The University of Arkansas system is prepared to acquire the University of Grandham online, for profit if the System Trustee Board approves the agreement this morning, as expected.
The system of 15 institutions has worked to build a presence of robust online education for some time, and currently offers 24 undergraduate credentials through its eversity of the internal online program. Take Grantham to the Arkansas System, since an independent institution would increase the amount of credentials available to 60, it will introduce online graduate programs and expand their current virtual inscription of about 800 students at approximately 4,000.
An acquisition is "The fastest way to expand instead of pouring into many money with those efforts," said Michael Moore, Vice President of Academic Affairs for the System and Academic and Operational Director of Eversity. "You can certainly make a program grow that way, but it is expensive and incremental."
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Without this growth, online efforts of the system could be planted, said TRACE Urdan, Director General of Tyton Partners, an educational counseling firm.
"This is a market where you really need to have a scale to be effective," Urdan said.
The deal is practically free for the University of Arkansas. The terms of the acquisition dictate that Grantham would transfer its assets, which include its employees, students, marketing department, registration revenues and courses, to the system for only $ 1.
sound too good for Being is true, but Grantham was looking for a "Succesor-Steward" for the 70-year-headed institution based in Lenexa, Kan. "Moore said. As the online market has become more crowded, it has become more difficult to highlight.
"In the first days, online was practically the Vent view of only the benefits," Moore said. "The movement of non-benefits and online publics, and also increased regulatory scrutiny that is being placed on profits, has actually made it challenging compete." googleg.cmd.push (function () googleg.display ("dfp-ad-article_in_article"););
A Drentham spokesman refused to comment on the pending acquisition agreement, and the questions redirected to the University of Arkansas.
The University of Arkansas plans to conserve the 170 members of Grantham staff and 240 part-time faculty. members. Grantham students will have access to online college system offers and on campus, although Moore expects to choose to remain online.
If the system board votes to approve the Acquisition Agreement, the Drentham Board of Directors and the Level Board Play Campo Corp. - The owner of Grantham, should turn on the transaction. The plan also depends on the approval of the Committee on Accreditation of Distance Education, the Accreditator of the Accreditation of Grantham and Eversity.
The acquisition would expand the flow of online income of the system and will provide you with another defense against income deficits and budget cuts, said Michael Horn, co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute, a non-profit Think Tank . Grantham's available credentials are also aligned with common races in the state.
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"Sipped me as very specific around particular areas of professional focus that probably need within the state," Horn said. "I suspect that the other thing that was exciting for them was that it probably ranked with the areas where they knew that they would have
