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| Motto: | Thinking Ahead |
| Established: | 1976 |
| Type: | Private, For-profit |
| President: | Bill Pepicello |
| Faculty: | 20,000+ |
| Staff: | 12,000+ |
| Undergraduates: | 220,000+ |
| Postgraduates: | 60,000+ |
| Location: | Phoenix, Arizona, USA |
| Campus: | Urban |
| Locations: | 204 campuses & learning centers[1] |
| Website: | phoenix.edu |
The University of Phoenix (UPX) is a for-profit educational institution that specializes in adult education. The largest private university in North America, it has an enrollment of more than 345,300 students.The school was founded in 1976 by Dr. John Sperling and is owned by the Apollo Group, Inc. The university has more than 200 campuses offering more than 100 degree programs at the associate's, bachelor's, master's and doctoral levels in various fields of study.
History
In the early 1970s, at San Jose State University in California, John Sperling and several associates conducted field-based research in adult education. The focus of the research was to explore teaching/learning systems for the delivery of educational programs and services to working adult students who wished to complete or further their education in ways that complemented both their experience and current professional responsibilities. At that time, colleges and universities were organized primarily around serving the needs of the 18–22-year-old undergraduate student — given that the large majority of those enrolled were residential students of traditional college age, just out of high school. “According to Sperling, working adult students were often invisible on traditional campuses and treated as second-class citizens.
With a first class of only eight students, Sperling founded the university in 1976 in Phoenix, Arizona.[3] In 1980, the school expanded to San Jose, California. By 1989, the university had become one of the first providing an online program for students.
University of Phoenix is a wholly owned subsidiary of Apollo Group, Inc. publicly traded on NASDAQ: APOL and is a S&P 500 corporation based in Phoenix, Arizona. The school was the top recipient of federal assistance for the 2008 fiscal year, receiving over $2.8 billion in federal money to fund student financial aid programs.The University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona is a municipal sports arena, best known as the home of the NFL's Arizona Cardinals and the site of the NCAA's Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. The University paid $154.5 million for 20 year naming rights for advertising purposes.
The University of Phoenix was once abbreviated as "UoP" but is now "UPX."
Campuses
The university has campuses and learning centers in 40 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, Chile, and the Netherlands.While the school specializes in online programs, the campuses offer additional programs and services. Online students are also able to utilize tutoring/social centers which can also be used for social and student learning interactions. The first center opened in 2007 in Plano, Tex.
Academic profile
The university offers several different programs of study, all administered through four colleges — the John Sperling School of Business and Technology, the Artemis School (administering art, education, and health fields), the School of Advanced Studies (overseeing doctoral programs), and Axia College (managing associate's degrees). In addition to its traditional education programs, the school offers continuing education courses for teachers and practitioners, professional development courses for companies, and specialized courses of study for military personnel.
Admission requirements differ by prospective degree and field of study; however, most require current full-time employment, a satisfactory TOEFL score, and a corresponding benchmark diploma or degree (GED needed to enter associate's and bachelor's degree programs, bachelor's degree needed to enter master's program, etc.). Specific programs may require certain GPAs, so many years of applicable work experience, and background tests and immunizations for on-campus study. Undergraduate tuition averages $12,000 per year.
Students spend 20 to 24 hours with an instructor during each course, compared with about 40 hours at a traditional university. The university also requires students to teach one another by working on projects for four or five hours per week in what it calls “learning teams,” wherein students engage classmates in course material discussions. The abbreviated courses and the use of learning teams has caused concern among some academicians and former students. The course schedule is more convenient for professionals who can log on anytime.The university uses a standardized course format that does not allow individual faculty to choose the course materials.
Online Services and Education
Upon registering for a class, students pay a fee ranging from $65.00 to $95.00 for access to class-specific online resources. This resource fee provides them full access to an electronic library, textbooks and other ancillary material required for the course. The university says that the electronic textbooks include search features and hyperlinks to glossary terms that make the books easier to use when working on research papers and other documents.
Through their online portal, University of Phoenix students also have special access to the software that they require for their courses.
Jeff Silber, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, estimates that around 75 per cent of the school's students are enrolled in online courses of some form.
In 2008, the University of Phoenix was ranked #25 in the world for online degree programs by OEDb.
Accreditation
The University of Phoenix is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission as a member of the North Central Association.It also has accreditation for a variety of its specialty degree programs, including:
- Nursing Accreditation — The B.S. in Nursing and the M.S. in Nursing degree programs are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE).
- Business Accreditation — All business programs from the Associate to the Doctoral levels have specialty accreditation through the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP).
- Teacher Education Accreditation — The M.A. in Education degree program is preaccredited by the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) for a period of five years, from December 20, 2007 to December 20, 2012.
- Counseling Accreditation — The M.S. in Counseling degree program in Community Counseling and the M.S. in Counseling degree program in Mental Health Counseling are accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP).
Research
In May 2008, the school announced the formation of the University of Phoenix National Research Center. It is designed to study which teaching methods work best for nontraditional students. The development of the research center is under advisement by a board comprising a former dean of education at the University of Virginia; a consultant on learning and a former official with the College Board; and the president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
People
Students
The average age of a University of Phoenix student is between 33 (undergraduate) and 36 (graduate), and most students have work related commitments. Additionally, nearly two-thirds of the University's students are women. A plurality of students attending the school study business (undergraduate students representing 29.9% and graduate students 12.9%), followed closely by those enrolled in Axia College for associate's degrees (28.1%).
Faculty
The University's faculty consists of approximately 1,500 core faculty and 20,000 associate faculty members. All have masters or doctorate degrees. Approximately 95% of the school's faculty are part-time compared with an average of 47% across all universities. Pre-screened instructional candidates participate in a training program in the modality in which they teach, which has the effect of weeding out (40%-50%) of the less committed or capable applicants.
| Notable UoP alumni  Kirkland H. Donald, U.S. Navy Admiral  Mary Peters, 15th U.S. Secretary of Transportation  Shaquille O’Neal '05, four-time NBA Championship winner | |
Diversity
The 2008 UPX Academic Report shows a highly diverse student and faculty makeup. According to demographic information in the report, on average the student/faculty population is significantly more diverse than that of most higher education institutions. African-Americans make up more than 15% of the university's 22,000 faculty members, with about 6% as Hispanic. The national average in recent years showed about 5% as African-American with about 3% as Hispanic. The student population is approximately 25% African-American and almost 13% Hispanic. This is as compared to national statistics from recent years showing 12% African-American populations and 10% Hispanics nationally.The university graduates a larger number of underrepresented students with master's degrees in business, health care and education than any other U.S. School. It is also ranked as the highest in graduating African American and American Indian students with master's degrees for all other disciplines. The underlying data for these conclusions was provided by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) for the '05-'06 academic year.
Alumni
- Admiral Kirkland H. Donald: Director, Naval Nuclear Propulsion and former Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet
- Mary Peters (politician): Former United States Secretary of Transportation.
- Shaquille O’Neal: NBA basketball player
- Howard Schmidt: Former Chief Security Strategist for the US CERT Partners Program for the National Cyber Security Division and current President and CEO of R&H Security Consulting LLC
- Lisa Leslie: WNBA Basketball player
Criticism
There have been concerns that the school does not properly balance value to students and profits to shareholders.The university's 2008 Annual Academic Report asserts that various standardized tests have shown University of Phoenix students improving at a better rate on average in many testing areas than students at other institutions surveyed. Additionally, according to the U.S. Department of Education's graduation standards, UPX is at 16%, which is significantly lower than the national average of 55%. The school and some education experts assert that the federal standard is antiquated because it only measures first-time students with no previous college credit,and it uses measurements that skew against economically disadvantaged and minority students. The university response claims that the federal standard only applies to 7% of the total UPX student community.] and that it publishes its own nonstandard graduation rate of 59% to account for its overwhelming population of non-traditional students.
With regards to legal issues, the EEOC settled a second sexual harassment claim against the school for $225,000 in August 2007. In September 2004, the university paid a settlement of $9.8 million to the U.S. Department of Education for alleged violations of Higher Education Act provisions that prohibit distributing financial incentives to admission representatives. A 2003 federal whistle-blower/false claims lawsuit accuses the university of fraud in obtaining hundreds of millions of dollars in financial aid. It is set for trial in March 9, 2010. The school counters that the lawsuit is a legal manipulation by two former university employees over a matter previously resolved with the U.S. Department of Education.
The university has had various labor and government regulatory related issues. It paid $3.5 million to settle alleged violation of overtime compensation provision with the Department of Labor. In November 2008 it agreed to pay $1.89 million to settle allegations by the EEOC for alleged religious discrimination favoring Mormon enrollment counselors.] It also settled allegations by the U.S. Department of Education for $6 million in March 2000 because government auditors noted that the teaching schedule fell short of the minimum time required to qualify for financial aid. The U.S. Department of Education also ordered the university to pay $650,000 for failing to promptly refund loans and grants for students who withdrew. In December 2008, three former UPX students filed a class-action complaint alleging that UPX returns student loan money to "artificially deflate cohort default rates", which would make them ineligible to receive Title IV funding. Apollo asserts that the students claim is that Apollo "improperly returned the entire amount of the students' federal loan funds to the lender. In January 2008, the university’s parent company, Apollo Group, Inc. was found guilty of fraud for misleading investors by a jury which awarded $280 million. U.S. District Judge James Teilborg recently overturned the verdict, ruling that the evidence was insufficient.
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