World’s largest for profit university Vs. New American University Whose graduates would you hire?

Phoenix is home to the world’s largest for-profit university. It doesn’t get a dime from the government (that is true, but the university is also the largest recipient of government student loans in the nation).

Within a few miles of Apollo Group’s corporate headquarters is Arizona’s largest state university. The state university receives more that $3-million per day in grants. It also takes a large chunk of taxpayers’ dollars.

In recent years Arizona has had a budget crisis, including a $3-billion shortfall. While the for-profit school has been enrolling record numbers of students, as well as seeing its stock grow 60 percent in the past two years, all in the presence of astronomical competition in its field, the state university (which is bloated like all government) has nearly tripled the grants it receives. Yet it has raised its tuition in the double-digit range and has asked an already strapped state government for even more money. It has laid-off more than 10 percent of its staff.

Let me ask, whose graduates do you want on your payroll? A for-profit that has more students than any university in the world or a school sucking down grant money and tax dollars like a Hummer uses gasoline and still not fiscally sound?

I believe students learn more than classroom teaching. A university sets an example. If I had two candidates, I’d take the one who learned from the for-profit university. It set a better example than a mis-managed university that can’t live off extravagant income.

Another point is the for-profit’s president makes around $20-million per year versus the state university president’s salary of roughly $800,000; ouch.