This editorial was published by the Lewiston Tribune and written by Tribune Opinion page editor Marty Trillhaase.
Memo to: U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
Subject: What you need to know about the University of Idaho’s intended acquisition of University of Phoenix.
Background: Your Sept. 11 letter to UI President Scott Green meticulously outlines the risks involved for his institution.
Chief among them:
Financial: As you noted, the Idaho school could be “on the hook” for University of Phoenix liabilities. Case in point: federal student loans. Federal rules — known as borrower defense to repayment — allow former students to seek debt relief if they were misled or defrauded by a for-profit college. Once that debt relief is granted, the U.S. Department of Education will seek to recoup the money from the institution.
A Federal Trade Commission settlement for $191 million in 2019 covers 1,200 students who attended the institution during the years 2012-14. Wednesday, the federal government announced it intends to write off $37 million in loans. But given the dropout rate at Phoenix, critics of the institution believe you could be talking about many times that number of students with an enormous amount of potential student loan liability.
Reputational: Again, you raised the question about exploitation of military members and veterans. Under the federal government’s 90/10 rule, no for-profit private institution can rely on the federal government for more than 90% of its revenues. Because of a loophole, that restriction did not apply to Department of Defense and veterans, which suggests more than 90% of University of Phoenix’s revenues came from the federal government. For instance, from 2013-21, Phoenix collected $1.6 billion in GI Bill revenues. In 2015, Phoenix was caught doing illegal recruitment on military bases.
The American Rescue Plan Act closed the loophole. But the 90/10 requirement would not apply to a nonprofit entity envisioned under the UI/Phoenix model. As you wrote, “We are concerned that Phoenix is pursuing this partnership, at least in part, to evade the updated 90/10 rule. How would UI ensure that veterans are not targeted through predatory recruiting?”
Context: Here’s what Green and other UI officials know but won’t publicly acknowledge: Idaho is not Connecticut, Illinois or Massachusetts.
It is not a politically progressive state with a healthy respect for diversity, pluralism, higher education and academic freedom.
For instance:
Idaho’s elected leadership has been actively disinvesting in its four-year institutions of higher education for decades.
As the century began, nearly 11% of Idaho’s general fund budget was devoted to covering the cost of student instruction.
That’s now down to 6.8%.
On the eve of the Great Recession, state spending on higher education peaked at $285.2 million. It dropped to as little as $209.8 million in 2012 and did not fully recover — before accounting for inflation — until 2018.
As a result, the burden has fallen upon students and their families.
At the UI, a student attending school in 1977 could expect to pay $434 a year.
Today, tuition is $8,396.
Twenty years ago, the taxpayers of Idaho covered 75% of the cost of instruction. Students paid 20%.
As of last year, that equation had almost flipped. The state provides 52% of the cost of instruction. Student tuition provides 44%.
So as you can imagine, student recruitment and retention is tied to the business model.
Yet, as Green has pointed out, the Great Recession, which ravaged the UI’s budgets, also set off a baby bust. While an enrollment cliff will affect different states at different times — and may not impede a fast-growing state like Idaho as severely as some fear — it’s hardly the kind of prospect a state university just emerging from a budget crunch and tuition freeze can ignore.
The politics are hostile. Boise State University President Marlene Tromp had been on the job a few days in 2019 when acolytes of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, such as state Rep. Barbara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls, pounced on her about the role of diversity in university faculty and student recruitment.
When Idaho higher education’s leadership failed to follow the dictates of anti-diversity lawmakers, the response was a $2.5 million budget cut.
In response, Green derided a “false narrative, created by conflict entrepreneurs who make their living sowing fear and doubt with legislators and voters.”
No such discipline was imposed on BSU political science professor Scott Yenor, who told the National Conservatism Conference in Orlando, Fla.: “Every effort made must be made not to recruit women into engineering, but rather to recruit and demand more of men who become engineers. ... Ditto for med school, and the law, and every trade.”
Academic freedom is under assault. For two years, faculty members have operated under the No Public Funds for Abortion Act. Discuss abortion in a classroom setting or even an art exhibit in a manner that runs afoul of the law and a faculty member could face a one-year jail term and a $1,000 fine — or even a felony conviction, 14 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. They also face getting fired, being banned from future state employment and being charged restitution.
A contingent of right-wing ideologues is skeptical about higher education indoctrinating impressionable students with a “woke” agenda. Their discouragement of education, along with the COVID-19 pandemic and rising costs of attending school, are responsible for a “go-on” rate — the proportion of Idaho high school graduates who continue their education — well below half.
Conclusion: Green would be naive to rely on a political establishment that is neglectful of higher education at best — and acrimonious at worst. Acquiring University of Phoenix is how he intends to free his institution from an abusive Legislature.
Green’s desperation doesn’t excuse his choices. Neither can you dismiss it out of hand. — M.T.
