – will likely be large. Watching the College of Phoenix disappear like a mirage within the desert will likely be one thing to behold.

With it gone and extra for-profit faculties closing on a regular basis, increased training might lastly be getting into the post-profit period – no less than formally. That may be good.

However because the for-profit colleges faltered, different profit-seeking companies have woven themselves into the material of American increased training. And, as talked about, others are simply hiding. There’s nonetheless work to be finished.

However let the talk start, and proceed, as as to whether increased training’s misplaced dalliances with on-line, investor-run, for-profit faculties have been helpful. Some will argue that their existence created market pressures that pressured “conventional” faculties to enhance, turn into extra environment friendly and embrace new expertise. Perhaps.

But when that’s the case, it’s a curious prevalence that tuition costs proceed to go up – that it appears that evidently no matter effectivity and price pressures the for-profits exerted, they didn’t work. In the meantime, what is evident – as punctuated by the potential College of Phoenix purchase out – is that after the “conventional” faculties did get within the sport, it was over.