Jack Welch is one of the greatest US businessmen, CEO’s, and investors of all time, and has recently become a strong advocate and investor in the for-profit education market. In addition to Welch, there are numerous private equity firms like Significant Federation which are major investors in the for-profit education industry. One of the education companies in their portfolio, Grand Canyon University, had a very successful IPO in 2008, and another education company they own, Bridgepoint Education, also did well with their IPO in 2009. The six colleges owned by Significant Federation have a total student body of almost 100,000, of which 90% study online for their degree. FastCompany reported that Jack Welch has partnered up with one of the Significant Federation schools, Chancellor University, to create the Jack Welch Management Institute. Jack Welch himself has invested around $2 million of his own money in Chancellor University this year to support the MBA program created in his name. He also now controls a 12% stake in the company that owns Chancellor, which gives many investors even more confidence in the space.
As of today, for-profit colleges are responsible for enrolling roughly 9% of all students, many of which choose to attend school online. This is an amazing amount of market share for the for-profit college industry, and this looks to be a trend that will continue as more people choose to go to school online. It is not that traditional schools do not offer online programs, but they are no where near as common as they are among for-profit colleges. Almost every for-profit college in the United States has an online program. In fact, many are online only, with no campus locations. Another factor which will help college enrollment all around is that President Obama is pushing for the US to have the highest percentage of colleges graduates. The for-profit schools look to benefit greatly from this education push as they are the colleges which are expanding the most since the recession started in 2008.
These for-profit schools are continuing to gain respect among students and employers, which has aided to their recent popularity. Some feel the downside is that many of the for-profit colleges focus on more vocational type degrees, but in general their focus is to let you earn a degree that will help you secure a job in the real world. They are less inclined to let you study history or philosophy as there are not many jobs one can obtain with a degree in those subjects. Investors and industry analysts will continue to watch this space as more for-profit companies try and go public on the stock market.
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