Inside Higher Ed: Can an Investor Buy a Community College?
In the changing environment of higher education, as geographic and other boundaries blur, state institutions have made the transition to private nonprofit ones (see New York’s Regents College becoming Excelsior College, for example). A small but growing number of private nonprofit colleges — many but not all of which were struggling financially — have been transformed into for-profit entities (see the purchase by Bridgepoint Education of what became Ashford University and the recent sale of Touro College’s thriving international arm to private equity firms).
So far, no state college or university has been turned into a for-profit enterprise. But that may be about to change.
A private investor has offered to buy the online operations and students of Rio Salado College — a community college in Arizona where about half of the 60,000 students study only online — for at least $400 million, and officials at the Maricopa County Community College District, of which Rio Salado is a part, are considering the offer.
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