The Republic found that officials with the University of Arizona led an unscrupulous public relations campaign to cover up financial and ethical issues related to the acquisition.

As the Republic noted from a public record request of emails:

“I think the best (maybe only) PR strategy is the following: Complete takeover and reorganization … with a wholesale rebrand,” John Paul Jones, dean of the UA’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, wrote in a May 2020 email thread discussing the best way to disassociate [UA Global Campus] from its tarnished predecessor, Ashford. “A clean break … will smell better.”

“Thanks for thinking deeply about this. We all agree the comm strategy is key,” responded Jeff Goldberg, another university dean and special adviser to Robbins who was part of a select group of university leaders briefed about the then-secret plan to merge with Ashford.

In response to the Republic’s reporting, Governor Katie Hobbs wrote a scathing letter expecting signficant improvements in accountability and oversight.

Most publicly available metrics of University of Arizona Global Campus (UAGC) still date from its time as Ashford University at either College Navigator, which is only results for first-time, first-year students (a minority of UAGC), or at a UAGC website.

Yet the retention rate of first-time, first year students posted at College Navigator for Fall 2022 of 30% was similar to Fall 2019 (29%) and Fall 2020 (31%) that preceded the acquisition.

The Grand Canyon Institute (GCI) has long held concerns about the acquisition and rebranding of Ashford University. On November 18, 2020, before the deal was finalized, GCI notified the Arizona Board of Regents of their findings. GCI released its report to the public in early December 2020.

GCI noted that Ashford was a predatory institution, which means its business model was built on recruiting students–mostly women students of color–and then relying on a combination of federal guaranteed student loans, Pell Grants and the GI Bill to finance student tuition. However, students rarely ended up with a degree. Ashford had an 8-year graduation rate for first-time students of under 10% (one-fifth of the national average) and an 8-year graduation rate for returning students of only 25% (less than one half the national average). Ashford represented one of the worst performing universities in the United States.

GCI further noted that Ashford’s 5-year default rate on student loans was nearly 50%. By contrast, for Arizona State University, the default rate was 17%.

Looking at the most recent data for default rates. Ashford exposes large numbers of students to debt and then an escalating percentage default.

Source: U.S. Dept of Education through Oct. 4, 2023.

Ashford’s students were recruited, promised a road to success, failed to complete that road, and/or found they cannot afford it (Ashford’s price per credit hour was more than $500) and end up in a debt trap. That’s what the University of Arizona was buying and kept in place the existing management team.

At the time of the sale, Ashford, technically located in California, was being sued by the state of Califonria for defrauding students.It was in danger of losing access to funding from the GI bill, which is critical for predatory institutuions. The U.S. Dept of Education requires that universities not receive more than 90% of their revenue from guaranteed student loans and Pell Grants. But GI Bill funding is separate, and not counted toward the 90%. In fact, under fire in California, Ashford in 2017 had “relocated” to an essentially empty building in Arizona and gotten a letter of approval from the state approving agency within the Arizona Department of Veterans Services.

GCI noted that Ashford spent only 19% of its net revenue on faculty, that only 4% of faculty were full-time and only 10% of courses were taught by full-time faculty. The courses lacked typcial academic rigor. This was noted in one of the emails uncovered in the Republic  investigation:

Jeff Goldberg, Special Advisor to the President of U of A, and a Dean Emeritus from the College of Engineering notes:

Following are the URL, username, and password for Ashoford University online academic materials:

URL: https:///ashford.instructure.com/login/canvas

[Redacted]

…there are about 12 courses there incluidng 3 or 4 of their gen eds [math, writing, capstone, nursing, psyc, human resources in business)…. you can see what students see.

it is interesting in these classes that they do not do much examination.  lots of HW and lots of online discussion nd response.  quizzes/exams are like 10% of the grade.

In other words, Ashford did insufficient evaluation of learning outcomes, or better stated,  a student could fail all examinations and still get a high grade in the course.

Due to its legal problems, Zovio, the former owner of Ashford, and its hired management partner has gone out of business, handing the whole mess to the University of Arizona in 2022.

Even though the deal had been for 15 years, the relationship with Zovio fell apart only 15 months after the acquistion, under accountability pressure from the U.S. Dept. of Education’s oversight and accreditors.

The Grand Canyon Institute noted in 2020 the following benchmarks for improvment. The University of Arizona should publicly release plans to meet each of them or otherwise more properly fold UAGC into their full operations with full accountability.

• Loan Default Benchmarks — 5-year student loan default rate reduced to no more than twice the current rate of UA and the portion of loans repaid for UAGC increased to at least half that of UA.
• Completion Benchmark — 8-year student completion rate of at least 60% of UA’s and withdrawal rate reduced to no more than 25%. (In 2020 completion rates were about 40% of UA’s and nearly half of students withdrew.)
• Immediate demonstration that UA will expend a minimum of 30% of net tuition and fees on instruction, up from the 19% at the time of acquisition as part of its plan to address these goals. And within 5 years for faculty investment to be at least 35% of net tuition and fees.

Read the Grand Canyon Institute’s full analysis here.

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