Enrollment is on the Rise at the University of Phoenix

by Chris Cumo

TO PARAPHRASE FRANKILN Delano Roosevelt’s first inaugural address, the University of Phoenix has nothing to fear, not even fear itself. The for-profit university announced a 22 percent increase in enrollment between May 31, 1999 and May 31, 2000. Online enrollment, which leapt 44.7 percent, fueled much of this growth according to the Apollo Group Inc., which oversees the university. This increase “really shows the very large underlying demand for distance education in this country,” said Scott L. Soffen, an analyst at Legg Mason Wood Walker, a brokerage firm in State College, Pennsylvania. The firm has been tracking the university for years because it is “one of the fastest-growing educational institutions in the United States,” he said.

The numbers corroborate Soffen’s opinions. In 1998 the University of Phoenix had only 6,512 students enrolled in online courses. Today more than twice the number, 13,779, fill online rosters. The university, which has 85 campuses in 15 states, Puerto Rico, and Canada, boasts a total enrollment of 75,057, and the Apollo Group, which operates other schools in addition to the University of Phoenix, has 94,255 students in its degree-granting programs. Thousands more are taking non-degree courses, pushing total enrollment near 100,000, and making Apollo a Goliath amid the Davids of higher education.

The company views its rising enrollments as business as usual. “We really haven’t changed what we do,” said Kendra B. Gonzales, Apollo’s chief financial officer. She believes the University of Phoenix and Apollo’s other schools fill their classrooms, real and virtual, through referrals from satisfied students and employers. Convenience and affordability make the University of Phoenix higher education’s best bargain, thinks Gonzales.

The university employs more than 5,000 part-time instructors to staff its burgeoning classes. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, they teach some 90 percent of courses at the university, which employs about 140 full-time professors. The university’s Web site states that pay for part-timers is between $900 and $1,280 per online course. Faculty on campus earn from $950 to $2,000 per course. Laura Palmer Noon, Provost and Senior Vice President for academic affairs, terms the university’s reliance on adjuncts “the practitioner faculty model.” It, along with rising enrollments, should keep the university in the black.