Goofy "Kaplan" deal nixed

California Community Colleges End Controversial Deal With Kaplan U. (Chronicle of Higher Education)

     California's community-college system has canceled a controversial agreement that would have allowed students at some colleges to earn credit for discounted online courses at Kaplan University.
     The 112-campus community-college system is severely overcrowded, and officials saw the November agreement as a way to make it easier for students to get classes they need. For Kaplan, the agreement promised a boost of credibility and a ready pool of new students, who would be able to take certain online courses at a 42-percent discount.
     But at a time of intense scrutiny of for-profit colleges, the arrangement between the nation's largest public-college system and a prominent for-profit college drew complaints from faculty groups and others. Critics argued the system was endorsing Kaplan, and they said it could be difficult for students who transferred to the state's public universities to receive credit for Kaplan courses.
     The agreement was more an idea than reality: In nine months, few colleges, if any, had cleared Kaplan courses for students to take for credit under the deal. In a letter last week canceling the agreement, a community-college official said the community colleges had failed to secure agreements with California State University and the University of California to automatically accept the Kaplan courses.
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     Some who had criticized the agreement cheered the decision to cancel it, saying that even at a discount, the Kaplan courses were a bad deal for students. Community-college courses in California cost $26 per credit hour, the lowest in the country, while Kaplan's discounted courses would have cost about $216 per credit hour.
     "It certainly is odd that a system that is so proud of its affordability and low fees would encourage students to pay $216 a credit," said Deborah Frankle Cochrane, program director at the Institute for College Access and Success.
     The agreement was a smart business move by Kaplan, said Scott Lay, president of the Community College League of California, a lobbying group for the community-college system. The company intended to use its discounted price for online courses as a loss leader to make students familiar with Kaplan, he said….