The Right-Wing Roots of EdTech

The modern EdTech industry is often portrayed as a neutral, innovative force, but its origins are deeply political. Its growth has been fueled by a fusion of neoliberal economics, right-wing techno-utopianism, patriarchy, and classism, reinforced by racialized inequality. One of the key intellectual architects of this vision was George Gilder, a conservative supply-side evangelist whose work glorified technology and markets as liberating forces. His influence helped pave the way for the “Gilder Effect”: a reshaping of education into a market where technology, finance, and ideology collide, often at the expense of marginalized students and workers.

The for-profit college boom provides the clearest demonstration of how the Gilder Effect operates. John Sperling’s University of Phoenix, later run by executives like Todd Nelson, was engineered as a credential factory, funded by federal student aid and Wall Street. Its model was then exported across the sector, including Risepoint (formerly Academic Partnerships), a company that sold universities on revenue-sharing deals for online programs. These ventures disproportionately targeted working-class women, single mothers, military veterans, and Black and Latino students. The model was not accidental—it was designed to exploit populations with the least generational wealth and the most limited alternatives. Here, patriarchy, classism, and racism intersected: students from marginalized backgrounds were marketed promises of upward mobility but instead left with debt, unstable credentials, and limited job prospects.

Clayton Christensen and Michael Horn of Harvard Business School popularized the concept of “disruption,” providing a respectable academic justification for dismantling public higher education. Their theory of disruptive innovation framed traditional universities as outdated and made way for venture-capital-backed intermediaries. Yet this rhetoric concealed a brutal truth: disruption worked not by empowering the disadvantaged but by extracting value from them, often reinforcing existing inequalities of race, gender, and class.

The rise and collapse of 2U shows how this ideology plays out. Founded in 2008, 2U promised to bring elite universities online, selling the dream of access to graduate degrees for working professionals. Its “flywheel effect” growth strategy relied on massive enrollment expansion and unsustainable spending. Despite raising billions, the company never turned a profit. Its high-profile acquisition of edX from Harvard and MIT only deepened its financial instability. When 2U filed for bankruptcy, it was not simply a corporate failure—it was a symptom of an entire system built on hype and dispossession.

2U also became notorious for its workplace practices. In 2015, it faced a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit after firing an enrollment director who disclosed her pregnancy. Women workers, especially mothers, were treated as expendable, a reflection of patriarchal corporate norms. Meanwhile, many front-line employees—disproportionately women and people of color—faced surveillance, low wages, and impossible sales quotas. Here the intersections of race, gender, and class were not incidental but central to the business model. The company extracted labor from marginalized workers while selling an educational dream to marginalized students, creating a cycle of exploitation at both ends of the pipeline.

Financialization extended these dynamics. Lenders like Sallie Mae and Navient, and servicers like Maximus, turned students into streams of revenue, with Student Loan Asset-Backed Securities (SLABS) trading debt obligations on Wall Street. Universities, including Purdue Global and University of Arizona Global, rebranded failing for-profits as “public” ventures, but their revenue-driven practices remained intact. These arrangements consistently offloaded risk onto working-class students, especially women and students of color, while enriching executives and investors.

The Gilder Effect, then, is not just about technology or efficiency. It is about reshaping higher education into a site of extraction, where the burdens of debt and labor fall hardest on those already disadvantaged by patriarchy, classism, and racism. Intersectionality reveals what the industry’s boosters obscure: EdTech has not democratized education but has deepened inequality. The failure of 2U and the persistence of predatory for-profit models are not accidents—they are the logical outcome of an ideological project rooted in conservative economics and systemic oppression.

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Sources

• EdSurge. “What a New Strategy at 2U Means for the Future of Online Higher Education.” August 5, 2022. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2022-08-05-what-a-new-strategy-at-2u-means-for-the-future-of-online-higher-education

• Newswire. “2U Faces Lawsuit for Pregnancy Discrimination.” June 2015. https://www.newswire.com/news/2u-faces-lawsuit-for-pregnancy-discrimination

• Christensen, Clayton M. and Michael B. Horn. Disrupting Class. McGraw-Hill, 2008.

• McMillan Cottom, Tressie. Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy. The New Press, 2017.

• Cellini, Stephanie Riegg. “For-Profit Higher Education: An Assessment of Costs and Benefits.” National Bureau of Economic Research, 2012.

• Rosenthal, Elisabeth. An American Sickness. Penguin, 2017.

The Reality of Higher Ed Fraud in 2025

"Fraudsters are like cockroaches"--Anonymous higher education businessman

Fraudsters are like cockroaches: persistent, hard to eliminate, and always scurrying just beneath the surface. And like cockroaches, when you see one, you can assume many more are hidden from view. In the vast, sprawling ecosystem of US higher education—a multi-trillion-dollar industry built on trust, hope, and credentials—fraud has been a lurking presence for more than a century. From diploma mills to for-profit scams, grade inflation to financial aid abuse, deceit has found fertile ground wherever oversight is weak and incentives are perverse.

The Gilded Roots of Fraud

Fraud in American higher education didn’t begin with Trump University or Corinthian Colleges. The roots go back to the 19th century, when the proliferation of unregulated “colleges” allowed opportunists to sell degrees to anyone willing to pay. These early diploma mills, often run by religious organizations or independent operators, flourished in an era before accreditation, issuing worthless credentials that nevertheless offered the illusion of legitimacy.

By the early 20th century, regional accreditation and federal involvement began to tame the worst actors, but fraud adapted. Unethical schools learned how to mimic the symbols of respectability, while federal dollars—including GI Bill money and later Pell Grants and federal student loans—provided irresistible bait.

For-Profit Colleges and the Federal ATM

The rise of for-profit higher education in the post-WWII era, especially from the 1970s onward, signaled a new chapter in educational fraud. Companies like ITT Technical Institute, Corinthian Colleges, and Education Management Corporation were publicly traded entities or private equity darlings that mastered the art of siphoning billions in taxpayer dollars while leaving students with worthless credentials and mountains of debt.

The fraud wasn’t always overt—it often came wrapped in slick marketing, predatory recruiting, falsified job placement statistics, and pressure to enroll students regardless of academic readiness. These institutions gamed federal financial aid systems, manipulating default rates and exploiting regulatory loopholes.

Even when regulators like the GAO or the Department of Education uncovered misconduct, enforcement was sporadic and too often came after the damage was done. In many cases, executives walked away with millions, while students—often from low-income, Black, Latino, and veteran communities—were left in financial ruin.

Accreditation as a Shield

One of the most confounding aspects of US higher ed fraud is the role of accreditors. Supposed to act as gatekeepers, many regional and national accreditors have served more as enablers—either asleep at the wheel or financially incentivized to look the other way. When accreditors are funded by the very institutions they review, conflict of interest becomes systemic.

This has allowed weak or outright fraudulent institutions to hide behind the veneer of legitimacy. Some accreditors, like ACICS (Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools), became infamous for rubber-stamping schools that should have been shuttered. ACICS accredited both ITT Tech and Corinthian before its federal recognition was finally revoked in 2022.

The New Wave: Online and AI-Enabled Scams

The digital age has added new dimensions to academic fraud. Online colleges like University of Phoenix, Ashford University (now University of Arizona Global Campus), and Western Governors University have raised concerns about low faculty oversight, cookie-cutter instruction, and questions about academic rigor. While not all online institutions are fraudulent, the modality makes it easier to scale shady practices and reduce accountability.

Now, with generative AI entering the classroom and enrollment systems, new questions emerge: How do we ensure academic honesty in an age of algorithmic ghostwriting? How will fraud evolve as institutions increasingly rely on automated admissions, grading, and content delivery?

And it's not just schools. Consultants, influencers, and shady loan servicers feed off the system like parasites—promising student loan relief, admissions guarantees, or academic success for a fee. In this ecosystem, fraud doesn't just survive—it thrives.

When the Roaches Scatter

Occasionally, the light shines in. Whistleblowers, investigative journalists, and government agencies have at times forced fraudsters into the open. Lawsuits have led to settlements. Schools have closed. Presidents have resigned. But like cockroaches, the fraud rarely disappears—it relocates, rebrands, and reinvents itself.

Even with borrower defense to repayment, loan forgiveness programs, and federal oversight mechanisms, restitution often comes too late. And public memory is short. Fraudulent operators have learned how to outlast administrations, court cases, and media cycles.

A Call to Radical Transparency

The Higher Education Inquirer has long called for radical transparency in US higher education. That means open data on outcomes, federal aid, loan default rates, salaries of top administrators, and accreditor performance. It means holding college leaders and board members accountable for failures—not rewarding them with golden parachutes or public pensions.

Fraud may be a permanent feature of capitalist education systems, but its impact can be minimized with independent media scrutiny, better whistleblower protections, and public investment that prioritizes students—not shareholders.

Because fraudsters are like cockroaches. You may never kill them all, but you can make the kitchen a whole lot harder to live in.

Robocolleges vs. Public Universities: Debt, Dropouts, and a Fraying Future

As the landscape of American higher education continues to shift, the divide between public universities and tech-heavy “robocolleges” has grown increasingly apparent. Once promoted as affordable and innovative, robocolleges are now under scrutiny for fostering high student debt and low graduation rates.

These institutions prioritize automation, outsourcing, and marketing over traditional teaching models, often sidelining academic integrity in favor of scalability.

Comparing Outcomes: Public Universities vs. Robocolleges

Feature	Public Universities	Robocolleges (e.g., for-profit/online-heavy)
Average Student Debt	~$18,350 at graduation	~$29,000 or higher
Graduation Rates	~60% for full-time students	Often below 30%
Support Services	Academic advising, tutoring, career centers	Often outsourced or minimal
Faculty Interaction	In-person, tenured professors	Automated systems or adjuncts
Cost Efficiency	Lower tuition, especially in-state	Higher cost per credit hour
Outcomes	Better job placement and earnings potential	Mixed results, often lower ROI

Sources: National Center for Education Statistics; Higher Education Inquirer research

Who Are the Robocolleges?

The following institutions have been identified by the Higher Education Inquirer as leading examples of the robocollege model:

• Liberty University Online: A nonprofit institution with massive online enrollment and over $8 billion in federal student loan debt, especially at the graduate level.

• Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU): With more than 160,000 online students, SNHU has become a leader in automation and AI-driven instruction.

• University of Phoenix: Once the largest for-profit college, now operating as a nonprofit affiliate of the University of Idaho. It has reduced instruction and services by $100 million annually while maintaining high profits.

• Colorado Technical University (CTU): Known for its use of machine learning and data analytics to manage student advising and engagement.

• Purdue University Global: A public university operating a former for-profit model, with deep ties to Kaplan Education and significant outsourcing.

• University of Arizona Global Campus (UAGC): Formerly Ashford University, now part of the University of Arizona system. It offers accelerated online degrees with limited faculty interaction.

The Robocollege Model

These schools rely on automated learning platforms, outsourced services, and aggressive marketing to attract students—often working adults, veterans, and low-income learners. While they promise flexibility and access, critics argue they deliver shallow curricula, minimal support, and poor job placement.

The Consequences

Many students leave robocolleges with significant debt and no degree to show for it. Partnerships with Online Program Managers (OPMs) like 2U and EducationDynamics have drawn criticism for deceptive recruitment practices and inflated costs. Public confidence in higher ed is eroding, and students are increasingly seeking alternative routes to meaningful work.

What’s Next?

As tuition costs rise and outcomes falter, the Higher Education Inquirer will continue investigating whether robocolleges represent a legitimate future for learning—or a cautionary tale of commercialized education gone awry.

EducationDynamics: Still Shilling for Subprime Robocolleges

In 2021, The Higher Education Inquirer published an investigative report exposing the operations of EducationDynamics (“EDDY”), a for-profit lead generation and marketing firm with deep ties to some of the most controversial colleges in American higher education. Four years later, that story has not only held up—it demands a deeper and more urgent follow-up.

EDDY now claims that over the past five years, its clients have experienced an average of 47% enrollment growth above industry benchmarks, attributing this success to its “research-driven, continuous optimization process.” But behind that growth lies a troubling blend of aggressive marketing, deceptive lead generation, and exploitative labor practices—practices that appear to have only intensified.

A History of Bait and Switch

EDDY’s core operations remain rooted in multichannel marketing and lead generation for colleges—especially for-profit and formerly for-profit online institutions. These include Purdue University Global (formerly Kaplan University), University of Arizona Global (formerly Ashford University), American Intercontinental University, Colorado Technical Institute, and South University—all institutions with checkered histories of student outcomes, loan defaults, and regulatory scrutiny.

As previously reported by The Higher Education Inquirer, EDDY—originally known as Halyard Education—has been under ethical clouds for more than a decade. The company funneled leads to shuttered schools like Corinthian Colleges, ITT Technical Institute, and Virginia College, all of which collapsed under regulatory and legal pressure for defrauding students.

EDDY has expanded by acquiring other dubious operations. In 2019 and 2020, it bought up assets from Thruline and QuinStreet, the latter of which had been prosecuted by 20 state attorneys general in 2012 for deceiving military veterans through a phony education site, GIBill.com.

At least one source has linked EDDY to Alec Defrawi, a lead generator sued by the Federal Trade Commission in 2016 for job-application bait-and-switch tactics. Defrawi collected data from people seeking jobs, then sold it to education marketers who aggressively pitched them school enrollment instead. While the FTC complaint didn’t name EDDY directly, a public comment on the FTC’s site suggests a relationship between Defrawi and Halyard/EducationDynamics.

The 2025 Workforce Machine: Exploiting the Exploited

New accounts from Glassdoor and Indeed, along with internal conversations with former employees, show that EDDY's call centers in Boca Raton, Florida and Lenexa, Kansas continue to engage in bait-and-switch tactics. People looking for jobs are redirected to enrollment pitches for schools—many of which offer low graduation rates, high debt burdens, and little return on investment.

The call centers are described as toxic, high-pressure environments, where workers are paid $10 an hour, offered no real commission, and are charged up to $225 per day from their commission pool just to keep their jobs. According to workers, “good leads” are reserved for long-timers and favorites, while new and lower-ranked workers are left dialing disconnected numbers or harassing desperate job seekers.

“They want you to do a lot for $10 an hour,” said one former employee. “They’ll micromanage everything, and if you speak up about the shady stuff, you get punished or iced out.”

Former employees describe being instructed to use aliases and different company names to avoid regulatory detection and consumer suspicion. Others say they were explicitly told not to submit job applications that consumers had filled out, so they could be redirected toward school enrollments instead.

The Kansas location appears to mirror many of the Florida call center's tactics. One sales associate in Lenexa noted they were “getting shady and uninterested leads” and claimed that management was fully aware of the source and quality of these leads.

A Rigged System, Disguised as Opportunity

EDDY hides behind slick language and upbeat metrics, claiming to help students “adapt to the changing needs of today.” But the company’s model thrives on a population of vulnerable, low-income Americans—people simply looking for a job—who are rerouted into student loan debt for education they didn’t want or need.

Meanwhile, the people doing this marketing—call center employees—are also trapped. Lured in with promises of stability and advancement, they find a micromanaged workplace with no real raises, little upward mobility, and workplace retaliation for dissent.

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) gives EducationDynamics an A+ rating, which seems absurd given the overwhelming volume of worker testimonies and student complaints. It’s a glaring example of how the education marketing sector continues to operate with minimal oversight, even as its practices echo the discredited tactics of predatory for-profit colleges from the 2000s and 2010s.

The Bigger Picture

The collapse of Corinthian Colleges and ITT Tech was supposed to signal the end of an era. But EducationDynamics proves that the infrastructure of exploitation never disappeared—it simply rebranded, consolidated, and evolved. Today, it masquerades as a data-driven enrollment consultancy helping colleges grow, while quietly fueling the same pipeline of debt and despair for working-class Americans seeking stability.

Colleges desperate for enrollments, workers desperate for jobs, and the education marketing complex that profits from both—that is the dangerous triangle in which EDDY operates.

Final Thoughts

EDDY’s reported 47% enrollment growth comes with a heavy cost: false hopes, student debt, and labor exploitation. As the higher ed crisis deepens and more colleges seek lifelines, it’s imperative that watchdogs, regulators, and journalists remain vigilant about who’s behind the scenes pulling the strings.

EducationDynamics is not just a marketing firm. It is a relic of the for-profit college era—one that never really ended.

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If you've worked for EducationDynamics or were misled by their marketing, the Higher Education Inquirer wants to hear from you. Contact us confidentially at gmcghee@aya.yale.edu.

HEI Investigation: Campus.edu

In a sector under constant strain, Campus.edu is being heralded by some as the future of community college—and by others as a slick repackaging of the troubled for-profit college model. What many don’t realize is that before it became Campus.edu, the company was known as MTI College, a private, for-profit trade school based in Sacramento, California.

Campus.edu rebranded in 2020 under tech entrepreneur Tade Oyerinde, is backed by nearly $100 million in venture capital. Campus now markets itself as a tech-powered alternative to traditional community colleges—and a lifeline for students underserved by conventional higher ed.

The rebranding, however, raises red flags. While Campus.edu pitches a student-first mission with attractive promises—zero-cost tuition, free laptops, elite educators—the model has echoes of the troubled for-profit sector, with privatization, outsourcing, and digital-first delivery taking precedence over public accountability and academic governance.

The Promises: What Campus.edu Offers

Campus.edu markets itself with a clean, six-step path to success. The pitch is aspirational, accessible, and designed to appeal to working-class students, first-generation college-goers, and those shut out of elite institutions. Here’s what the company promises:

1. Straightforward Application – A simple application process, followed by matching with an admissions advisor who helps identify a student's purpose and educational fit.

2. Tech for Those Who Need It – A free laptop and Wi-Fi access for students who lack them, ensuring digital inclusion.

3. Personal Success Coach – Each student is assigned a personal success coach, offering free tutoring, career advising, and 24/7 access to wellness services.

4. Elite Educators – Courses are taught live via Zoom by faculty who also teach at top universities like Stanford and Columbia.

5. Enduring Support – Whether transferring to a four-year college or entering the workforce, Campus promises help with building skills and networks.

6. More Learning, Less Debt – For Pell Grant-eligible students, Campus markets its programs as costing nothing out-of-pocket, with some students completing degrees debt-free.

It’s a compelling narrative—combining social mobility, digital access, and educational prestige into a neat online package.

Behind the Curtain: MTI College and the For-Profit Legacy

Campus.edu did not rise out of nowhere. It emerged from the bones of MTI College, a long-running, accredited for-profit vocational school. MTI offered hands-on training in legal, IT, cosmetology, and health fields—typical offerings in the for-profit world. The purchase and transformation of MTI into Campus.edu allowed Oyerinde to retain accreditation, avoiding the long and uncertain process of seeking approval for a brand-new college.

This kind of maneuver—buying a for-profit and relaunching it under a new brand—is not new. We’ve seen similar strategies with Kaplan (now Purdue Global), Ashford (now the University of Arizona Global Campus), and Grand Canyon University. What makes Campus.edu unique is the degree to which it blends Silicon Valley aesthetics with the structural DNA of a for-profit college.

Missing Data, Big Promises

Campus.edu boasts high engagement and satisfaction, but as of now, no independent data on student completion, debt outcomes, or long-term career impact is publicly available. The company remains in its early stages, with aggressive growth goals and millions in investor backing—but little regulatory scrutiny.

With investors like Sam Altman (OpenAI), Jason Citron (Discord), and Bloomberg Beta, the pressure to scale is intense. But scale can come at the expense of quality, especially when students are promised the moon.

Marketing Meets Memory

Campus.edu is savvy. Its marketing strikes all the right notes: digital equity, economic mobility, mental health, and student empowerment. It presents itself as the antidote to everything wrong with higher education.

But as its past as MTI College shows, branding can obscure history. And as for-profit operators adapt to a new digital age, it’s essential to distinguish innovation from opportunism. Without transparency, regulation, and democratic oversight, models like Campus.edu could replicate the same old exploitation—with better user interfaces.

The stakes are high. For students already at the margins, a false promise can be more damaging than no promise at all.

DOD continues to shield bad actor schools that prey upon military servicemembers

For more than seven years, we have been waiting to obtain information from the US Department of Defense (DOD) about schools that prey upon servicemembers using DOD Tuition Assistance to further their college aspirations. And we have done it at our peril, repeatedly taking flak from people in DC.  

As the Higher Education Inquirer reported earlier, DOD and these schools have had questionable relationships with these schools going back to the 1980s, with the for-profit college takeover of CCME, the Council of College and Military Educators.  

Those who follow the higher education business know the names of the bad actors, some that are still in business (like the University of Phoenix and Colorado Tech) and some that have closed (like ITT Tech and the Art Institutes). Others have morphed into arms of state universities (Kaplan University becoming Purdue University Global and Ashford University becoming University of Arizona Global). 

Accountability was supposed to happen during the Obama administration (with Executive Order 13607) but those rules were not fully implemented. Under the first Trump administration, these safeguards were largely ignored, and bad actor schools faced no penalties.  

Some of these scandals were reported in the media, and have been forgotten.

On April 1, 2025 we were again supposed to receive information about these bad actor schools, and the DOD officials who were complicit.  It didn't happen. That FOIA (22-1203) which was initiated in July 2022 is now scheduled for a reply on July 3, 2025, three years from the original submission. 

Previous FOIAs from 2019 also came up with no information.  And requests for information in 2017 from DOD officials were met with harassment from other parties. 

The only thing we can be grateful for is that DOD continues to communicate with us. 

 

Related links:

Trump's DOD Failed to Protect Servicemembers from Bad Actor Colleges, But We Demand More Evidence 

DoD review: 0% of schools following TA rules (Military Times, 2018)

Schools are struggling to meet TA rules, but DoD isn’t punishing them. Here’s why. (Military Times, 2019)

The Digital Dark Ages

In this so-called Age of Information, we find ourselves plunged into a paradoxical darkness—a time when myth increasingly triumphs over truth, and justice is routinely deformed or deferred. At The Higher Education Inquirer, we call it the Digital Dark Ages.

Despite the unprecedented access to data and connectivity, we’re witnessing a decay in critical thought, a rise in disinformation, and the erosion of institutions once thought to be champions of intellectual rigor. Higher education, far from being immune, is now entangled in this digital storm—none more so than in the rise of robocolleges and the assault on public universities themselves.

The Fog of Myth

The myths of the Digital Dark Ages come packaged as innovation and access. Online education is heralded as the great equalizer—a tool to democratize knowledge and reach underserved students. But as the dust settles, a darker truth emerges: many of these online programs are not centers of enlightenment, but factories of debt and disillusionment. Myth has become a business model.

The fantasy of upward mobility through a flexible online degree masks a grim reality. The students—often working-class professionals juggling jobs and families—become robostudents, herded through algorithmic coursework with minimal human interaction. The faculty, increasingly adjunct or contract-based, become roboworkers, ghosting in and out of online discussion boards, often managing hundreds of students with little support. And behind it all stands the robocollege—a machine optimized not for education, but for profit.

The Rise of Robocolleges

The rapid growth of online-only education has introduced a new breed of institutions: for-profit, non-profit, secular, and religious, all sharing a similar DNA. Among the most prominent are Southern New Hampshire University, Grand Canyon University, Liberty University Online, University of Maryland Global Campus, Purdue University Global, Walden University, Capella University, Colorado Tech, and the rebranded former for-profits now operating under public university names, like University of Phoenix and University of Arizona Global Campus.

These robocolleges promise convenience and career readiness. In practice, they churn out thousands of credentials in fields like education, healthcare, business, and public administration—often leaving behind hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt.

The Robocollege Model is defined by:

• Automation Over Education

• Aggressive Marketing and Recruitment

• High Tuition with Low Return

• Shallow Curricula and Limited Academic Support

• Poor Job Placement and Overburdened Students

These institutions optimize for profit and political protection, not pedagogy. Many align themselves with right-wing agendas, blending Christian nationalism with capitalist pragmatism, while marketing themselves as the moral antidote to “woke” education.

Trump’s War on Higher Ed and DEI

Former President Donald Trump didn’t just attack political rivals—he waged an ideological war against higher education itself. Under his administration and continuing through his influence, the right has cast universities as hotbeds of liberal indoctrination, cultural decay, and bureaucratic excess. Public universities and their faculties have been relentlessly vilified as enemies of “real America.”

Central to Trump’s campaign was the targeting of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Executive orders banned federally funded diversity training, and right-wing media amplified the narrative that DEI was a form of “reverse racism” and leftist brainwashing. That playbook has since been adopted by Republican governors and legislatures across the country, leading to:

• Defunding DEI Offices: Entire departments dedicated to equity have been dismantled in states like Florida and Texas.

• Censorship of Curriculum: Academic freedom is under siege as laws restrict the teaching of race, gender, and American history.

• Chilling Effects on Faculty: Scholars of color, queer faculty, and those doing critical theory face retaliation, termination, or self-censorship.

• Hostile Campus Environments: Students in marginalized groups are increasingly isolated, unsupported, and surveilled.

This culture war is not simply rhetorical—it’s institutional. It weakens public confidence in higher education, strips protections for vulnerable communities, and drives talent out of teaching and research. It also feeds directly into the robocollege model, which offers a sanitized, uncritical, and commodified version of education to replace the messy, vital work of civic learning and self-reflection.

The Debt Trap and Student Loan Servitude

Today, more than 45 million Americans are trapped in a cycle of student loan debt servitude, collectively owing over $1.7 trillion. Robocolleges have played a central role in inflating this debt by promising career transformation and delivering questionable outcomes.

Debt has become a silent form of social control—disabling an entire generation’s ability to invest, build, or dissent.

• Delayed Life Milestones

• Psychological Toll

• Stalled Economic Mobility

This is not just a personal burden—it is the product of decades of deregulation, privatization, and a bipartisan consensus that treats education as a private good rather than a public right.

The Dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education

Over time, and especially under Trump-aligned officials like Betsy DeVos, the U.S. Department of Education has been hollowed out, repurposed to protect predatory institutions rather than students. Key actions include:

• Rolling Back Protections for borrowers defrauded by for-profit colleges.

• Weakening Oversight of accreditation and accountability metrics.

• Empowering Loan Servicers to act with impunity.

• Undermining Public Education in favor of vouchers, charters, and online alternatives.

The result? Robocolleges and their corporate allies are given free rein to exploit. Students are caught in the machinery. And the very institution charged with protecting educational integrity has been turned into a clearinghouse for deregulated profiteering.

Reclaiming the Idea of Higher Education

This is where we are: in a Digital Dark Age where myths drive markets, and education has become a shell of its democratic promise. But all is not lost.

Resistance lives—in underfunded community colleges, independent media, academic unions, student debt collectives, and grassroots movements that refuse to accept the commodification of learning.

What’s needed now is not another tech “solution” or rebranding campaign. We need a recommitment to education as a public good. That means:

• Rebuilding and funding public universities

• Protecting academic freedom and DEI efforts

• Canceling student debt and regulating private actors

• Restoring the Department of Education as a tool for justice

• Rethinking accreditation, equity, and access through a democratic lens

Because if we do not act now—if we do not call the Digital Dark Ages by name—we may soon forget what truth, justice, and education ever meant.

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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.]  

For-Profit College Barons Backed Trump, But Now May Be Scared (David Halperin)

Many top for-profit college industry owners supported Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House. They had benefitted when, during Trump’s first term, his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, largely ended federal regulatory and enforcement efforts to hold for-profit schools accountable for deceiving students and ripping off taxpayers. But some industry barons, having contributed to the Trump 2024 campaign, now may be scared by efforts of the new Trump administration, including Elon Musk’s DOGE team, to disrupt operations of the U.S. Department of Education. Both Trump and his new Secretary of Education Linda McMahon publicly suggested last week that the Department will be abolished.

Although the for-profit college industry endlessly complained that the Biden and Obama education departments were unfairly targeting the industry with regulations and enforcement actions, they now seem concerned about the possibility that the Trump administration will shutter the Department entirely, abandon the federal role in higher education oversight, and leave regulation to the states. They likely are even more frightened that the proposed gutting of the Department will interfere with the flow of billions in federal taxpayer dollars to their schools.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Jason Altmire, the former congressman who is now the CEO of the largest lobbying group of for-profit colleges, Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), says that his schools are worried about the potential disruption of funding for federal student grants and loans. Altmire apparently also expressed concern that turning regulation over to the states could create problems for online schools that operate in multiple states, especially because some states have relatively strong accountability rules.

Many for-profit colleges receive most of their revenue — as much as the 90 percent maximum allowed by U.S. law — from federal taxpayer-supported student grants and loans. For-profit schools have received literally hundreds of billions in these taxpayer dollars over the past two decades, as much as $32 billion at the industry’s peak around 2010, and around $20 billion annually n0w.

But many for-profit schools have used deceptive advertising and recruiting to sell high-priced low quality college and career training programs that leave many students worse off than when they started, deep in debt and without the career advancement they sought. Dozens of for-profit schools have faced federal and state law enforcement actions over their abuses.

CECU (previously called APSCU and before that CCA) has included in its membership over the years many of the most abusive, deceptive school operations, including Corinthian Colleges, ITT Tech, Education Management Corp., Perdoceo, Center for Excellence in Higher Education, DeVry, Kaplan (now called Purdue University Global), and Ashford University (now called University of Arizona Global Campus). (Republic Report highlighted the bad actors on CECU’s membership list for many years; CECU removed the list from its website about four years ago.)

Florida couple Arthur and Belinda Keiser are among those who have benefited the most from CECU lobbying and taxpayer funding. The Keisers run for-profit Southeastern College and non-profit Keiser University, which collectively have received hundreds of million in federal education dollars over the years. They also are among the most politically active owners in the career college industry.

While Belinda Keiser has run, unsuccessfully, for the state legislature, Arthur Keiser has been one of the most aggressive lobbyists for the career college industry in Washington. He has been a dominant figure on the board of CECU, and he hired expensive lawyers to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in a failed effort to block a settlement that provides debt relief to students who attended deceptive colleges, including Keiser University. During Trump’s first term, Arthur Keiser chaired NACIQI, the Department of Education’s advisory committee reviewing the performance of college accreditors.

The Keisers created controversy and were eventually penalized by the IRS for a shady 2011 conversion of Keiser University from for-profit to non-profit, in a deal that allowed the couple to continue making big money off the school. Keiser University has also settled cases with the Justice Department and the Florida attorney general over deceptive practices.

In the two years leading up to the November 2024 election, according to Federal Election Committee records, Belinda Keiser donated more than $250,000 to various Republican candidates and political committees, including $35,000 to the Trump 47 Committee, $10,300 to the Trump-affiliated Save America PAC, $3300 to the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, and $33,400 to the Republican National Committee.

Ultra-wealthy college owner Carl Barney was another big Trump 2024 donor. Barney operated the Center for Excellence in Higher Education, another troubling conversion from for-profit to non-profit that kept taxpayer money flowing into his bank accounts, for schools including CollegeAmerica and Independence University. Barney’s schools lost their accreditation, and then their federal aid, after the Colorado attorney general in 2020 won a lawsuit accusing CollegeAmerica of deceptive practices. (The case is still pending after an appeal.)

Amid a torrent of donations to Republican committees last fall totaling over $1.6 million, Barney donated $924,600 to the Trump 47 Committee, $74,500 to the Trump-supporting Make America Great Again PAC, and $247,800 to the Republican National Committee, according to federal records.

In a September post on his personal website, Barney explained that he liked that Trump “wants to work with Elon Musk to reduce spending, regulations, waste, and fraud in the federal government.”

What exactly waste, fraud, and abuse seems to mean in the context of the Trump/Musk effort is troubling. There is little evidence that what DOGE has found and shut down relates to actual fraud, abuse, or corruption.

Instead it appears that much of what Musk and DOGE have focused on is weakening or eliminating either (1) federal agencies that have been investigating Musk businesses, or businesses of other top Trump donors; or (2) agencies that work on priorities — such as equal opportunity for Americans or alleviation of poverty or disease overseas — that Trump or Musk dislike.

And the Trump team has been firing, across multiple federal agencies, the inspectors general, ethics watchdogs, and other top officials actually charged with rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse — further undermining the claim that the Trump team is trying to bring about more honest and efficient government.

It’s doubtful that even the heaviest sledgehammer DOGE attack would eliminate the federal student grants and loans that Congress has mandated to give low and moderate income Americans of all backgrounds a better chance to improve their lives through higher education. Assuming such financial aid will continue, then if Trump, Musk, and DOGE truly wanted to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, and save big money for taxpayers, one thing they could do is strengthen, rather than abolish, the Department of Education — not to keep the money flowing to all for-profit colleges, as CECU seems to want, but to advance efforts to ensure that taxpayer dollars go only to those colleges that are creating real benefits for students and for our economy.

That would mean enforcing and building on, not destroying, the Department of Education rules put in place by the Biden administration, including: the gainful employment rule, which creates performance standards to cut off aid to for-profit and career programs that consistently leave graduates with insurmountable debt; the borrower defense rule, which cancels the debts of students scammed by their schools and empowers the Department to go after those predatory schools to recoup the taxpayer money; and the 90-10 rule, which helps keep low-quality programs out of the federal aid program and reduces the risk that poor quality schools will target U.S. veterans and service members.

It would also mean continuing the Biden administration’s efforts to more aggressively evaluate the performance of the private college accrediting agencies that oversee colleges and serve as gatekeepers for federal student grants and loans.

Fighting waste, fraud, and abuse would also mean strengthening, not gutting, efforts to investigate and fight predatory college abuses by enforcement teams at the Department of Education, Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Justice Department, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Department of Defense. Many deceptive school operations remain in business today, recruiting veterans, single parents, and others into low-quality, over-priced college programs; they include Perdoceo’s American Intercontinental and Colorado Technical University, Purdue University Global, University of Arizona Global Campus, DeVry University, Walden University, the University of Phoenix, South University, Ultimate Medical Academy, and UEI College.

Fighting waste, fraud, and abuse also would likely require a different higher ed leader at the Department than Nicholas Kent, the Virginia state official whom Trump has nominated to serve as Under Secretary of Education. Kent previously worked at CECU as a lobbyist advancing the interests of for-profit schools. Prior to that, he worked at Education Affiliates, a for-profit college operation that faced civil and criminal investigation and actions by the Justice Department for deceptive practices.

Diane Auer Jones, who held the same job in the first Trump administration, had a career background similar to Kent’s, and she twisted Department policies and actions to benefit predatory colleges. That is presumably the world CECU and its for-profit college barons want to restore: All the money, none of the accountability rules.

In the end, the predatory college owners may get what they want. Given the brazen self-dealing, and fealty to corporate donors, of the Trump-Musk administration, and the sharp elbows of paid-for congressional backers of the for-profit college industry like Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), we will probably end up with the worst of all outcomes: the destruction of the Department of Education but a continued flow of taxpayer billions to for-profit schools, without meaningful accountability measures to ensure that everyday Americans are actually protected from waste, fraud, and abuse.

Americans should demand from Trump and Secretary McMahon a different course — one that provides educational opportunity for all and strengthens the U.S. economy by investing in higher education, while removing from the federal aid program the abusive colleges that rip off students and scam taxpayers.

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

Robocolleges 2025

Overall, enrollment numbers for online robocolleges have increased as full-time faculty numbers have declined. Four schools now have enrollment numbers exceeding 100,000 students.  

Here's a breakdown of the key characteristics of robocolleges:

• Technology-Driven: Robocolleges heavily utilize online platforms, pre-recorded lectures, automated grading systems, and limited human interaction.
• Focus on Profit: These institutions often prioritize generating revenue over providing a high-quality educational experience.
• Aggressive Marketing: Robocolleges frequently employ aggressive marketing tactics to attract students, sometimes with misleading information.
• High Tuition Costs: They often charge high tuition fees, leading to significant student debt.
• Limited Faculty Interaction: Students may have limited access to faculty members for guidance and support.
• Questionable Job Placement Rates: Graduates of robocolleges may struggle to find employment in their chosen fields.

Concerns:

• Student Debt Crisis: The high tuition costs and potential for low job placement rates contribute to the student debt crisis.
• Quality of Education: The emphasis on technology and limited human interaction can raise concerns about the quality of education students receive.
• Ethical Considerations: The aggressive marketing tactics and potential for misleading students raise ethical concerns.

Here are Fall 2023 numbers (the most recent numbers) from the US Department of Education College Navigator:

Southern New Hampshire University: 129 Full-Time (F/T) instructors for 188,049 students.*
Grand Canyon University 582 F/T instructors for 107,563 students.*
Liberty University: 812 F/T for 103,068 students.*
University of Phoenix: 86 F/T instructors for 101,150 students.*
University of Maryland Global: 168 F/T instructors for 60,084 students.
American Public University System: 341 F/T instructors for 50,187 students.
Purdue University Global: 298 F/T instructors for 44,421 students.
Walden University: 242 F/T for 44,223 students.
Capella University: 168 F/T for 43,915 students.
University of Arizona Global Campus: 97 F/T instructors for 32,604 students.
Devry University online: 66 F/T instructors for 29,346 students.
Colorado Technical University: 100 F/T instructors for 28,852 students.
American Intercontinental University: 82 full-time instructors for 10,997 students.
Colorado State University Global: 26 F/T instructors for 9,507 students.
South University: 37 F/T instructors for 8,816 students.
Aspen University 10 F/T instructors for 5,195 students.
National American University 0 F/T instructors for 1,026 students

*Most F/T faculty serve the ground campuses that profit from the online schools.

Related links:

Wealth and Want Part 4: Robocolleges and Roboworkers (2024) 

Southern New Hampshire University: America's Largest Robocollege Facing Resistance From Human Workers and Student Complaints About Curriculum (2024)

Robocolleges, Artificial Intelligence, and the Dehumanization of Higher Education (2023)

AI-ROBOT CAPITALISTS WILL DESTROY THE HUMAN ECONOMY (Randall Collins, 2023)

Guild Education: Enablers of Anti-Union Corporations and Subprime College Programs (2021)

The Growth of "RoboColleges" and "Robostudents" (2019)

The Higher Education Assembly Line (2019)

How University of Arizona Global Campus’ Online Recruitment Ads Drain Its Finances (Jeremy Bauer-Wolf)

In 2020, the University of Arizona acquired Ashford University, an online for-profit college that a California court later found guilty of having deceived students about job prospects, transfer opportunities, and degree costs.

Feeling pressured to better compete in the online education market — especially as Arizona State University broadened its virtual options — University of Arizona leaders recast Ashford as the University of Arizona Global Campus, or UAGC.

Administrators pledged to rehabilitate UAGC and abandon the exploitation that landed the former Ashford in legal hot water. UAGC, as its president said in 2022, is “well-positioned to provide adult learners with affordable college credentials that can better prepare them for careers in a rapidly evolving global economy.”

But beneath the rebranding efforts, problems remain. The University of Arizona has spent massively on marketing UAGC, as an audit that consultancy EY conducted last year revealed, a hallmark tactic of predatory for-profit institutions that dress up their junk degrees as prestigious offerings.

UAGC runs extensive and expensive ad campaigns on Google and Facebook, yet fewer than 1% of those reached enroll. This amounts to the university paying $11,521 for every student enrolled from those campaigns, the audit shows.

For context, this is almost as much as the University of Arizona’s in-state tuition and fees per student in the 2023-24 academic year, which federal data estimates to be about $13,000.

And one higher ed consultancy, RNL, found that in 2022, the median cost of recruiting an undergraduate student, minus personnel expenses, was only $1,652 for a four-year private college and $282 at a four-year public institution (though proponents of online education argue this is comparing apples to oranges).

But ultimately, UAGC’s investment has not improved enrollment. It continues to bleed, as it did in Ashford’s later days, dropping from about 107,000 students in fiscal year 2015 to 51,000 in fiscal year 2023.

Criticism from some of the University of Arizona’s faculty has also erupted. In the waning days of 2024, Nolan Cabrera, a professor at the university’s Center for the Study of Higher Education, wrote a public warning to students, urging them not to enroll in UAGC.

Cabrera told New America in a later interview he went public with his criticisms to protect students — and the University of Arizona’s reputation. UAGC, he said, is only hurting students with poor-quality programs, draining resources and sullying its standing as a top-class, R1 institution.

Blake Naughton, UAGC’s vice provost for academic affairs, teaching, and learning for online initiatives said in an emailed statement that “accreditors, government agencies, and other external reviewers” recognize “UAGC’s commitment to the quality of its degree programs.”

“UAGC has developed an innovative model that is validated through reaffirmations of quality by UAGC’s institutional and programmatic accreditors, which includes Quality Matters certification representing the gold standard in online courses, and enthusiastic partnerships with businesses and military employers,” Naughton said. “Further, UAGC faculty are leaders in the scholarship of online teaching and learning, regularly publishing and presenting on the efficacy of its ‘quality at scale’ model.”

The Creation of UAGC

Those inside and out of University of Arizona — state officials, faculty, college students and their advocates — were immediately skeptical of UAGC’s potential quality and value when the university acquired Ashford in 2020. The deal was a complex one that involved the University of Arizona creating a new nonprofit entity, which bought Ashford for $1. In return, UAGC would provide almost 20% of annual tuition revenue to Ashford’s former parent company, Zovio, though that arrangement later fell apart in 2022.

Before the acquisition, Ashford followed the blueprint of one of the most notorious for-profit colleges in American history: the University of Phoenix. Andrew S. Clark — an executive who contributed to the University of Phoenix’s rise — and the company he later worked for, Bridgepoint, replicated deceptive practices around credit transfers, financial aid, and recruitment at Ashford.

In 2017, California’s attorney general alleged Ashford misled prospective students about their chances of securing financial aid, the cost of attendance, the transferability of credits, and how well its programs prepared them for certain careers. The attorney general also accused it of deceiving investors and the public by exaggerating the percentage of working alumni who said their degree helped them in their current jobs.

This complaint was still unresolved by the time University of Arizona acquired it in 2020.

In 2022, the court ruled against Ashford and Zovio. The judge in the case was persuaded by estimates that Zovio made roughly 1.2 million misleading calls to potential students from March 2009 to April 2020.

The University of Arizona painstakingly crafted a public relations campaign to try to cleave UAGC’s reputation from Ashford’s. This was despite widespread concerns among its faculty and staff about Ashford, Cabrera said in an interview.

The administration never truly responded to those fears that Ashford was still peddling poor-quality education, he said. In fact, negotiations surrounding Ashford were so secretive that University of Arizona representatives who were involved with them signed non-disclosure agreements, obfuscating details of the deal, Cabrera argued. (The University of Arizona has said because Zovio was a publicly traded company, the institution “was required to undertake its work on a confidential and ‘need to know’ basis.”)

“You know the old adage, ‘you get what you pay for’?,” Cabrera said, referring to the $1 price tag of the acquisition. “That should tell you everything you need to know.”

UAGC has maintained an anemic graduation rate, only reaching 15% to 20% after the University of Arizona’s acquisition, according to the audit. The University of Arizona’s graduation rate stands between 60% to 70%. The retention rate of full-time students has also only improved modestly, from 24% in 2019 to 30% in 2022, according to federal data.

Mitch Zak, a University of Arizona spokesperson, said in a statement that it and UAGC have different academic models, thus their graduation rates aren’t comparable.

“The majority of UAGC students are working adults and military service members with varying priorities and responsibilities, which results in their taking fewer courses per year than traditional U of A students,” Zak said. “Non-traditional online students nationwide are not expected to graduate in the same timeframe as traditional university undergraduates.”

Recent news reports have also detailed how, like Ashford’s graduates, some UAGC students have said they can’t find sound jobs after leaving and alleged that the institution misled them about the value and cost of their degrees.

Cabrera said the University of Arizona’s leaders have not prioritized improving student outcomes, but rather an online education arms race and particularly beating out Arizona State, reflecting the longstanding rivalry between the two most prominent public universities in the state.

Cabrera said the two institutions are in constant competition — in public college rankings, like U.S. News & World Report’s, in enrolling more students, and other peripheral aspects of their academics, such as who employs more Nobel Prize laureates.

But if the University of Arizona’s leadership was so worried about its reputation, it shouldn’t have scooped up Ashford, Cabrera argued. Its association with Ashford and its shoddy education demeans the value of a University of Arizona degree, too, he said.

Zak pushed back against Cabrera’s allegation, saying that “priority is to ensure that UAGC is meeting the needs of its students, most of whom could not access traditional higher education.”

He also separately in his statement criticized Cabrera, saying the professor is not an expert in online education and did not reach out to UAGC leaders or faculty “to learn more about the differences between the U of A and UAGC as well as the complexities associated with providing access to higher education to working professionals.”

Major Marketing Costs

Amid this firestorm, UAGC’s enrollments continue to slip.

Zak argued this decline “was expected and planned for during the transitional period” as the institution works to integrate the former Ashford into the University of Arizona. He said UAGC is trying to lift enrollment, including through programs that help stopped out students return to college.

Still, the enrollment downturn raises questions in particular about the efficiency of its marketing efforts.

While the analysis doesn’t reveal the full extent of UAGC’s marketing splurge, it likely devotes hundreds of millions of dollars to it, based on figures in the EY audit. A similar institution to UAGC, the University of Maryland Global Campus, also dropped $500 million on just two six-year advertising contracts, according to a separate audit.

UAGC is investing significantly in lead generation, a strategy colleges have tried for more than a decade. They pay for advertisements to appear on webpages, particularly social media platforms, that typically summarize a program and also try to entice prospective students to click a new link for more information.

That ad takes prospects to a separate webpage, where they can fill in their name and other information, becoming a “lead” that a college can try to convince them to enroll.

Yet UAGC’s use of lead generation has been astonishingly fruitless, the audit shows.

Fewer than 1% of students reached through UAGC’s top five paid marketing sources, including Google and Facebook, actually enroll. The numbers concerning Facebook are particularly bleak — only 0.5% of prospective students end up enrolling at UAGC after clicking an advertisement on the platform. The auditor said this means it effectively costs the university more than $34,000 in marketing dollars just for one person to enroll from Facebook.

Even UAGC’s most successful lead generation source — Google search ads — converted just 3% of prospects, with each enrollment costing more than $7,500.

These figures are even more staggering considering UAGC pays to find 85% of its prospects, according to the audit. By contrast, Arizona Online — the university’s self-created online program, which still operates, in parallel to UAGC — buys just 50% of its student leads.

Zak said that UAGC has since “refined” its marketing to “prioritize efficiency and effectiveness,” but did not go into greater detail.

“UAGC has implemented a targeted approach in alignment with its mission of serving non-traditional learners,” Zak said. “UAGC is focused on retention and success and focuses on students who are most likely to benefit from a flexible and supportive learning environment. UAGC leverages data analytics, audience segmentation, and advanced tracking mechanisms to help improve conversion rates and reduce marketing costs.”

He later said that UAGC serves nontraditional students like working adults, military members and first-generation college attendees.

“Reaching those students in a competitive marketplace requires a different approach than traditional four-year universities,” Zak said.

The University of Arizona has faced budget problems broadly and last year said it had a $177 million budget deficit, which it has since reduced significantly.

But for all the university’s publicity efforts around UAGC, prospective students recognize Arizona Online as part of the institution’s brand, more so than UAGC, the audit said. Maintaining both platforms has actually spurred “market confusion,” according to the audit.

To remedy this, the University of Arizona has angled to integrate UAGC and Arizona Online, and Zak pointed to a university statement last year that said the audit findings validate this merger.

Still, this “confusion” underscores broader marketing challenges, like relying heavily on lead generation, a strategy UAGC has leaned into despite the fact that experts have said it’s inefficient to boost enrollment.

In part, that’s because institutions don’t recognize that students won’t make life-altering choices, like where to attend college, based on what’s essentially a pop-up ad, two marketing experts wrote in a 2022 essay.

“Prospective students prudently take their time researching your programs’ offerings in addition to many others,’” they wrote. “They are not naïve, impatient or easily persuaded by glitzy ads and copy. They spend many months researching and deliberating.”

Worse, lead generation can be used for nefarious or even predatory recruitment efforts. Some lead generation companies, for instance, have caught consequences from the Federal Trade Commission, particularly those that target current and former military members.

What To Do Now?

Thus far, the University of Arizona Global Campus is a failed experiment, Cabrera said. He was inspired to publish his concerns about UAGC publicly after students enrolled in its programs began to reach out to him.

Students were distressed. They told him in emails and direct messages on social media that UAGC faculty in education programs couldn’t guide them properly. He said he lost count of how many students contacted him — he estimated more than 20 over an 18-month period.

“For all the political bickering, real students are getting hurt, real students getting harmed here,” Cabrera said. “They’re making a bet, but students are getting hurt in the process.”

The University of Arizona declined to comment on the UAGC students who contacted Cabrera. UAGC faculty later wrote a public rebuttal to Cabrera, arguing his piece was based on his “rather than on facts and thus lacked the academic rigor of factual data from credible sources.”

But the UAGC faculty piece did not refute specifically any data Cabrera cited, including numbers from the EY audit.

In Zak’s emailed statement, he said UAGC students “have access to academic support teams, career services, student access and wellness support teams, and a combination of tools, technology, and guidance to help them progress.”

Cabrera remains unconvinced.

He said the University of Arizona’s leaders have not fulfilled their promise to purge the educational sins of Ashford. The reality is that enrollment continues to plummet, while UAGC’s exorbitant spending on lead generation, with little return, highlights a systemic issue: UAGC, Cabrera said, has seemingly prioritized its push for new students over reforming Ashford’s remnants, which is still making headlines.

This month, the U.S. Department of Education announced it would cancel $4.5 billion in loans for 261,000 students who attended Ashford. And last year, the Education Department discharged $72 million in loan obligations for more than 2,300 former Ashford students.

In light of some of the continued problems, the University of Arizona should reassess its fundamentals of online education. It should prioritize meeting the core principles of academic quality and comprehensive student support over marketing its new venture. A stronger focus on student needs would drive more meaningful outcomes and enhance the university’s reputation in the online education space.

As Cabrera suggested, without a realignment of priorities, UAGC risks being an expensive endeavor with little impact. Its reliance on extensive marketing campaigns, like flashy Facebook ads, may eventually draw attention but will struggle to make up for the gaps in delivering long-term value to students.

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