Ashford University Scholarships

Ashford University Scholarships – Ashford University is closing after 10 years as a largely online public college platform. See what the situation says (and doesn’t say) about super benefits.

Ashford University has closed its physical campus in Iowa, the latest in a string of small colleges (many in undisclosed locations) closing as enrollment and revenue decline. But Ashford, given its history and ownership, is a far cry from other private colleges.

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Ten years ago, in 2005, Franciscan University on the Prairie was on the verge of closing, its student population had dwindled to 320 and its religious order affiliated with the Sisters of St. Francis was in dire straits. In stepped Bridgepoint Education, a California company that promised to channel resources to the Iowa college’s physical campus and boost enrollment and revenue through online programs.

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Over the next 10 years, Bridgepoint’s takeover of Ashford became Exhibit A of one of the more dubious tactics in for-profit higher education: “buying” accreditation by taking over an existing institution and turning it into something entirely different (almost always online, and usually on a large scale). A small Iowa campus became the springboard for a public college enterprise that (at one point) generated a surge in online enrollment and significant profits that drew the ire of U.S. senators and led to serious scrutiny from accrediting bodies, prompting the initial deal to be approved.

So it’s no surprise that the closure of its Ashford, Iowa, campus this month has drawn criticism that Bridgepoint’s commitment to community colleges — especially since 2013, when the campus no longer required a physical presence to maintain its Western accreditation — was approved by a regional accreditor in California and accused it of breaking its promise.

So Bridgepoint bought an accredited liberal arts college, built a huge network around the heart and now it’s killing the heart http://t.co/0cfbvCUFh8 — Bob Shireman (@bob_shireman) July 10, 2015

When #4profit Ashford bought Iowa College in 2005, he said, “We’ll never get rid of the Clinton campus. That just happened http://t.co/7qG7smQby2 — David Halperin (@DaHalperin) July 10, 2015.”

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Criticism of Bridgepoint’s relationship with Ashford is relatively easy to dismiss, as critics consistently question the for-profit college’s motives.

That’s less certain, according to Stephen D. Crowe, who chaired the Higher Learning Commission in 2005 when the accreditor approved Ashford’s initial purchase of Bridgepoint.

In an interview, Crowe said the only thing that surprised him about Bridgepoint’s decision to close the Iowa Ashford campus was that it took so long. He said that shortly after the purchase, it became clear to him that Bridgepoint’s “real interest was distance” and that “in his opinion, the college wasn’t interested in that, other than providing an image” to attract online students to the idea of ​​a traditional college.

Crowe, who has kept quiet about Ashford since leaving the accreditation in 2008, complained: “I feel like we’ve been screwed.”

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Bridgepoint and Ashford officials bristled at Crowe’s suggestion that adding on-campus programs with a significant online learning presence was the only way to save Ashford, and that they had no comprehensive effort to do so. The Iowa campus continues to be a concern.

They point out that they have invested more than $40 million in campus facilities and spent $10 million a year on scholarship funds to boost enrollment, which at the start of the decade was more than 1,000 before dropping to about 500. They claim that the same forces that led leaders at Court Marian College in Massachusetts and Sweet Briar College in Virginia to deem those campuses unviable (a decision that was later reversed) led Bridgepoint’s board to the same conclusion.

If Bridgepoint had not committed to the Iowa campus, “we would not have invested in it, we would not have worked hard to build it, and we would not have closed it rather than spending almost a decade building a campus and filming it.” Andrew Clark, Bridgepoint’s president and founder, in a rare interview with

. “We really believed we could grow the campus, and we were on our way until the world of higher education changed in 2012. Bringing students to a small liberal arts college in a remote corner of the country.”

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Franciscan University of the Prairie, a Roman Catholic college founded in 1918 and known throughout its history as Mount Clare College, was poised to close a decade ago after running large annual deficits and numerous maintenance delays.

After potential buyers backed out, the nuns who run Franciscan turned to Bridgepoint, which at the time was offering online courses with ACE credit recommendations through a partnership with Charter Oak State College (think an early version of StraighterLine).

At the time, no Ashford employees were losing their jobs during the transition and the company was “absolutely” committed to remaining in Clinton, Iowa. Clark, the executive director, said Bridgepoint would look to expand the two junior master’s programs Ashford currently offers.

Too bad. By 2012, Ashford’s enrollment had grown to more than 90,000, with only about 1,000 students online. That phenomenal growth allowed company officials to take Bridgepoint public in 2009 and led to important (and perhaps foolish) moves like buying the naming rights to a college football game.

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Bridgepoint’s art and Ashford’s growth have made the company an easy target for critics, especially from Democratic members of Congress who, emboldened by the Obama administration’s regulatory crackdown on for-profit higher education, have increased their scrutiny of the sector.

Bridgepoint’s emergence was a particularly painful issue. A March 2011 hearing by Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa was designed to ask Clark tough questions about Bridgepoint, but he escaped.

In contrast, Sylvia Manning, who replaced Crowe as chair of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Higher Education, drew heavy criticism from assembled lawmakers for allowing Bridgepoint to buy Ashford and turn it into nothing.

“What was wrong with our process,” Manning said, “is that we accredited [Franciscan Transition to Ashford]… it grew a very large online education structure.… We’ve done that before, so if we don’t see the tools to predict or manage it, we’re going to have to do it.” He noted that his agency and most other accreditors responded to the Ashford situation by changing their policies to prevent others from following suit in accrediting existing institutions and fundamentally changing them.

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Last week he felt Bridgepoint officials were not being transparent enough with accreditors about their plans for the Iowa campus.

“The way it was conveyed to me was that they wanted to save the campus and use online learning to serve the state of Iowa more broadly,” Crowe said. He said that “became surreal” given Ashford’s national enrollment numbers and the university’s expanded operations at its home in Bridgepoint, California.

Bridgepoint did not mislead its accreditor, Clark said. “Bridgepoint has been very transparent in its actions and discussions with HLC regarding its plans for growth on campus and online,” he said in an emailed statement. “Since 2005, AU has made numerous visits to the HLC group, proposed and approved new programs and submitted required reports to our accreditor. Namely, one of the recommendations of PPRS was to increase online numbers to generate additional revenue to continue to improve facilities and services at the institution.”

Yes, the companies have significantly expanded online enrollment, Ashford and Bridgepoint officials acknowledge, but they are also making efforts to strengthen the Iowa campus.

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Richard Pattenaud, a former president of the University of Maine System who became Ashford’s president in 2012, said that through a series of investments in facilities (about $40 million) and scholarships and other financial aid (from 2005 to 2011), the university has tripled the number of students at Iowa (about $10 million a year in online student revenue), and expanded academic and athletic programs.

Pattenaud and Clarke say these efforts come in the face of financial and competitive headwinds that have hit higher education in the early part of this decade.

The college has found it increasingly difficult to attract students to its campus in rural northeast Iowa, and it has been made even more difficult since the institution has tried to lower its discount rate to the national average, which is closer to 50 percent. Last fall, Pattenaud said, the college missed its target of 200 new students, and for next fall, Ashford is looking for 150 students and “won’t hit 100,” he said.

“We’ve been studying this for six months and we can’t get away from the fact that enrollment is not supporting the campus,” he said. With Ashford online

Ashford U’s Closure And What It Says About For Profit Higher Ed

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