by Jurgen Brauer, March 2007
Copyright: J. Brauer. No reproduction without permission.

The University of Phoenix was, by all accounts, a successful business. It enrolled hundreds of thousands of students in courses offered via the Internet. Paying considerable sums in tuition, students gained flexibility to study off-campus, from anywhere in the country, or even from overseas. Never fully accredited by higher education’s self-regulatory and supervisory bodies, the Arizona-based University of Phoenix established branch campuses in nearly every state, provided heavy competition for established universities and colleges, especially in the adult-learner, “non-traditional” student market, and helped to prod them into the Internet-supported learning environment.

Recently, however, the university has run into trouble. It has been castigated for its extraordinarily high use of part-time faculty, many of whom do not themselves possess the highest degree in the subject matter they teach; for its lack of a tenure-system that would encourage long-term commitment by faculty to the institution and its students; for its unseemly low graduation rate; for mounting student complaints; for very low “contact time” per course (only about 50 to 60 percent of the contact time that is common in traditional colleges); and for a variety of other problems. Profit has turned to loss, shareholders are unhappy, and the university’s president has been replaced. Some professors at traditional non-profit (private and public) universities expressed relief, perhaps even Schadenfreude. If Phoenix burns to ashes, an unwelcome competitor may exit the market for higher education.

Has the business model of a for-profit university failed? Perhaps. But perhaps not. To draw an umbrella conclusion from a sample size of 1 is inappropriate. Many of the shortcomings listed above (which come from a recent article in The New York Times), or similar ones, apply to not-for-profit educational institutions equally well. Abuse in connection with high-revenue college sports would serve as but one example. Maybe what is “wrong” is not the for-profit idea but the way Phoenix’s investors wished to carry it out: after all, the tax gain from writing off a big donation to a Duke or Emory or Stanford can vastly exceed the profit gain when investing in the University of Phoenix. Maybe all that is “wrong” is that Phoenix and/or its investors cut corners or pursued the wrong business strategy for the higher-education market. One failure – if Phoenix were to fail and altogether shut its doors – does not mean that no university can ever be run for profit while delivering high quality education.

Pointing the finger at for-profit institutions does not say anything useful about not-for-profit universities. That others may be ugly does not mean that I am beautiful.

Pointing the finger at for-profit institutions – even if the umbrella conclusion were correct – does not say anything useful about not-for-profit universities. That others may be ugly does not mean that I am beautiful. Medieval universities were established by the Church and dominated by god-fearing theologians. Not only did they fight hard to keep secular professors out; they fought hard to keep other god-fearing professors out if their view were at odds with establishment views. The astronomer Johannes Kepler serves as one example. Living during the ravages of the 30 Years’ War (1618-1648), this devout Protestant wished to teach unorthodox views on the order of the universe at universities dominated by Roman Catholic clerics.

In another example, in 1837, the Grimm brothers, Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859), fabled for their collection of German children’s stories but in fact important forebears of today’s philology and linguistics and creators of the first German-language dictionary (at 33 volumes no small undertaking!), were chucked out of the University of Göttingen for protesting the abolition of the state of Hanover’s liberal constitution by its then-King. Jacob’s transgression was deemed so great that he was deported from the king’s lands! His brother Wilhelm left as well. First settling in Kassel, both eventually found refuge in Berlin. Academic freedom as we understand it today – the right to research, advance, debate, publish, and teach even that which may offend the payer of the bills – is a modern idea, a hard-won right that benefits professors to be sure, but also handsomely benefits society in the bargain.

Glee over the University of Phoenix’s troubles smacks of glee to keep competitors out of the market. Are professors at traditional colleges not just engaging in the same non-competitive behavior that wishes to restrict market entry as theologians and kings once did? I don’t (quite) think so but seeking comfort in a New York Times piece about how Phoenix stumbled is not a suitable argument for why the idea of Wilhelm von Humboldt’s (1767-1835) state-supported liberal arts high schools, technical institutes, and colleges is superior to private market efforts.

We should remind ourselves that state-funded universities can fail, too. To their eternal shame, Germany’s famed professoriate, civil servants all, fell under the spell of increasingly authoritarian statesmen.

We should remind ourselves that state-funded universities can fail, too. It was, after all – and to their eternal great shame – Germany’s famed professoriate, civil servants all, that fell under the spell of increasingly authoritarian statesmen. Humboldt’s liberal ideas expressed in his 1810 book On the Limits of State Action, precursor to and important influence on John Stuart Mill’s 1859 essay On Liberty, had become instrumentalized for political purpose. The revolution of 1848 which briefly resulted in a nationally elected parliament (which because of its large number of professors, teachers, and university-educated members was called the “professors’ parliament”) failed. Liberal advances, including liberal arts education, were reversed. In 1871, Bismarck consolidated the multitude German states into a single entity and built a world-class scientific, industrial, and military powerhouse – professors at his heel! By World War I, the Kaiser would openly speak of employing Germany’s technically highly successful education system to groom children not for liberty but to twist them for the state’s purpose. Instead of the state serving people, people served the state. Not long thereafter, Germany’s famous universities, in subservient obedience to the state, shut their collective mouth and kept mum about the rise of Nazism and the catastrophe that followed. Germany’s liberal flower had bloomed – and faded!

And therein lies the crux of the matter. The problem is not necessarily that the University of Phoenix is a for-profit institution. The problem is this: which institutional environment can best foster and protect freedom of thought and speech and professor’s intellectual productivity for the advancement of world society as a whole? If the for-profit model makes professors subject to the might of the dollar rather than to the power of transborder, open peer-reviewed research and teaching then it will fail of its own accord. I, for one, fear little from Phoenix if only because the American hybrid system has worked so well. State-funded universities and colleges collect lots of private monies, and private (not-for-profit) universities and colleges collect lots of government grants. Either way, the mixture has served its purpose better than either extreme. Let us focus on preserving academic freedom and the benefits that societies garner therefrom, and the rest will take care of itself.