San Diego County Office of Education advertises for Bridgepoint

SDCOE Supt. Randolph Ward seems inappropriately enthusiastic about private education company Bridgepoint


Bridgepoint's Jane McAuliffe seems to have charmed Mr. Ward

According to the date of the article below, San Diego County Office of Education published its Bridgepoint Educaton promotion long after Bridgepoint's failure to provide appropriate service was exposed.

The last paragraph of the SDCOE article below is clearly an advertisement. It reminds me of 2006 when SDCOE published a campaign advertisement for Bonnie Dumanis. I wonder if Randy Ward will get a job with Bridgepoint when he ends his career of service to the, uh, public. Who wrote this piece, Randy? One of Jane McAuliffe's assistants?

One must suspect that the program that Bridgepoint is offering to teachers is no better than what it offers to everyone else. Bridgepoint is clearly devoted to money and politics, not knowledge and understanding.

Why didn't Randy Ward and SDCOE simply get the best teachers in the county to teach the other teachers? Unlike the folks at Bridgepoint, those teachers know exactly what is needed.

Perhaps it is because SDCOE has absolutely no idea who the best teachers are, since there is no effective evaluation system in our schools.

I would love to know how was this program was chosen.

San Diego Teachers Benefit from Bridgepoint Education Fellows Program
September 6, 2013
by SDCOE

Thanks to the Bridgepoint Education Fellows Program, many San Diego teachers returned to class this week with additional skills to add to their classroom experience. The program, offered in partnership with the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE), awarded 200 scholarships for educators to attend the SDCOE’s online and blended Leading Edge teacher certification course. ​

“Online programs will be a key component of education moving forward and it’s vital for teachers to be fluent in the online modality,” said Dr. Jane McAuliffe, executive vice president and chief academic officer at Bridgepoint Education. “With the Bridgepoint Fellowship, we are helping teachers to understand the technology that is available to them. We all benefit when teachers are given the proper tools to educate students.”

The Leading Edge Certification is a national program to prepare instructional leaders for online and blended learning. Launched in 2011, the certification guides educators through rigorous and engaging curriculum based on the national standards for online teaching. The Bridgepoint Education Fellows Program consisted of a $100,000 donation, which represented 200 scholarships for the Leading Edge Certification.

“In most school districts, budgets for professional development opportunities have been cut significantly, and many teachers are faced with the dilemma of spending personal funds on professional development or simply going without,” said county superintendent of schools Randy Ward. “The Bridgepoint Fellowships remove the major funding obstacles for teachers and districts, and we’re very grateful to Bridgepoint for stepping up.”

Dr. McAuliffe and Dr. Ward were featured in a live, in-studio television interview on KUSI’s Good Morning San Diego Early Edition program on Tuesday, Sept. 3. The two discussed the Bridgepoint Education Fellows Program, the Leading Edge Certification, and how local teachers are learning more effective ways to incorporate technology in the classroom.

About Bridgepoint Education

Bridgepoint Education, Inc. (NYSE:BPI) improves the way individuals learn. By harnessing creativity, knowledge and proprietary technologies, such as Constellation, Thuze and Waypoint Outcomes, Bridgepoint Education has re-engineered the modern student experience with innovative solutions that advance learning. Its academic institutions – Ashford University and University of the Rockies – embody the contemporary college experience. Ashford University offers associate's, bachelor's and master's degree programs while University of the Rockies offers master’s and doctoral degree programs. Both provide progressive online platforms, as well as traditional campuses located in Clinton, Iowa (Ashford University), and Colorado Springs, Colorado (University of the Rockies). For more information about Bridgepoint Education, visit www.bridgepointeducation.com or call Shari Winet Rodriguez, vice president of Public Relations, at 858-668-2580.

Bridgepoint cuts 450 jobs in San Diego

Ashford University Cuts 450 Jobs
By Consumer Bob, R. Stickney and Sarah Grieco
NBC 7 San Diego
Sep 25, 2012

Ashford University announced approximately 450 layoffs Monday morning. A majority of the layoffs were from San Diego, according to a school spokesperson Shari Rodriguez. Employees were told to come in early when they were shown a video and offered a two-week severance package.

Rodriguez says it is part of a company-wide reorganization.

“We were called in to this meeting that we were called in for on Friday, and we had no idea what this meeting was,” a laid off employees told NBC 7 San Diego. “This video comes on and within 30 seconds they’re like, ‘Your position no longer exists, you’re terminated.’”

Another former employee said she was in a room with 100 people when they were told by a human resources representative their positions no longer existed.

“They just said because of all the changes, they were getting laid off," she said. Employees said they were shocked by the news.

“Nobody expected it, it was a shock to everyone,” said a former employee in her 20s. “People were crying, people who have families, people who had just bought cars because they thought they had a stable job no longer have any of that.”

About a dozen former employees gathered at a Pacific Beach bar after they were told the news.

All laid off employees had worked for Ashford for less than six months and worked primarily in the recruitment area. An administrative employee told NBC 7 San Diego that many of those laid off were admissions counselors who dealt primarily with the students.

A statement from Ashford University said the following:

"Ashford University is committed to providing its students with the best opportunity to succeed, and, to that end; a reorganization of Ashford's student-facing staff has been implemented with the goal of improving student retention and academic success. As a result, 400 Ashford employees have been reassigned to roles that will support this new process and, regrettably, approximately 450 Ashford Admissions positions in San Diego and Denver have been eliminated."

Scathing report on for-profit colleges and their $32 billion in tax dollars

Scathing report on for-profit colleges and their $32 billion in tax dollars
July 30, 2012
by Maureen Downey
AJC Get Schooled blog

The for-profit colleges are taking billions in tax dollars with little to show for it, according to a report that will be issued today from a U.S. Senate committee.

Despite $32 billion in federal student aid to the colleges, most of the students never earn a degree, indicating that taxpayers are being saddled with a losing investment. However, the for-profits colleges don’t fail everyone, least of all their executives — the CEOs of the colleges were paid an average of $7.3 million, according to the report.

The scathing report states that more than 80 percent of the for-profit college revenues comes from taxpayers. Because of its larger and larger claim on tax dollars, the for-profit college industry has come under greater scrutiny. Latest numbers show that the for-profits enroll 13 percent of the nation’s college students. Yet, those students represent nearly half of all the defaults on college loans.

And government loans are the oil that keeps the for-profit college industry running. Nearly 96 percent of students at for-profit schools take out loans, compared with about 13 percent at community colleges and 48 percent at four-year public universities.

According to Sen. Tom Harkin, who led the Senate investigation:

Enrollment at for-profit schools has grown dramatically over the past decade. Between 1998 and 2008, the number of students attending for-profit schools has grown from 553,000 to 1.8 million, an increase of more than 225 percent.

In order to drive enrollment growth, for-profit schools spend heavily on television advertisements, billboards, phone solicitation, and web marketing. The pressure on recruiters to enroll as many potential students as possible can give rise to recruiting practices that are overzealous or misleading.

For-profit schools are far more expensive than comparable programs at community colleges or public universities. The average tuition for a for-profit school is about six times higher than a community college and twice as high as a 4-year public school.

For-profit schools provide access to many students who have historically not been well served by traditional institutions of higher education. But data collected by the Senate H.E.L.P. Committee shows that many for-profit schools are not providing the support structure to help these students succeed. The data shows that fifty-four percent of students who enrolled in the 2008-2009 school year withdrew by summer 2010.

Close to one in four students who attends a for-profit school defaults on his or her federal student loans within 3 years of leaving school. This high rate of default combined with the fact that nearly all students at for-profit schools must borrow money to pay the cost of tuition, has resulted in a sector that enrolls approximately 13 percent of American higher education students but accounts for nearly 50 percent of all student loan defaults.

Despite poor student outcomes, for-profit schools are highly profitable companies. Profits at 16 of the largest for-profit schools totaled $2.7 billion in 2009.

According to The New York Times:

“In this report, you will find overwhelming documentation of exorbitant tuition, aggressive recruiting practices, abysmal student outcomes, taxpayer dollars spent on marketing and pocketed as profit, and regulatory evasion and manipulation,” Mr. Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in a statement on Sunday. “These practices are not the exception — they are the norm. They are systemic throughout the industry, with very few individual exceptions.”

In a statement on Sunday, the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, the leading trade group of for-profit colleges, called the report “the result of a flawed process that has unfairly targeted private-sector schools and their students.”

Over the last 15 years, enrollment and profits have skyrocketed in the industry. Until the 1990s, the sector was made up of small independent schools offering training in fields like air-conditioning repair and cosmetology. But from 1998 to 2008, enrollment more than tripled, to about 2.4 million students. Three-quarters are at colleges owned by huge publicly traded companies — and, more recently, private equity firms — offering a wide variety of programs.

Enrolling students, and getting their federal financial aid, is the heart of the business, and in 2010, the report found, the colleges studied had a total of 32,496 recruiters, compared with 3,512 career-services staff members.

Among the 30 companies, an average of 22.4 percent of revenue went to marketing and recruiting, 19.4 percent to profits and 17.7 percent to instruction. Their chief executive officers were paid an average of $7.3 million, although Robert S. Silberman, the chief executive of Strayer Education, made $41 million in 2009, including stock options.

With the Department of Education seeking new regulations to ensure that for-profit programs provide training for “gainful employment,” the companies examined spent $8 million on lobbying in 2010, and another $8 million in the first nine months of 2011.

Many of the for-profit colleges, the report found, set tuition at almost exactly what a student could expect in maximum federal aid, including Pell grants and Stafford loans. According to a Bridgepoint Education document, when a new $400 “digital materials fee” would make students pay more than would be available from federal aid, the chief executive frantically wrote an e-mail to the finance officer to complain that the change was going to cause a “shortfall.” And documents from Alta Colleges mention restructuring schedules “so we can grab more of the students’ Stafford.”

Bridgepoint shares fall on accreditation denial

Bridgepoint shares fall on accreditation denial
AP News
July 09, 2012

Shares of Bridgepoint Education Inc. dropped more than 30 percent Monday after the for-profit education provider said a group that certifies schools denied an accreditation for one of its institutions.

THE SPARK: Bridgepoint's Ashford University, which has a campus in Clinton, Iowa, but mostly serves online students, was denied accreditation by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Without accreditation, a school can lose its access to federal financial aid, which can comprise as much as 90 percent of for-profit schools' revenue.

THE BIG PICTURE: The Western Association of Schools and Colleges is one of seven regional accrediting commissions. It has jurisdiction over schools located in California. Bridgepoint is based in San Diego.

In its letter to Ashford denying accreditation, the association said it found that the university hadn't shown substantial compliance with its accreditation standards related to student retention and graduation, the alignment of resources with educational objectives and the implementation of a core of full-time faculty that can oversee the university academic policies and ensure the integrity of its programs.

WASC noted that a large number of students who start degree programs at the university drop out, most within a short period of time. It said that over the past five years, 128,000 students have withdrawn from the university, while 240,000 new students have enrolled.

In addition, the university needs to put in place an effective system for assessing student learning and an "empowered and independent" governing board that has an acceptable relationship with Bridgepoint, WASC said in its letter...

Is Bridgepoint Education targeting veterans for easy money?

Profits and Scrutiny for Colleges Courting Veterans
The New York Times
By ERIC LIPTON
December 8, 2010

When Congress moved in 2008 to sweeten tuition payments for veterans, it was celebrated as a way to ensure that military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan could go to college at no cost and to replicate the historic benefits society gained from the G.I. Bill after World War II.

Now, a year after payouts on the so-called Post-9/11 G.I. Bill started, the huge program has turned into a bonanza of another kind for the many commercial colleges in the United States that have seen their military revenues surge.

More than 36 percent of the tuition payments made in the first year of the program — a total of $640 million in tuition and fees — went to for-profit colleges, like the University of Phoenix, according to data compiled by the Department of Veterans Affairs, even though these colleges serve only about 9 percent of the overall population at higher education institutions nationwide.

As the money flows to the for-profit university industry, questions are being raised in Congress and elsewhere about their recruitment practices, and whether they really deliver on their education promises. Some members say they want to place tighter limits on how much these colleges can collect in military benefits, a move certain federal officials say they would welcome...

Amid this debate, the industry’s powerful lobbying forces are pushing for even more, including a change in the law that would allow veterans who sign up exclusively for online classes to also get government housing subsidies, even if they live at home, which would make online education even more attractive.

With their multimillion-dollar advertising and recruitment campaigns, these colleges have pitched themselves as a natural choice for veterans and active-duty personnel, given their extensive online class offerings, accelerated degree programs and campuses spread across the nation, including near many military bases.

...ECPI College of Technology, a Virginia institution with a major online program and campuses in three states that collected $16 million in G.I. Bill benefits in the first year.

Active-duty personnel are eligible for free tuition, which explains why the for-profit colleges have received about $200 million in Department of Defense tuition reimbursement benefits and fees in the last year, mostly for online classes, in addition to money collected from the G.I. Bill. But high dropout rates at some of these colleges, difficulty in transferring credits, higher tuition bills than at public colleges and skepticism from some employers about the value of the degrees are all creating unease among some in Congress.

“For-profit schools see our active-duty military and veterans as a cash cow..."

It is a concern echoed by eight current and former recruiters from some of the nation’s largest for-profit chains, who in interviews said the intense drive to enroll veterans had led them, at times, to sign up military personnel for classes when they were all but certain they would drop out or fail.

“There is such pressure to simply enroll more vets — we knew that most of them would drop out after the first session,” said Jason Deatherage, who worked as military admissions adviser at Colorado Technical University until this spring, when he was fired, he said, for not meeting his quota. “Instead of helping people, too often I felt like we were almost tricking them.”

...“I felt like I made a horrible, horrible decision,” said Jason Longmore, 31, a Navy veteran...forcing him to repeat classes elsewhere before he could transfer credits to a Colorado state university...some of the for-profit colleges hounded active-duty personnel there as they pursued “hot leads,” calling them repeatedly to get a piece of the military tuition grants.

Mr. Songer said that he was not opposed to the colleges, but that they often enrolled Marines in classes of limited educational value. In some cases, the colleges even take out high-interest-rate loans on behalf of the Marines to cover extra costs, he said.

How For-Profit College Lobbyists Bought Congress

How For-Profit College Lobbyists Bought Congress
By Don Bauder
San Diego Reader
December 10, 2011

The New York Times today (Dec. 10) has a story on how the for-profit college industry spent $16 million to soften government plans to rein in industry corruption. The lobbyists won, as usual. This means another debt crisis is coming. This year, student loans will total $1 trillion -- more than the total of credit card debt outstanding. For-profit colleges have 10% of students but account for 44% of loan defaults. Ashford University, which accounts for almost all the students at San Diego's Bridgepoint Education, has a dropout rate of 84% in its two-year program and 63% at its four-year programs. When the Department of Education proposed tougher rules to thwart boiler room-type abuses at the for-profit colleges, the lobbyists, such as former House majority leader Richard Gephardt, assaulted the White House, Department of Education, and the White House, reports the Times.

The Times didn't touch on one of the most interesting angles: how much money was accumulated by investors in for-profit college stocks. Throughout this year, I was saying that while Bridgepoint was a disgusting boiler room draining money from the federal government, its stock would go up. First, more than half its stock was short -- that is, the majority of investment money was hoping the stock would go down. This meant that if there was any good news -- such as the softening of proposed reforms -- the shorts would rush to cover, or buy Bridgepoint stock. That happened. The stock zoomed. How many Washington insiders raked in fat profits, knowing the rules would be emasculated and the stocks would soar? Plenty, I would bet. The manna is probably tucked away in an offshore, tax and privacy haven.

Bridgepoint Flirts With Fletcher

...[T]hey gave to help advance the candidate they believed had their business interests in mind. And political experts said donations from a large number of employees are rarely made without some hope of advancing their business's interests...Increasingly, the company has become involved in local politics and Fletcher, an assemblyman, has been a favorite. He promoted the company as a "San Diego Success Story" in a May 2010 video on his state website.

See all posts re Bridgepoint Education.

Bridgepoint Flirts With Fletcher
October 6, 2011
by Liam Dillon
Voice of San Diego
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Bridgepoint, San Diego's fast-rising for-profit higher education company, is continuing to flex its newfound local political muscle.

Employees at the company and people in their households gave $12,500 to mayoral candidate Nathan Fletcher, the San Diego Daily Transcript reported last week. From the Transcript (subscription required):

Bridgepoint had, by far, the highest number of employees giving to the same candidate, and none of its employees gave to anyone but Fletcher, according to the disclosure forms. Included on the list of Bridgepoint givers are Chief Executive Officer Andrew Clark, eight vice presidents and five others who list their title as "executive." The entire management team listed on Bridgepoint's website each gave the maximum amount to Fletcher. ...

While Bridgepoint employees interviewed for this story said their reasons for donating were personal, some owners of local businesses said they gave to help advance the candidate they believed had their business interests in mind. And political experts said donations from a large number of employees are rarely made without some hope of advancing their business's interests.

As we detailed in March, Bridgepoint has a brief but controversial history. In just four years, it's become a major local employer with soaring profits and enrollment. At the same time, it's attracted numerous federal and state investigations for its recruitment practices and use of student loan dollars. Just this week, Bridgepoint revealed in a regulatory filing that North Carolina's attorney general was investigating the company for possible violations of the state's consumer protection law.

Increasingly, the company has become involved in local politics and Fletcher, an assemblyman, has been a favorite. He promoted the company as a "San Diego Success Story" in a May 2010 video on his state website.

Fletcher's campaign told the Transcript in a statement that he views everyone who donates to his campaign as individuals.

"The individuals who are employed by Bridgepoint believe Nathan is the best candidate for mayor and support his plan to innovate and create good-paying jobs for San Diegans," the statement said. "The only interest company leaders have in the mayor's race is ensuring a strong, healthy future for the city where they are headquartered."

The Transcript story also detailed donations from multiple employees at different companies to mayoral candidates Carl DeMaio, Bonnie Dumanis and Bob Filner.

Frontline Examines Bridgepoint Education

I recommend clicking on the headline below to get the original story with many good links in the text:

Frontline Examines Bridgepoint Education
Jun 29, 2011.
by Will Carless

The PBS public affairs show Frontline aired a show on the for-profit education sector last night that focused on the education of military personnel and veterans and took a close look at San Diego-based Bridgepoint Education.

Bridgepoint, which my colleague Liam Dillon and I looked at in our story about the company's extraordinary growth and controversial history, has become one of the largest private employers in San Diego County in recent years.

In its piece, "Educating Sergeant Pantzke," Frontline interviewed two former employees of Ashford University, one of Bridgepoint's two online campuses, who criticized their former employer. Former Ashford enrollment advisor Wade Cutler said he wasn't discouraged to sign up applicants who weren't ready for study.

"They don't say that," Cutler said.

"What do they say?" the interviewer asked.

"They say everybody is a good fit. The military is a perfect fit."

Here's the Frontline video:

Educating Sergeant Pantzke
For-profit colleges promise veterans a high quality degree -- but do they deliver?

The piece examines a trend that has raised concern in the U.S. Senate and in several states across the country. As for-profit universities have boomed, they've attracted a significant share of their revenue from students in the military who pay for their studies via the federal G.I. Bill.

That's a concern to Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin, who has used the committee he chairs, the Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee, to criticize the for-profit education industry and Bridgepoint. From our previous story:

Harkin zeroed in on Bridgepoint two weeks ago in the latest in a series of hearings he has been holding about the for-profit education business. In a lengthy denunciation of the company, Harkin lambasted Bridgepoint for duplicity in its marketing, lavish executive compensation and dismal dropout rates.

The senator pointed out that while Bridgepoint was making record profits last year, 84 percent of the students in its two-year programs were dropping out, according to a sampling of students by his committee.

"In the world of for-profit higher education, spectacular business success is possible despite an equally spectacular record of student failure," Harkin said.

Since the hearing, Harkin has announced that he plans to introduce legislation to tighten the regulation of the for-profit education industry.

Since we wrote our story about Bridgepoint, we've also blogged about the company's continued explosive growth, an investigation of the company by New York's attorney general, and Bridgepoint's boost from weaker-than-expected new U.S. Department of Education federal aid guidelines.

Must-Read Stories on Bridgepoint

See all Bridgepoint posts.
See all posts on for-profit education companies.

Click on the following title to get the VOSD website original story with all the links:
Must-Read Stories on Bridgepoint
March 23, 2011
by Will Carless
by Liam Dillon
Voice of San Diego

In putting together our story on what for-profit education company Bridgepoint Education means to San Diego, we relied on a trove of other media coverage.

Here are some must-reads:

• This fascinating story by The Huffington Post's Chris Kirkham explained the company's business model, gave us insight into the company's marketing techniques and why they've been so controversial. Kirkham sought out several former Bridgepoint employees and was able to paint an intriguing picture of the company's corporate culture. Here's a snippet:

Behind the university's rapid growth is a pressure-cooker recruiting environment that treats prospective students like figures on a balance sheet, not people seeking opportunity through education, according to more than a half-dozen current and former employees ranging from management to entry-level recruiters interviewed by The Huffington Post in the past month.

Kirkham called Bridgepoint's Iowa-based school, Ashford University, the "Potemkin University" because it has just 700 students on campus, but serves as the physical anchor for tens of thousands of students studying online. We liked that description so much we made it a subhead in our story. The videos in the story are pretty cool, too, if you're interested in seeing what Ashford actually looks like.

• U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin's Senate committee hearing, which we refer to in our piece, led to a series of stories examining Bridgepoint and the for-profit education world. Two of the best pieces were a column in the Financial Times that was a well-balanced take on the arguments and motivations on both sides of the debate and a context-laden story in the online newspaper Inside Higher Ed.

• Bridgepoint executives wouldn't talk to us, so we had to seek out other stories where they did speak to learn some of their history and hear their voice. Bridgepoint CEO Andrew Clark did a Q&A with the Union-Tribune in June. Clark also wrote a piece for Inc. Magazine explaining his success in 2008 and did a similar story with the San Diego Business Journal a year earlier.

As we mentioned in our piece, Bridgepoint has also released its own website defending itself in the wake of the Senate hearing.

• Bridgepoint, like other for-profit colleges, has a huge military presence among its enrollees. In January, the New York Times did a story on scrutiny these colleges were facing because of how they recruit veterans. The piece quotes a former recruitment advisor from Bridgepoint's Iowa college describing aggressive recruitment tactics:

"We know they are going to pay, that they had a guaranteed way to get money," said Brent Park, a former Ashford University recruitment adviser, who worked there until 2008, when the university had already started to see a surge in veterans enrolling under the previous G.I. Bill.

Finally, we would be remiss if we didn't mention Don Bauder at the San Diego Reader who puts up a post almost every time Bridgepoint is in the news.

Bridgepoint: Education Scam or Economic Engine?

See all posts on for-profit education companies.
See all Bridgepoint posts.

Education Scam or Economic Engine
Bridgepoint Booms Over Troubled Waters

It's the fifth-largest private employer in the county and spreads money around through political lobbying and sponsorships of events like the Holiday Bowl. But just a few years ago you probably wouldn't have known it. Neither would have its many critics, including a U.S. senator who called it "an absolute scam."

The company is Bridgepoint Education, a for-profit company that owns two universities and educates 99 percent of its students online.

"Criticism of the company centers on its remarkable ability to attract students and remarkable failure to graduate them, all while receiving hundreds of millions in federal student aid dollars," Liam Dillon and Will Carless report. "The complaint: Bridgepoint has set up a system to use federal dollars to line investors' pockets rather than enrich students' minds."

Bridgepoint matters locally because of its jobs, money, and influence. One study concluded that Bridgepoint added, directly or indirectly, more than $500 million to the local economy. Since that report was written, the company has grown even bigger, which means Bridgepoint's ability to withstand lawsuits and attacks from critics will have a direct impact on San Diego's well-being.