May need to sign up to Seeking Alpha to read entire article (http://seekingalpha.com/article/2787695-apollo-education-group-measurable-downside).
Main points made by the author Aaron Barton:
- The Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act of 2013 ("BSLCA") has provisions that could increase the lifetime cost of a University of Phoenix Degree by over $33,000 even if tuition and fees remain flat.
According to US News, tuition and fees at for-profit universities are already roughly 4.5x more expensive than two-year public colleges and almost twice as expensive as four-year public colleges, even as for-profit graduates struggle to gain jobs compared to their peers with similar degrees from non-selective public schools. This trend has already manifested itself in decreased enrollment, which leads us to risk factor two.
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Enrollment at the University of Phoenix has decreased almost 46% since 2010. The National Center for Education Statistics projects college enrollment to increase only 15 percent from 2010 to 2021. At less than a 1.5% annual growth rate, it would take over 40 years to return to pre-2010 enrollment numbers. This is no easy task considering that the US regulatory environment has posed considerable headaches for Apollo Education Group.
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The University of Phoenix relies ((too)) heavily on Title IV programs. The University of Phoenix 90/10 rule percentage was over 80% for each of the last three years (most recently 81% in 2014).
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The University of Phoenix's Title IV certification expired in 2012 and is pending approval from the Department of Education. Currently, The University of Phoenix is operating on a month-to-month eligibility basis.
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The University of Phoenix just isn't very good. Sure, a college degree will set you apart from your non-degreed peers, but that doesn't always result in increased economic potential. A Harvard University Study found that, adjusting for backgrounds and income before enrollment, students in for-profit universities still had lower earnings and were less likely to be employed and overall less satisfied with their experience a half-decade after initial enrollment than their traditionally educated peers.