In the mid-1970s, John Sperling was solidly in the academic mainstream. He’d been a humanities professor at San Jose State University since 1961. Before that, he had been a faculty member at the University of Maryland, Ohio State University and Northern Illinois University.

While at San Jose State, however, Sperling and several associates researched the state of adult education and concluded that the needs of adult students — in particular, working adults — were all but ignored on the traditional college campus. Sperling, a Cambridge-educated economist, then turned from academician to entrepreneur. In 1976, he founded the University of Phoenix with the idea of providing a postsecondary experience specifically designed for working adults.

“Today, it may not sound as unique as when it first started,” said Terri Bishop, a University of Phoenix senior vice president based in Berkeley, Calif. “But back in the 1970s, there really were no options for adults. You could take night classes, but you probably couldn’t complete a full degree without quitting your job because there were certain courses you couldn’t get at night. It took a very long time.”

Clearly, Sperling’s idea worked. Today, the University of Phoenix is the largest private postsecondary institution in the United States. It enrolls more than 250,000 adult students and operates 158 campuses and learning centers in 33 states.

It’s working financially, too. Unlike traditional institutions of higher learning, which are not-for-profit entities, the University of Phoenix is a for-profit enterprise, a subsidiary of a corporate entity called the Apollo Group. In 2004, the Apollo Group recorded revenue of more than $1.8 billion (nearly triple the $610 million it recorded in 2000). The Apollo Group’s stock has split seven times since 1995.

The numbers clearly show that this type of program is popular, particularly among working adults. Such students, if able to pay for postsecondary education, seem more and more willing to do so — at the University of Phoenix and at scores of other proprietary institutions that have sprung up in recent years to serve the adult student market.

According to an industry executive quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education in late 2003, for-profit institutions constitute 46 percent of all postsecondary institutions and enroll some 1.3 million students annually. Federal data confirm the growing importance of proprietary institutions. Not only are such schools growing in number, their total enrollment is increasing rapidly. NCES figures show that enrollment jumped 59 percent at private, for-profit schools during the 1990s — a period during which enrollments increased just 10 percent at nonprofit private schools and only 6 percent for public institutions.

Despite their popularity, these for-profit institutions are not without their critics. In fact, an official with the House Committee on Education and the Workforce confirmed in early February that the committee was planning to conduct hearings into alleged fraud in some proprietary schools’ admissions and financial aid practices.

In the fall of 2004, U.S. Department of Education investigators accused the University of Phoenix of violating the Higher Education Act with a high-pressure sales culture — a culture in which salaries of recruiters were based on enrollments. Though it admitted no guilt, the university paid a $9.8 million penalty, and the controversy had a predictable effect on Apollo Group’s stock, which plunged 36 percent by early November. A month later, however, the stock was on the upswing; and, as Apollo Group CEO Todd S. Nelson was quoted in the Jan. 31 issue of Business Week: “The next five to 10 years look very, very promising.”

Clearly, whether traditional higher education officials like it or not, the University of Phoenix and other proprietary institutions are a powerful and growing reality. In fact, their proliferation is challenging traditional colleges and universities.

Classroom peers with real-world experience

Gail Knight has attended both types of schools, and she’s a believer in the University of Phoenix model. In fact, she’s earned undergraduate and a master’s degrees at the university’s main campus in Phoenix, Ariz., and is thinking of enrolling in its doctoral program. When she first enrolled, Knight had already earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in public administration from Howard University in Washington, D.C. She was working in Phoenix as a regional representative for a national nonprofit organization and became interested in pursuing a more focused study of community development and the organizational development of nonprofit entities.

She enrolled in a baccalaureate program in management at the University of Phoenix, choosing it over other public or private institutions in Arizona. “Basically, being an adult learner, I was looking for a setting with peers in the room like myself,” Knight recalled. She said she was looking for “experienced individuals who had some background and could relate to where I was coming from in classroom discussions.” Knight also was impressed with the quality of her teachers. “The instructors were former CEOs who had run different organizations or individuals who had taught others — not only in the university setting, but also the workplace,” she said. “They came with a tremendous knowledge and had innovative ways of teaching.”

At first, Knight attended on-campus classes designed for adult learners. However, when her class schedule began to conflict with her work and travel schedules, she switched to the University of Phoenix’s online program. It took work, of course, and there were technical and logistical problems to overcome, but Knight persevered and succeeded.

“As I say to all of my friends, ‘If you are an independent, motivated individual, this works for you. If you are one who has got to be constantly told what to do, it doesn’t.’ ”

Terri Bishop feels the hallmark of the University of Phoenix is “the nature of our classes,” in particular their purposely small size — an average of 15 students in traditional classrooms and nine for online classes. “The reason the classes are kept small is that the quality of the classroom is very interactive,” Bishop said. With too many students, she added, “not everyone has an equal chance to participate. And it is really more than just providing a chance. Interacting is part of the grade.”

Also, “the detail of the curriculum is uniform,” Bishop said. “But the way it is taught is not uniform. The faculty brings its own expertise. But for every class and program there is a standard curriculum that has been collectively developed by the faculty with learning outcomes and objectives specified.”

Bishop said that the university’s standardized curriculum has prompted both praise and criticism from the academic community. Critics find fault with what they consider an unimaginative, cookie-cutter approach to the content or its delivery. But supporters appreciate the system’s practical applications. “When you can standardize your learning outcomes and objectives, you can ensure quality,” Bishop explained. “One of the things that we have been able to do that most other places can’t do is comprehensively measure the learning outcomes.”

Kathy Alexander, a vice president who directs the university’s operations in Arizona, adds that another key to the school’s success has been its ability to tailor the way it provides services — for example, course registration, textbook purchases, access to research materials and tuition payment options — specifically to the needs of working adults.

Also, according to Alexander, the university is uniquely positioned to help adults make a mid-career change. Right now, she said, the trend among adult students is to move away from business and technology into “helping professions” such as teaching, counseling and human services — perhaps in response to the 9/11 tragedy or the recent burst of the dot-com bubble.

Finding – and following – a passion for teaching

University of Phoenix graduate Ray Salazar Jr. exemplifies this mid-career shift. Salazar, the son of a Mexican immigrant, was picking cotton by age 10 in the fields near Casa Grande, Ariz., about an hour south of Phoenix. After graduating from Casa Grande High School, he went to work at a bank and began to see his colleagues moving up the corporate ladder with bachelor’s degrees from the University of Phoenix. So, while working at the First Interstate Bank, Salazar also worked on his bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Phoenix. He earned that degree in 1986 and went on to become a bank manager. But when his bank merged with another bank, he was offered a severance package and decided to make a career change.

With thoughts of becoming a corporate trainer, Salazar went back to the University of Phoenix to seek a post-baccalaureate degree and teaching certificate. As part of that program, he did his student teaching at Casa Grande, his old high school. There, he fell in love with the work and developed a close bond with the students. He was hired as a full-time teacher immediately following his student teaching. He went on to earn a master’s degree from the University of Phoenix and has continued taking education classes beyond his master’s. In 2002, Salazar was selected from among 70 finalists to be Hispanic Magazine’s National Teacher of the Year.

Salazar has taken all of his classes at the University of Phoenix’s “ground” campus. “I want to be in the classroom,” he said, “I want to see a professor. I don’t care for the online; I am a hands-on type of guy.”

In fact, about 50 percent of the adult students at the University of Phoenix take classes on the “ground.” Most of the degrees offered are in the professional fields — a variety of business programs, computer information systems (graduate and undergraduate), marriage and family counseling programs, child therapy, a range of teacher education degree programs, health sciences, nursing and criminal justice. There are liberal arts courses, but the university doesn’t offer degree programs in these areas.

Despite the recent rise in popularity of helping professions, business and business-related programs continue to be the most popular. Holly Acereto, a 27-year- old Phoenix resident, has been working on a master’s degree in business administration through the university’s online program since 2002. She also is the mother of a 2-year-old and works full time in the human resources department of AIG insurance company in Phoenix. Hoping an MBA degree will advance her in her career, she picked the University of Phoenix because she wanted a degree program she could pursue on her own time.

Acereto earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Arizona. “I can’t compare the two universities because I am in a different mindset,” she said. “At the University of Arizona, I was a college student; I partied; I had a good time. Now I am serious. I know what I want to do with my life. I am a mom. I have different priorities. It’s hard, but it is worth it. My daughter goes to bed at 8 p.m., and then I can do my homework.”

After she finishes, her husband plans to attend college. Meanwhile, Acereto has still more incentive to get that degree. Her father is serving in Iraq, and when he left last March, he told her that “he fully expects to see his little girl walking at graduation for her degree,” she said.

“That’s another motivator. “I have to be finished by April 6, 2005, because my dad is coming home.”