A week back or so Apollo Group Inc., which owns University of Phoenix, announced it has decided to close down 115 campuses across nation in addition to let go 800 employees, sending thousands of students, faculty and staff into frenzy.
The community might have not recovered from the jolting news, but it does have something to feel for the university, at least for some time.
According to new rankings by 'Diverse: Issues In Higher Education' magazine, University of Phoenix's online school graduates most number of minority student than any other four-year colleges. The magazine analyzes the data obtained by the U.S. Department of Education reports, submitted by institutions to come out with these rankings.
The ranking called 'Top 100 Producers of Minority Degrees' releases a list annually which features those universities of the nation which have awarded most number of degrees to students from minority and ethnic population.
According to the magazine's analysis, the number of degrees awarded to students of color has increased substantially over the last 20 years. More than three times as many racial and ethnic minorities received a bachelor's degree in 2010-11 than in 1990-1991. Minorities now represent 24.5 percent of bachelor's degree recipients, compared to only 13.5 percent 20 years ago.
But, when it comes to the matter of tuition fee, it is as high as ever.
As Huffington Post points out, citing Department of Education statistics, the University of Phoenix has a student loan default rate that is nearly twice the average of all universities, with 26.4 percent of students going into default within three years of leaving the school. Phoenix's three-year default rate is also higher than the average rate among all for-profit colleges, which stands at 22.7 percent.
Majority of the degrees awarded by the University of Phoenix are online and though the stigma attached to these online degrees is slowly fading away, people are still sceptical about the value of these degrees in real world.
One of the users named 'Level playing Field' on HuffPost College, confessed that he has rejected many of the applications for job from graduates of online universities such as Phoenix.
"I have lost count of the number of resumes I have thrown in the trash because they listed a degree from the University of Phoenix Online or DeVry," he wrote.
"Those places are basically diploma mills, you pay roughly $15k for a degree, and some of the people coming out the other end of the process lack even basic literacy skills."
But, experts say many see online universities as a convenient option due to flexibility even though recruiters aren't impressed.
