Monday, June 06, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

SECONDARY EDUCATION: Private colleges fill growing niche

Such schools build enrollment quickly by appealing to students outside traditional mold

Students attend a finance class last month at the University of Phoenix on Rancho Drive. Photo by John Locher.

A former gang member, a card dealer, soldiers dressed in fatigues and young mothers make up the student body in Lauri Rockwood's general education class.

The University of Phoenix course is required for all entering students as a way to orient to college life. Rockwood asks her class to write about how they will feel when they get their degree.

"Just keep writing even if it's gibber-jabber," she instructs.

Most students relate how they dropped out of college at some point; some still feel guilty about it. Some fear job discrimination if they have no degree. A few say they're in school to show their children they can graduate. Others say it's a step to more opportunities.

"They all feel a common bond. They get to know each other and can say, `I'm normal here,' " Rockwood said of her class on the university's Henderson campus. "It's normal to have started and stopped. It's normal to be a single parent. It's normal to be married with three kids. It's normal to ride the bus or drive a Porsche."

Thanks to these nontraditional students, enrollment growth at private institutions is greater than at the state's eight colleges and universities. And residents should expect to see these institutions expand, though they charge more.

Between fiscal years 1994 and 2004, the number of students enrolled in Nevada private institutions increased 80 percent, to 28,181 students, at about 140 schools. During that same period, enrollment in state colleges and universities increased 53 percent, to about 100,000 students.

Officials at both public and private institutions say the two don't compete for students.

"Most of our students couldn't afford to go to the University of Phoenix. It's considerably more expensive," Community College of Southern Nevada President Richard Carpenter said.

"They're serving different markets," he said.

Most higher education officials attribute the growth at Nevada private schools to the convenience. The typical schedule requires students to take one night course a week, lasting about four hours. If enrolled continually, students often are able to obtain a degree or certificate faster than they would at a university or community college.

Most students also come into private schools with at least a few credits of college already, said David Perlman, an administrator at the Nevada Commission on Postsecondary Education. Older students typically attend these institutions. At CCSN, the average age is 28. At the University of Phoenix's online program the average age is 38; about two-thirds of its students have families.

The state's population growth will bring more private colleges to Southern Nevada, said Clara Lovett, president of the American Association of Higher Education.

Just last month, National University, one of the largest online private colleges in the nation, opened its first classrooms in Henderson.

The cost per credit at private schools can range from $195 to $600, Perlman said. The cost per credit at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas is $98 for undergraduate courses and $136 for graduate classes.

But a large chunk of private school students receive some form of financial aid. In Nevada, private schools grossed $138 million in fiscal year 2004, Perlman said. Of that, about $104 million came from federal tuition aid, which students compete for more and more. About 75 percent of the 3,000 University of Phoenix students in Southern Nevada receive financial aid, said Lisa Ackerman, the Southern Nevada campus director.

At Nevada's public colleges and universities, about 50 percent -- or nearly 50,000 students -- receive some sort of financial aid, including the Millennium Scholarship. The $10,000 grant is available only to students attending public institutions and those at the private and residential Sierra Nevada College, which like Nevada's two universities requires students to have at least a 2.0 grade-point average to enroll.

Henderson mortgage broker JoAnn Euashka, 25, transferred to the University of Phoenix after taking dozens of UNLV credits for her business management degree.

"I have 13 credits left, and UNLV doesn't offer them at night, and you've got to pay bills," she said.

The University of Phoenix, she said, was a last resort. But she said she has been pleasantly surprised. The teachers, most of whom have a full-time job in the field in which they teach, realize she has other priorities. She also said she felt they had more passion. "A lot of professors that have tenure rested on their laurels," she said.

The educational experience with the smaller class sizes at the University of Phoenix was slightly superior to the university's, but the cost was much harder to bear, she said. In addition, she said she is concerned that future employers will view a degree from the school as less valuable than one from UNLV. "They're going to be a lot more judgmental," she said.

Sean Gallagher, an analyst with Eduventures, a Boston education consulting company, has surveyed proprietary degrees in the job market and noted a divisive trend.

"In some industries and geographies, clearly the more selective schools are preferred: consulting, investment banking, the financing industry, various areas of science. But most of the jobs that are out there in the economy are more entry or midlevel type positions. What we've seen there is that many employers don't make a distinction," he said.

There are areas in which proprietary college graduates dominate the market, including restaurants, the hospitality industry, auto mechanics and the health science fields, he said.

"It's two-year trade schools that do the training for sonographers and medical assistants, so there are certain segments of employment where for-profit institutions are actually the specialists because they are the trade schools," he said.

For a traditional college experience, higher education experts advocate that students attend universities where there are residential housing, clubs and sports. But there is no way to peg which institution is best for whom, or even which one offers better programs, Lovett said.

"Harvard has been around for 200 years and it does admit only a fraction of the people that like to attend. Is it better or is it just different? I think we should ask those questions rather than just assume."