University of Phoenix is closing 115 campuses

University of Phoenix is closing 115 campuses. Due to a sharp decline in profits, the largest for-profit university in the United States...

University of Phoenix is closing 115 campuses. Due to a sharp decline in profits, the University of Phoenix, the largest for-profit university in the United States, is closing 115 campuses. Phoenix announced this week that it would close 115 campuses, affecting about 13,000 students. The announcement by Apollo Group Inc., the parent company of the University of Phoenix, not only means that the company will close about half of its brick-and-mortar universities, but also shows that for-profit universities that have grown explosively for several years have been hit hard by the economic recession four years ago and are rapidly shrinking in size. Closing so many campuses will also suddenly create a flood of commercial real estate near highway intersections. In the short term, this is not good news for for-profit universities, but in the long term, whether this phenomenon is beneficial to for-profit universities, students and the economy depends on the target. Government data released last week showed that in the fall of 2011, total enrollment in higher education institutions across the country fell for the first time in 15 years. Overall enrollment fell by just 0.2%, but the bulk of the decline was at for-profit colleges, which saw a 2.9% decline in enrollment (for-profit colleges account for about 11% of all enrollment), offsetting increases in enrollment at nonprofit colleges. When Apollo announced the closure of the campus, it tried to make itself look "respectable", saying that the move was due to the increasing number of students choosing to attend classes online, and claimed that only 4% of the students were affected, and existing students would be able to complete their courses. But the company cannot hide the fact that enrollment has dropped significantly: There are currently 328,000 degree-seeking students, down from 381,000 last year and even harder to compare with the 475,000 students at the peak in 2010.