From Manfred Philipp:THE Journal reports today that the Blackboard Corporation is being
acquired by Providence Equity Partners, a private equity firm that has
other interests in K-12 and proprietary higher education. The takeover
price is quoted by Providence to be 21 % over the "unaffected" prior
market price.
see http://thejournal.com/articles/2011/07/01/blackboard-to-be-acquired-by-private-equity-firm.aspx
and
http://www.provequity.com/news/releases/Blackboard%20Press%20Release%207.1.11.pdf
Providence Equity Partners, (http://www.provequity.com/) through its
subsidiary Education Management, (http://www.edmc.edu/) owns Argosy
University (http://www.argosy.edu/) a proprietary higher ed system
that operates in California, Texas, Illinois, Georgia, and other
states. The US Department of Education lists Argosy University as
having a 38 percent student loan repayment rate, when compared to all
proprietary colleges with a repayment rate of 36 percent. Private
nonprofit universities are quoted to average 56 % and public
institutions are quoted to average 54 %.
38% is said to put Argosy in danger of being declared ineligible for
student loans under a proposed federal regulation.
see http://www.youthtoday.org/view_article.cfm?article_id=4214
and
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2009/integrity-analysis.html
and
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/highered/reg/hearulemaking/2009/ge-cumulative-rates.xls
This last source also gives the repayment rates for CUNY colleges.
[Congratulations to Baruch!]
Some have speculated on the financial model that drives the
acquisition. According to at least one observer, Blackboard's losses
to competitors such as Moodle have been offset by increased income
from Blackboard Managed Hosting, where universities (including CUNY)
that were unable to run Blackboard in a sufficiently reliable manner
now pay Blackboard to run it for them.
Manfred Philipp
*****************
CUNY Faculty Senate
http://www.cunyufs.org/
535 E. 80th St.
New York, NY 10075
212 794-5538
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