Can Apollo Global Management stem the bleeding at University of Phoenix?

Related Link: University of Phoenix Collapse Kept From Public Scrutiny, As Ads Continue (2019)
Related Link: The Slow-Motion Collapse of America’s Largest University (2018)
Related Link: University of Phoenix: "Where Dreams Die" (2016)
Related Link: Faux Phoenix or Vulture? (2015, 2018)

The collapse of University of Phoenix has been off the mainstream media radar for years. Only the conservative Daily Caller has bothered to investigate the demise of America's largest university. Since University of Phoenix is subsumed under a hedge fund behemoth, Apollo Global Management, it's very difficult to track the collapse. But the old information that we do have does not look good.

Data from fiscal year 2017 show that University lost money in all of its segments, except for Arizona. And that segment, which included the online division, showed only a slim profit. The total annual loss was about $52 million.

University of Phoenix has created cost cutting measures by closing most of its campuses, but that alone may not be enough to gain profitability. When campuses are closed, enrollment and reputation decline. It's notable that Federal Trade Commission has not publicly stated that they are finished with their investigation either.

The UoPX brand is badly tarnished and perhaps beyond repair. Expensive fantasy land media campaigns like "Discover Your Wings" cannot make up for a declining product or service that depends more on word of mouth and the success of those who attend. Apollo Education and University of Phoenix could declare bankruptcy, as other Apollo Global Management companies have done or threatened to do, but that would bring even more bad attention.

I have attempted multiple times to communicate with University of Phoenix, but they refuse to respond. While stonewalling can prevent misquotes and distortions, "playing dead" is not a good sign for any business.

University of Phoenix Reportedly Considering Public Offering or New Buyer (David Halperin)

Bloomberg reports that the private equity firms Apollo Global Management and Vistria Group are considering a sale or an initial public offering for the for-profit school they jointly own, the University of Phoenix. Unnamed sources told Bloomberg an IPO could occur as soon as the third quarter of 2025.

For the past two years, Phoenix’s owners have been in talks with the University of Idaho about the state university acquiring the for-profit school. While U of Idaho President C. Scott Green has touted the deal as a revenue raiser and step into the future, the sale has bogged down amid concerns by legislators and others in the state. Last June, the two sides agreed to continue negotiations but that Phoenix’s owners could talk with other potential suitors.

The leak to Bloomberg may be a sign that Phoenix’s owners are ready to move on. But it could instead be a bluff aimed at fooling Green, a self-styled dealmaker, into revitalizing efforts to buy the school.

Green’s plan has been thwarted again and again, with negative votes in the Idaho legislature, a successful court challenge by the state’s attorney general, criticism from the state treasurer, and sharp scrutiny from news outlets in the state.

The Green school deal has assumed that operation of Phoenix would bring millions in new revenue to fund his university. But it ignores that running a for-profit college, one that has repeatedly gotten in trouble with law enforcement for deceiving students, would be a tremendous challenge: If Green pushed to end Phoenix’s predatory practices and improve student outcomes, it probably would start losing money, because predatory practices, coupled with high prices and low spending on education, have made up the school’s secret sauce. But if Green allowed the deceptive conduct to persist, the school could face more legal peril. And, whatever route he took, Green’s school might end up assuming massive liability for student loan debt the government has cancelled based on past abuses at Phoenix.

At its peak, Phoenix was the largest for-profit college in the country and got upwards of $2 billion a year in federal student aid, while reporting dismal graduation rates and high levels of loan defaults.

Phoenix’s owners pursued a deal with Idaho only after the trustees of the University of Arkansas rejected a similar purchase negotiated by that school’s president.

Phoenix’s parent company, Apollo Education Group, had been publicly traded until Apollo and Vistria took the company private in 2017.

There have been previous marriages between big state universities and large predatory for-profit colleges that were seeking to evade the stigma and regulations that the industry’s bad behavior has provoked. The University of Arizona’s purchase of Ashford University has turned into a fiasco both for Arizona, which rebranded the school University of Ariziona Global Campus (UAGC), and for Ashford’s previous owner, now-shuttered Zovio. Meanwhile, Graham Holdings sold predatory Kaplan University to Purdue, while locking that Indiana state school into a 30-year service contract that allows Graham to keep making big money. The arrangement harms Purdue’s reputation, and Purdue Global has struggled financially. Both Purdue Global and UAGC continue to enroll students in their sub-par, overpriced programs.

[Editor's note: This article originally appeared on Republic Report.]  

The College Meltdown Index: Profiting from the Wreckage of American Higher Education

“Education, once defended as a public good, now functions as a vehicle for private gain.”

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From Collapse to Contagion

The College Meltdown never truly ended—it evolved.

After a decade of spectacular for-profit implosions, the higher education sector has reconstituted itself around new instruments of profit: debt servicing, edtech speculation, and corporate “partnerships” that disguise privatization as innovation.

The College Meltdown Index—tracking a mix of education providers, servicers, and learning platforms—reveals a sector in quiet decay.

Legacy for-profits like National American University (NAUH) and Aspen Group (ASPU) trade at penny-stock levels, while Lincoln Educational (LINC) and Perdoceo (PRDO) stumble through cost-cutting cycles.

Even the supposed disruptors—Chegg (CHGG), Udemy (UDMY), and Coursera (COUR)—are faltering as user growth plateaus and AI reshapes their value proposition.

Meanwhile, SoFi (SOFI), Sallie Mae (SLM), and Maximus (MMS) thrive—not through learning, but through the management of debt.

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The Meltdown Graveyard

Below lies a sampling of the education sector’s ghost tickers—the silent casualties of a system that turned public trust into private loss.

Symbol	Institution	Status	Approx. Closure/Delisting
CLAS.U	Class Technologies	Defunct	2024
INST	Instructure (pre-acquisition)	Acquired by Thoma Bravo	2020
TWOUQ	2U, Inc.	Bankrupt	2025
CPLA	Capella University	Merged with Strayer (Strategic Ed.)	2018
ESI-OLD	ITT Technical Institute	Defunct	2016
EDMC	Education Management Corporation	Defunct	2018
COCO-OLD	Corinthian Colleges	Defunct	2015
APOL	Apollo Education Group (U. of Phoenix)	Taken Private	2017

Each ticker represents not only a failed business model—but a generation of indebted students.

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The Phoenix That Shouldn’t Have Risen

No institution better symbolizes this moral decay than the University of Phoenix and Phoenix Education Partners (PXED).

At its height, Phoenix enrolled nearly half a million students. By 2017, following federal investigations and mass defaults, Apollo Education Group—its parent company—collapsed under scrutiny.

But rather than disappearing, Phoenix was quietly resurrected through a private equity buyout led by Apollo Global Management, Vistria Group, and Najafi Companies.

Freed from public oversight, the university continued to enroll vulnerable adult learners, harvesting federal aid while shedding accountability.

In 2023, the University of Idaho’s proposed acquisition of Phoenix provoked national outrage, forcing state officials to confront a basic question: Should a public university absorb a for-profit brand built on exploitation?

The deal collapsed—but the temptation to monetize Phoenix’s infrastructure remains. In 2025, a small portion became publicly traded.  Its call centers and online systems remain models of enrollment efficiency, designed to extract just enough engagement to secure tuition payments.

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From Education to Extraction

The sector’s transformation reveals a deeper moral hazard.

If students succeed, investors profit.
If students fail, federal subsidies and servicer contracts ensure the money keeps flowing.

Executives face no downside. Shareholders are protected. The losses fall on students and taxpayers.

In this sense, the “meltdown” is not a market failure—it’s a market design.

“The winners are those who most efficiently extract value from hope.”

Public universities increasingly partner with private Online Program Managers (OPMs), leasing their brands to companies that control marketing, pricing, and student data. The once-clear line between public and for-profit education has blurred beyond recognition.

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The Quiet Winners of Collapse

A few companies continue to prosper by aligning with “practical” or “mission-safe” sectors:

• Adtalem (ATGE) in nursing and health education,

• Grand Canyon Education (LOPE) in faith-branded online degrees,

• Bright Horizons (BFAM) in corporate childcare and workforce training.

Yet all remain heavily dependent on public dollars and tax incentives. The state subsidizes their existence; the market collects the rewards.

Meanwhile, 2U’s bankruptcy leaves elite universities scrambling to explain how a publicly traded OPM, once championed as the future of online learning, could disintegrate overnight—taking with it a network of high-priced “nonprofit” certificate programs.

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A Reckoning Deferred

The College Meltdown Index exposes a system that has internalized its own failures.
Fraud has been replaced by financial engineering, transparency by outsourcing, and accountability by spin.

The real collapse is not in the market—but in moral logic. Education, once the cornerstone of social mobility, has become a speculative instrument traded between hedge funds and holding companies.

Until policymakers—and universities themselves—confront the ethics of profit in higher education, the meltdown will persist, slowly consuming what remains of the public good.

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“The real question is not whether the system will collapse, but who will rebuild it—and for whom.”

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Sources:

• Higher Education Inquirer, College Meltdown 2.0 Index (Nov. 2025)

• SEC Filings (2010–2025)

• U.S. Department of Education, Heightened Cash Monitoring Reports

• An American Sickness – Elisabeth Rosenthal

• The Goosestep – Upton Sinclair

• Medical Apartheid – Harriet A. Washington

• Body and Soul – Alondra Nelson

• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot

EANGUS: Nonprofit Shill for University of Phoenix

The Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States (EANGUS), which claims to advocate for enlisted National Guard members, has long presented itself as a supporter of military families and career advancement. However, its ongoing partnership with for-profit institutions like the University of Phoenix raises serious questions about whose interests the organization truly serves.

On August 13, the University of Phoenix announced the winners of the 2025 EANGUS Future Phoenix Scholarship, which awards full tuition for bachelor’s or master’s programs to current enlisted National Guard servicemembers and their immediate family members. The winners—Nitasa Freund, Isabella Hunsicker, and John Wellington—were celebrated in press materials that emphasized the school’s commitment to veteran students.

University of Phoenix framed the scholarships as a way to “empower our members to turn their service-driven experience into academic achievement,” while EANGUS Executive Director John Gipe described the partnership as helping military members “step forward not just for the individual, but for the communities they continue to serve.”

But the reality behind these programs is far less altruistic. University of Phoenix, owned by the for-profit Apollo Global Management, has a long history of predatory recruitment practices targeting military and veteran populations. The school has faced multiple federal investigations and lawsuits over deceptive marketing, inflated job placement claims, and aggressive enrollment tactics that funnel servicemembers into costly, high-debt programs.

EANGUS’s role in promoting scholarships to the University of Phoenix illustrates how military associations can be co-opted by for-profit educational interests. By lending credibility and direct access to servicemembers, EANGUS effectively functions as a shill, steering military personnel and their families toward programs that often prioritize corporate profit over educational quality or genuine career outcomes.

Scholarship recipients’ stories, highlighted in University of Phoenix press materials, are framed as evidence of success. Nitasa Freund, a National Guard Staff Sergeant, is pursuing a master’s in criminal justice; John Wellington, a 101st Signal Battalion Company First Sergeant, is returning to higher education after decades of service; and Isabella Hunsicker is studying psychology. These narratives, while compelling, mask the broader systemic risks associated with enrolling in high-cost for-profit programs that may saddle veterans with unmanageable debt.

For an organization that claims to represent the interests of enlisted service members, EANGUS’s alignment with a for-profit education juggernaut raises ethical concerns. Military families seeking higher education deserve advocacy that prioritizes transparency, quality, and long-term outcomes—not promotion of institutions with a documented history of exploiting the very population they claim to serve.

As for-profit colleges continue to target veterans and military families, it is incumbent on military associations, watchdogs, and policymakers to scrutinize partnerships that appear charitable on the surface but may perpetuate financial harm behind the scenes. EANGUS’s ongoing collaboration with University of Phoenix is a stark reminder that even well-intentioned organizations can become complicit in corporate profiteering when oversight and accountability are lacking.

Sources:

• University of Phoenix Press Release, August 13, 2025

• EANGUS Official Website

• Apollo Global Management, University of Phoenix corporate information

• Government Accountability Office and Department of Education reports on for-profit colleges

What do the University of Phoenix and Risepoint have in common? The answer is a compelling story of greed and politics.

In the increasingly commodified world of higher education, the University of Phoenix and Risepoint (formerly Academic Partnerships) represent parallel tales of how private equity, political influence, and deceptive practices have shaped the online college landscape. While their paths have diverged in branding and institutional affiliation, the underlying motives and outcomes share disturbing similarities.

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The University of Phoenix: A Legacy of Legal and Ethical Trouble

The University of Phoenix (UOP) has been a central player in the for-profit college boom, particularly during and after the 2000s. Under the ownership of Apollo Education Group, and later the Vistria Group, UOP has faced a relentless stream of lawsuits, regulatory scrutiny, and public outrage.

In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reached a $191 million settlement with UOP over allegations of deceptive advertising. UOP falsely claimed partnerships with major corporations like Microsoft, AT&T, and Twitter to entice students. The result was $50 million in restitution and $141 million in student debt relief.

But the legal troubles didn’t stop there. In 2022 and 2023, the U.S. Department of Education included UOP in a broader class action that granted $37 million in borrower defense discharges. These claims stemmed from deceptive marketing and predatory recruitment practices.

Meanwhile, in 2024, the California Attorney General settled with UOP for $4.5 million over allegations of illegally targeting military service members between 2012 and 2015. The university’s controversial relationship with the military community also led to a temporary VA suspension of GI Bill enrollments in 2020.

The legal history includes False Claims Act suits brought by whistleblowers, including former employees alleging falsified records, incentive-based recruiter pay, and exaggerated graduation and job placement statistics. In 2019, Apollo Education settled a securities fraud lawsuit for $7.4 million.

More recently, UOP has been embroiled in political controversy in Idaho. In 2023 and 2024, the Idaho Attorney General challenged the state's attempt to acquire UOP, citing Open Meetings Act violations and lack of transparency. Though a federal judge initially dismissed the suit, Idaho’s Supreme Court allowed an appeal to proceed.

Through all of this, Vistria Group—UOP’s private equity owner since 2017—has reaped massive profits. Vistria was co-founded by Marty Nesbitt, a close confidant of Barack Obama, underscoring the bipartisan political protection that shields for-profit education from lasting accountability.

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Risepoint and the Online Program Management Model

Risepoint, formerly Academic Partnerships (AP), tells a similarly troubling story, albeit from the Online Program Manager (OPM) side of the education-industrial complex. Founded in 2007 by Randy Best, a well-connected Republican donor with ties to Jeb Bush, AP helped universities build online degree programs in exchange for a significant cut of tuition—sometimes up to 50%.

This tuition-share model, though legal, has raised ethical red flags. Critics argue it diverts millions in public education dollars into private hands, inflates student debt, and incentivizes aggressive, misleading recruitment. The most infamous case was the University of Texas-Arlington, which paid AP more than $178 million over five years. President Vistasp Karbhari resigned in 2020 after it was revealed he had taken international trips funded by AP.

Risepoint was acquired by Vistria Group in 2019, placing it in the same portfolio as the University of Phoenix and other education businesses. The firm’s growing influence in higher education—fueled by Democratic-aligned private equity—reflects a deeper entanglement of politics, policy, and profiteering.

In 2024, Minnesota became the first state to ban new tuition-share agreements with OPMs like Risepoint. This legislative action followed backlash from a controversial deal between Risepoint and St. Cloud State University, where critics accused the firm of extracting excessive revenue while offering questionable value.

Further pressure came from the federal level. In 2024, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, and Tina Smith issued letters to major OPMs demanding transparency about recruitment tactics and tuition-share models. The Department of Education followed in January 2025 with new guidance restricting misleading marketing by OPMs, including impersonation of university staff.

Despite this, Risepoint continued expanding. In late 2023, the company purchased Wiley’s online program business for $150 million, signaling consolidation in a turbulent industry. Yet a 2024 report showed 147 OPM-university contracts had been terminated in 2023, and new contracts fell by over 50%.

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What Ties Them Together: Vistria Group

Vistria Group sits at the center of both sagas. The Chicago-based private equity firm has made education—especially online and for-profit education—a core pillar of its investment strategy. With connections to both Democratic and Republican power brokers, Vistria has deftly navigated the regulatory landscape while profiting from public education dollars.

Its ownership of the University of Phoenix and Risepoint demonstrates a clear strategy: acquire distressed or controversial education companies, clean up their public image, and extract revenue while avoiding deep reforms. Through Vistria, private equity gains access to billions in federal student aid with minimal oversight and a bipartisan shield.

The result is a higher education ecosystem where political influence, corporate profit, and public exploitation collide. And whether through online degrees from the University of Phoenix or public-private partnerships with Risepoint, students are often the ones left bearing the cost.

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As scrutiny intensifies and state and federal lawmakers demand reform, the futures of Risepoint and the University of Phoenix remain uncertain. But one thing is clear: their shared story reveals how higher education has become a battleground of greed, power, and politics.

University of Phoenix: An Albatross for Idaho?

The University of Phoenix will be back in Idaho District Court in 2025 unless Apollo Global Management can find another buyer for the school. Apollo Group, the primary owner of the University of Phoenix, has been trying to unload the school for years.  

Although the University of Phoenix appears to be a profitable institution, it has potential liabilities, including hundreds of millions of dollars in Borrower Defense to Repayment (fraud) claims that the US Department of Education could claw back from the parent owner. While this risk may be seriously reduced over the next four years, that danger could rise again under a progressive administration. 

As of 2023, there were approximately 73,000 Borrower Defense claims against the school. More than 19,000 Borrower Defense claims were approved for student debtors who attended the University of Phoenix and were part of the Sweet v Cardona settlement. Many of the remaining claims are still awaiting a decision from the Department of Education.  

University of Phoenix debtors are saddled with an estimated $21.6 Billion in student loan debt. 

The University of Phoenix has been involved in a number of lawsuits over the last decade. In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission and the University of Phoenix settled a claim for $191M for deceptive employment claims, but the school denied any wrongdoing.

New Data Show Nearly a Million University of Phoenix Debtors Owe $21.6 Billion Dollars

The Higher Education Inquirer has just received a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) response from the US Department of Education, stating that about 971,000 current student loan debtors who have attended the University of Phoenix have accumulated an estimated $21.6B in debt. The FOIA is Department of Education FOIA 23-02912-F. These debt numbers are consistent with a previous HEI analysis. 

We have been unable to learn whether this accumulated debt includes the hundreds of millions in debt that has already been forgiven--and that its present and future owners may be liable for. In 2023, we reported that approximately 73,000 debtors from the University of Phoenix had filed borrower defense fraud claims, and that more than 19,000 cases were granted immediate relief in the Sweet v Cardona settlement.

Through another FOIA request, we also discovered 6,265 consumer complaints in the Federal Trade Commission database made after its current owners took over. In 2019, the FTC and the University of Phoenix settled a claim for $191M for deceptive employment claims. It would appear that Phoenix has not done enough to clean up its act.  

The Higher Education Inquirer has been working for more than six years to get data about the school's noncompliance with the Department of Defense Tuition Assistance (TA) program, where servicemembers have been systematically preyed upon--and where Trump officials and their surrogates worked to cover up malfeasance by subprime schools--including the University of Phoenix. We hope to report on this topic later.  

The University of Phoenix is presently owned by Apollo Global Management and Vistria Group, who have been unsuccessfully trying to sell the school for at least three years. Previous potential suitors, held to secrecy, have included Tuskegee University, UMass Global, and the University of Arkansas System. 

Apollo Global Management is currently negotiating with the State of Idaho, which would incur $685M in debt to acquire the school. State officials are wary of the deal, and those with strong principles are unlikely to approve. But it's possible that other politicians may change their minds: if they or their families are properly compensated, directly or indirectly, for taking the risks to their reputations and careers. 

Related links:

ED Completes Pre-Acquisition Review for University of Phoenix Deal. University of Idaho Continues Hiding Details of Transaction Fees, 43 Education "High-Risk" Bonds.

How University of Phoenix Failed. It's a Long Story. But It's Important for the Future of Higher Education.

Fraud Claims Against University of Phoenix Continue to Mount

University of Phoenix articles 

Borrower Defense articles

University of Phoenix Collapse Kept From Public Scrutiny, As Ads Continue

Public information about University of Phoenix has been kept under wraps since 2016, when the school was sold to Apollo Global Management, a large private equity firm where Apollo Education is one of more than 50 assets under management.

 

While the University of Phoenix still advertises nationally on television shows such as God Friended Me*, its workers and former workers continue to talk off the record about their school's dire situation, and the lengths that the company will take to keep the numbers up.

Behind the scenes at UoPX, enrollment has continued to drop, teachers and enrollment reps have been fired, and campuses continue to shutter. 

University of Phoenix campuses will be closing in Albuquerque, Atlanta, Charlotte, Chicago, Colorado Springs, Columbia, South Carolina, Detroit, El Paso, Honolulu, Jersey City, Philadelphia, Tucson, Virginia Beach, and several locations in California and Florida.

But there is no story, so far, in the news about the collapse of America's largest university, because confirmable information is difficult to obtain. The University of Phoenix media room does not return calls or emails. And the culture of silence at the school prohibits the truth from coming out.


*University of Phoenix advertisement appeared during a new episode of God Friended Me, 3-17-2019.

Related links:

The Slow-Motion Collapse of America’s Largest University

Observations of the College Meltdown in Real Time

Higher Learning Commission: Accreditation Is No Sign Of Quality

HEI Investigation: ED FOIA Digging Up Suspected FAFSA Fraud at the University of Phoenix

26-00809-F

The Higher Education Inquirer (HEI) is requesting:

1. All OIG investigations, reviews, case summaries, fraud-ring investigations, or closed case files (including referrals from Federal Student Aid) from January 1, 2008 to the present that involve or reference:

*the University of Phoenix (any campus or online division),

*Apollo Group, Apollo Education Group, or Phoenix Education Partners (PXED), or

*any individual or organized group that used the University of Phoenix to commit FAFSA fraud, including but not limited to identity theft, false FAFSA applications, fabricated enrollment for Title IV eligibility, Pell-runner schemes, or fraud connected to distance-education programs.

2. Any OIG audit reports, program reviews, draft findings, risk assessments, or internal memoranda from January 1, 2008 to the present that evaluate the vulnerability of the University of Phoenix to:

*FAFSA fraud

*Pell Grant fraud

*Title IV fraud rings

*identity-based financial aid fraud

*“Pell runner” activity

*online/distance-education fraud schemes linked to FAFSA misuse.

3. All institutional-level fraud-referral files, Student Aid Reports (SARs) flagged for suspected fraud, or records of suspicious-activity referrals submitted to OIG or generated internally by OIG relating to FAFSA fraud or suspected FAFSA manipulation at the University of Phoenix (January 1, 2008–present).

4. Any aggregate or institution-specific data summaries listing the number of FAFSA-related fraud referrals, confirmed FAFSA fraud cases, or Title IV fraud-ring participants associated with the University of Phoenix.

5. All communications between OIG and Federal Student Aid (FSA) from January 1, 2008 to the present that reference the University of Phoenix in connection with:

*FAFSA fraud

*Pell Grant fraud 

*fraud-ring activity

*suspected manipulation of federal aid eligibility, or abnormal application-risk patterns associated with University of Phoenix applicants

This request is limited to closed investigations and final reports to avoid any interference with ongoing law-enforcement matters. If portions of any records must be withheld, please release all reasonably segregable non-exempt material. (Date Range for Record Search: From 12/31/2008 To 12/04/2025)

Idaho-University of Phoenix deal has fallen below the radar

For more than four months, neither the University of Idaho nor the University of Phoenix have reported on the status of the proposed deal between the two parties. The last local media report, from the Idaho Ed News came in July, when the University of Phoenix said they were still committed to partnering with Idaho.

The University of Idaho's University of Phoenix Affiliation FAQ page has not been updated and some of the information is obviously outdated. For example, the webpage said that the UI-UoPX sale was expected to be consummated in early 2024. That did not happen.    

 

Screen shot of the University of Phoenix Affiliation FAQ on November 9, 2024. 

Legislative and judicial barriers have delayed the acquisition and the deal remains in limbo. 

In June, the U of I Board of Regents extended the Asset Purchase Agreement through June 10, 2025. The extension allows the University of Idaho to continue negotiating with the University of Phoenix and to incorporate feedback from stakeholders. It would appear that any sale would require approval from the Idaho Legislature, which meets again in January 2025. In the interim, many important questions remain unanswered.

Despite its commitment, Apollo Global Management, the University of Phoenix's parent company, could sell the school to another buyer. But there has been no public mention (or even hints) of an alternative suitor. Since 2021, Apollo has tried selling the school to a number of buyers, most notably Tuskegee University, UMass Global, and the University of Arkansas System. The only deal to be made public before Idaho was in Arkansas, where concerns about the sale led to the deal falling through.

Information on how the school could be purchased continues to be limited. After a previous bond deal in Arizona fell through, the National Finance Authority (NFA) agreed to participate in the UI-UoPX financing. But there is no public information about how the bonds would be structured. Moody's previously said the $685 million purchase could result in a "multi-notch downgrade" in the University of Idaho's bond rating. 

According to the US Department of Education, more than 900,000 University of Phoenix debtors owe about $21.6B in federal student loan debt. And there have been more than 73,000 Borrower Defense to Repayment (fraud) claims made against the school.

The University of Idaho has previously said that any federal obligations for Borrower Defense to Repayment claims would be handled in court, even though more than 19,000 cases have already been settled in federal court, in favor of the student loan debtors. No matter how this could be handled legally, lawsuits related to the University of Phoenix could tarnish the image of the University of Idaho.