Weekends during the first half of my summer will be devoted in large part to completing the manuscript for what I hope will be my 21st book: Riding the Fifth Wave - A Survival Guide to the New Normal in Higher Education. This Blog's name is drawn directly from that working title. And, if you are a regular reader, you know that I have been following campus closings, for-profit failures, and the other prevalent indicia of a major disruption in the higher-education empire that has dominated American post-secondary education since 1945. Indisputably, there is a "great disturbance in the Force."
My new book not only will track the problems. It also tries to suggest some solutions. One that I had not foreseen is the merging of a public institution (Purdue) with a for-profit player (Kaplan). As an opinion piece in the Chronicle notes today, Kaplan was called out in a U.S. Senate report not so very long ago as one of the many for-profit companies that churned unqualified students (and federally funded student loans) into bottom-line profits, while failing to fulfill their mission of preparing those students for gainful employment.
So why would Purdue team up with Kaplan? Well, both parties bring something significant to the union that the other lacks. For Purdue it's an instant national presence via Kaplan's 15 on-the-ground campuses, plus a powerful online infrastructure. For Kaplan it's respectability... i.e., great content, high reputation, and the parent company's academic standards.
Will this business model catch on... or is it a one-off? I don't know, but I will be watching both this marriage and also for copycats. It's an intriguing idea that could bring a series of win-wins to the beleaguered American higher education environment. Financially stressed non-profits may want to give the Purdue-Kaplan model a try.
Meanwhile... I will have to revise a couple of the chapters in my book manuscript before I send it off to Peter Lang in late July.
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