At a trial in a San Diego courtroom late last year, lawyers from the California attorney general’s office presented powerful evidence regarding years of predatory abuses against students by for-profit Ashford University. The case now awaits a verdict by the presiding state judge. Meanwhile, the school has come under increasing scrutiny by its accreditor, WASC, which is demanding evidence of improvements in academic quality. The U.S. Department of Education last November told the school that because it had changed ownership, it would have to provide a $103 million letter of credit, or immediately furnish a financial audit, to remain eligible for federal student aid. And in December, the Department placed the school on Heightened Cash Monitoring 1 status, tightening financial scrutiny.
These factors preceded an announcement last week by the University of Arizona, the flagship public university that acquired Ashford in 2020 and renamed it University of Arizona Global Campus (UAGC), that it would move to assert greater authority over the school. That move could potentially take some influence away from Ashford’s former owner, Zovio, a corporation that continues to run most aspects of the operation under a contract with Arizona.
But are the announced changes real, or just cosmetic? And if Arizona really does make Ashford more its own, what exactly did it purchase?
What is Ashford University?
Ashford University is an online school that in 2005 bought the campus and,…
