For-Profit-Education Group Members,

LeadsCon Las Vegas 2012 is just six weeks away (February 28th and 29th). We were once again able to secure a special group discount of $200 off the current price and more than $400 off the on-site price.

In addition to two full days of conference sessions and networking, along with two receptions and a VIP after party, this year’s LeadsCon offers a few other goodies – a buyer’s only summit taking place on Monday, February 27th, and LeadsCon Playback – online access to sessions and interviews after the show available to all attendees.

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* Check out the Full Conference Program *
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Two full days of relevant and timely sessions:
http://leadscon.com/leadscon-las-vegas-2012/full-conference-program/

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* View the Exhibitor List *
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Your tickets gets you into the expo, along with all sessions and networking events:
http://leadscon.com/leadscon-las-vegas-2012/exhibitor-list/

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* See the List of Companies Attending *
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More than 500 have already signed up:
http://leadscon.com/leadscon-las-vegas-2012/companies-attending/

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* Buyer’s Only Summit *
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Exclusive content with no sellers, aggregators, or vendors:
http://leadscon.com/leadscon-las-vegas-2012/buyers-summit/

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* SAVE BIG *
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You MUST use this link in order to save. Registering through LeadsCon.com will result in you paying more:
http://leadscon.com/special-discount-for-profit-education-group/

(Offer valid on new registrations only. No refunds on existing registrations, but select cases will receive credit towards a future event. While supplies last. You MUST use this link above in order to save.)

We look forward to seeing you there!

Yesterdays Capital Round Table conference for PE investing in EDU was a full house.  It was good to see some many of the industry’s players together in one room discussing current issues & trends facing Education.  In addition, Anthony Miller Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating officer at the U.S. Department of Education was there to answer questions regarding current and pending legislation.  Tony was refreshingly honest when he said the the Department understands and acknowledges that for profit education providers are critical to reach America’s goal of education attainment.  He praised the continued innovation provided by the industry and welcomes more of the same.

2012 Issues to remember:

The Change

MOST Important The three rules – #1 Student Success, #2 Student Success, #3 Student Success

Long-term strong demographics and demand create a solid base for growth

Regulatory changes are largely complete in post-secondary while valuations remain at historic lows

Dramatic changes in traditional schools are underway

Real opportunities exist to build world-class companies

Great outcomes=Great businesses

The next conference for PE in EDU I believe is in June or July, it’s worthwhile to attend!

Brian Stoffel from the Motley Fool recently wrote an article indicating he may have been totally wrong in his opinions relating to the for profit education industry.

I spent the better part of my first year at the Fool raging against the for-profit education community. And it was for good reason: Enrollment is dropping, they get too much money from the government, and students are defaulting on their loans at alarming rates.

But after watching a recent speech by innovation guru Clayton Christensen, I’m starting to wonder if I am reading the situation completely wrong.

1. Competing against non-consumption
Christensen says that most innovation comes from companies that are able to bring products to people that otherwise would have no access to them…

2. Using different metrics
A typical college or university focuses on the quality of the research being conducted by faculty as a preeminent metric for value and worth that a college has. While that might seem great, it doesn’t do much to ensure that students are actually being taught…

3. New customers will be enticed into the system
With the cost of sending a child to college sky-rocketing, more and more students may look at online schools as a viable alternative…

Link to complete article

Shares of Career Education Corp plunged 42 percent to their lowest in more than 10 years on Wednesday, a day after its chief executive resigned amid findings of improper placement practices, and increased accreditation risks.

The company also reported disappointing quarterly results 10 days ahead of schedule and said the decline in new student sign-ups will not improve in the near term.

At least two brokerages downgraded the stock to their lowest rating citing too many near-term risks.

FORCED EXIT?

Though the company did not tie the placement discrepancies to McCullough’s departure, analysts say he was kicked out for that very issue.

“The compliance issues were probably the main driver behind the CEO resignation,” analyst Dobell said. “An issue with compliance and honesty, particularly given McCullough’s background, was probably more than the board was willing to tolerate and more than McCullough was willing to stand for.”

McCullough was well respected and credited for cleaning up Career Education’s reputation and streamlining its operations, according to Robert W Baird analyst Amy Junker.

Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (“APSCU”) has put out a memorandum giving guidance for the Misrepresentation rule and Third party vendors.

Internet brings many assets to higher education. As with multiple other industries, however, the misuse of the Internet can have harmful consequences for consumers and organizations. With the possibility of so many different entities involved in online student recruitment, APSCU felt it both appropriate and important to provide its members with this guidance.

Click Here to view Memo

Interesting article from University Ventures Fund:

If you’ve seen Moneyball, the new baseball film about the unlikely success of the Oakland A’s and their out-of-the-box-thinking General Manager Billy Beane, you may have already drawn parallels to the current state of higher education. If not, we’re pleased to do it for you!

Like baseball ten years ago, higher education is focused on what’s easy to measure. For baseball it may have been body parts, batting average and the number on the radar gun. For higher education, it’s the 3Rs: research, rankings and real estate. Each of these areas is easily quantified or judged: research citations or number of publications in Nature and Science; U.S. News ranking (or colleges choose from a plethora of new entrants to the ranking game, including the international ranking by Shanghai Jiao Tong University); and in terms of real estate, how much has been spent on a new building and how stately, innovative and generally impressive it appears.

Unfortunately, the 3Rs correlate about as closely to student learning and student outcomes as batting average or fastball velocity, which is to say, not at all. Buildings are the “ugly girlfriend” of higher education.

Universities that continue to focus on the 3Rs in the wake of the seismic shifts currently roiling higher education (state budget cuts, increased sticker shock, technology-based learning) are either not serious about improving student learning and student outcomes, or they’re like the baseball fan who has lost her car keys in the stadium parking lot at night: Where does she look for them? Not where she lost them, but under the light because that’s where she can see.

To read the entire article: http://universityventuresfund.com/publications.php?title=moneycollege-where-is-the-billy-beane-of-higher-education

New article by Michael Clifford on significant Ventures

Some would say that the for-profit postsecondary sector is on its last legs… DOA. Capitalism.” He calls this framework for success his Four Gospels of Higher Education:

Fifteen publicly traded education companies have seen their stocks decline by 33% on average since December 2009 versus a 5% increase for the S&P 500. Media accounts abound of allegations regarding improper practices at publicly traded companies, including marketing misrepresentation and fraudulent reporting of placement rates. Twenty state attorneys general are investigating for-profit institutions. No other sector has been as demonized as the for-profit sector has among state and federal politicians over the past several years.

to read the article in its entirety: http://significantfederation.com/eblast/2011.09.14/landing/

Last week we spent some time on the phone with a well-known industry short fund.  We discussed the industry as a whole, as well as specific issues facing the industry which were behind their premise that shorting the industry was a good play for the next few years. Topics such as gainful employment, new compensation rules, default rates and the power of non-profit brands extending into the online education were the main points.  Gainful employment in conjunction with 90/10 is in our opinion a biased illogical political move to hinder the growth of one industry segment for profit schools to the benefit of another nonprofit schools.  If the rule is sound & logical, why wouldn’t it

be industry wide, the answer is clear, it’s not a well thought out rule.  If the traditional colleges had to live within gainful employment you would see far fewer lawyers, doctors, economists, political scientists (maybe that’s a good thing) philosophers, literary scholars, teachers, artists, theorists etc.  Who’s going to fill the entry level positions?  Aren’t they stepping stones?  We guess they will be filled by graduates of traditional colleges with English, Liberal Arts & Art history degrees whose $200,000+ education clearly provided them with such a solid and relevant foundation.  Default rates, well they need to be managed, schools need to ensure that the engagement & value their student receive from the education provided them is compelling.  We need to utilize assessment to make sure students enter program they have real interest and a likelihood of success in.  And we need to screen for and provide the remedial assistance necessary for students to be able to be successful in their education.  Will the industry be able to manage them successfully, YES.  As for the value of brands, this is a topic which has been discussed for many years.

We all know a brand is valuable.  We all know having a brand is a huge advantage and can significantly reduce the marketing costs of student recruitment.  But the big caveat is “can”.  Most traditional colleges significantly lack the admissions infrastructure and wiliness to adapt as necessary to be competitive to succeed in the fast paced world of online  education.  The partnerships between traditional colleges and for profit enterprises have proven that they can work and achieve fast growth, but those are still few in number.  The real questions is when will we see an influx of these partnerships, and how much of an effect will they have on the for-profit EDU industry>

Education Sector has created such a measure, the “borrowing to credential ratio.”For each college, we have taken newly available U.S. Department of Education data showing the total amount of money borrowed by undergraduates and divided that sum by the total number of degrees awarded.

The results are revealing:

• Nationwide, the overall borrowing to credential ratio has risen sharply in recent years.

• Certain segments of the higher education industry—in particular, for-profitcolleges—are racking up far more student debt per degree than others.

• State policies matter a great deal, with seemingly similar public university systems achieving widely varying results for students.

• Among elite colleges and universities, some are making good on their pledgeto help low- and middle-income students graduate without major financialburdens while others are riding a wave of student debt to fame and fortune.

Keep in mind that this formula does not take into account the enrollment growth and thus lack of time for those new students to graduate, thus in many of the for profits case their number are artificially high as if they added 5000-35000 new students their numbers are significantly elevated due to their newness and do not reflect actuals.  This is a decent indicator for those schools with consistent flat enrollments

but not for those with rapidly changing enrollments.  Thus, those schools with declining enrollments may show better that actual results while those with enrollment growth will show higher inaccurate debt amounts.

 click here to viewreport: http://www.educationsector.org/sites/default/files/publications/Debt%20to%20Degree%20CYCT_RELEASE.pdf

You should check out the new study by Sage that goes into detail about the all out war in media coverage against the for profit education industry.  Utilizing various methods of analysis the study shows that clearly there was a tipping point in the negative media coverage relating to the for-profit education sector starting in May 2010.  Some again wonder who was behind this media push (short sellers or democrats seeking headline media attention), others simply shake their heads at the jadedness of many of the media outlets, and how news once known as unbiased coverage is now political rhetoric.  Which ever way you fall on this it’s clear that the media is hush hush about all of the positives while they stand on their soap box to scream about anything negative regardless of the accuracy.  It’s also clear how politics of the democratic party and self interest driven media sound bites clearly have played a role.   Just another reason the average American is being further disenfranchised with the political system and it’s win at all costs mentality, rather than working to improve the lives of Americans, they all too much focus on what ever helps them gain headlines, soundbites and re-election.

Linke to the study: http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/07/08/2158244011414732.full.pdf+html