Will U of Arkansas buy U of Phoenix?!

[bjcheung77]

Just a month and a half into the 'talks', they've got faculty objecting to this already... Update: https://www.highereddive.com/news/univer...it/646485/

[smartdegree]

Just a month and a half into the 'talks', they've got faculty objecting to this already... Update: https://www.highereddive.com/news/univer...it/646485/

Nice article.  Reading through the details, it looks like the driving force on this potential acquisition are potential profits for the UA system.  

"Arkansas officials have said a licensing arrangement under negotiation with the University of Phoenix could yield about $20 million for the system annually"

If I read UA's financial statements correctly, they are running deficits (net operating losses) of $4.4M each year.  They are only afloat because of state appropriations. In other words, they are not financially self-sufficient and are subject to the whims of politicians running the state budget.
https://www.uasys.edu/wp-content/uploads...T-BOOK.pdf

With the UP deal, they will instead have an operating income of $15.6M, which they can use to improve faculty pay, facilities, scholarships, etc. As such, I think the math makes sense for UA to do this deal with UP.

It makes no difference what the faculty says, money is the root of this issue. Look at what happened at Purdue - the faculty could not do a thing about Purdue Global despite their protests.