The Wall Street swagger of for-profit college companies — so visible just five years ago — looks a lot more like a limp at the dawn of 2016.
At the height of their growth, in 2010, for-profit colleges enrolled more than one in 12 students at degree-granting institutions in the United States. The colleges still make up a significant part of the education landscape, enrolling about 6.5 percent of all students as of the spring of 2015, according to the National Student Clearinghouse. But enrollment at those colleges has fallen by 26 percent since the high point, a far greater decrease than the 9-percent decline in overall postsecondary enrollment.
Not all for-profit colleges are hurting, even among those owned by publicly traded companies. Enrollment has been consistently robust at Grand Canyon University over the past five years, thanks in large part to its Christian-education focus, and the numbers have recently rebounded at Capella University as well. When it comes to market value, the trend is even more consistent — and downward. With the exception of Grand Canyon, many of the companies have seen their value drop, often drastically, as enrollments have fallen and scrutiny has increased. In 2009, 10 of the biggest publicly traded companies were collectively worth about $30-billion. Today, with Corinthian Colleges bankrupt, Education Management Corporation trading for pennies, and even the once-mighty Apollo Education Group valued at less than one-tenth of its 2009 figure, the estimate on that collection of companies is closer to $6-billion.
Read more at The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/article/For-Profit-Colleges-May-Be/234808