In nation after nation, the public monopoly on higher education is over As the world's hunger for higher education has outstripped the ability of many governments to pay for it, a type of
The majority of institutions on the global version of the list are private universities in the U.S., including Ivy League colleges such as Columbia, Yale, Cornell, Princeton and Brown.
In an unusual partnership, Thunderbird School of Global Management today announced it is forming a partnership with a for-profit educational provider, Laureate Education, to offer educational programs around the world.
Exploding demand for higher education during the last decade, especially in developing countries, has been accompanied by extraordinary growth in private provision and rising tensions over the entry of foreign institutions into local markets.
Although private non-profit colleges and universities have a long and distinguished history throughout the world, what has come to be known as ‘for-profit higher education’ is a relative newcomer.
Laureate Education Inc, a for-profit higher education provider that boasts former U.S. President Bill Clinton as honorary chancellor, is planning to launch an initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter.
According to the most recent report of Accredibase, the UK-based background screening company Verifile Limited, there was a staggering 48% increase in the number of known degree or diploma mills operating worldwide last year. It identified more than 2,500 bogus institutions across all regions, but primarily in North America and Europe.
Laureate Education is big. Like 800,000 students attending 78 institutions in 30 countries big. Yet the privately held for-profit university system has largely remained out of the public eye.
There are strong indications that demand for higher education is outstripping supply. In January, Gloria Sekwena died and at least 20 other people were seriously injured when about 5,000 people stampeded in a desperate attempt to register at the last minute with the University of Johannesburg. The university received more than 85,000 applications for fewer than 12,000 places last year.
The group of Laureate Education Inc. managers and outside investors who are seeking to buy out the company and take it private have upped their $3.8-billion offer by $1.50 per share.
One more sign that colleges and companies see the financial possibilities of the international-student market: A British company that helps to bring students from China and other countries to campuses in the United States and other English-speaking nations has announced an investment of more than $100-million from a private-equity firm.
The International Finance Corporation on Wednesday announced a $150 million equity investment in Laureate Education, Inc., a Baltimore-based, privately held, for-profit education company that operates 65 career-oriented colleges in 29 countries.
Greek riot police officers fired tear gas into a crowd of several thousand protesters in Athens this month, injuring about 15 people. While the protesters were primarily university students who oppose government proposals to restructure higher education in Greece, news reports suggested that the targets of the crackdown were "anarchists" who had infiltrated the demonstration to use it as a cover for vandalism.
THERE used to be three near-certainties about higher education. It was supplied on a national basis, mostly to local students. It was government-regulated. And competition and profit were almost unknown concepts. As most education was publicly funded, the state had a big say in what was taught, to how many and for how long. Insofar as it existed at all, competition was a gentlemanly business; few educators thought much about customers, fewer about profit.