Ashford University
Encyclopedia
Ashford University is a private
, for-profit university
located in Clinton
, Iowa
. It is the largest educational holding of Bridgepoint Education
. Although the university is regionally accredited
by The Higher Learning Commission
of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools
, it has begun the process of seeking regional accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
.
The university offers Associate's
, Bachelor's, and Master's degrees in more than 50 degree programs on campus and online. The majority of the student population is enrolled in online courses but the campus has experienced growth in recent years.
As for-profit colleges have come under increasing scrutiny, a U.S. Senate report in 2011 revealed that Ashford has one of the highest withdrawal rates of any publicly traded school in the industry. Ashford has also been faulted for its recruiting and finance practices in a U.S. Department of Education audit. Bridgepoint Education responded in March 2011 with a report asserting that the information used in the Senate hearing was either inaccurate or incomplete.
Ashford University's campus was established in 1893 as the Mount St. Clare Academy, a boarding and day school for girls. The idea for this school formed when Father James A. Murray invited the Sisters of St. Francis
to help teach in Clinton, Iowa
. The new Mount St. Clare building was erected for this school in 1910 and remains in use today.
Seeing a need for higher education in Clinton County
and the surrounding area,
the Sisters founded Mount St. Clare College in 1918. This liberal arts institution was also an approved teacher education college from 1932 to 1954. In 1942, 60% of the rural teachers in Clinton County and 62% of the teachers in the city of Clinton school system had received all of their training from Mount St. Clare College.
In 1950, the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools
first accredited Mount St. Clare College. Following the accreditation, the school quickly began to expand. A convent building, new library, new gymnasium, the Science Building, and Durham Residence Hall were acquired by the college during this period of growth. The college eventually became coeducational in 1967.
For the 1979-1980 school year, the college received approval for its first four-year degree, a bachelor's program in business administration. During the same year, Mount St. Clare Academy merged with St. Mary's High School in Clinton, forming Mater Dei High School (now known as Prince of Peace Preparatory
). With the space freed by the academy's merger, the school began to offer additional four year programs. In 1997, the sisters moved off campus into their new mother house, The Canticle. In 1998, the Durgin Educational Center was opened, which included new athletic facilities, including Kehl arena.
After a period of financial difficulty, the University was purchased by Bridgepoint Education
in March 2005. After the completion of the sale, the institution's name was changed to Ashford University. Sponsorship by the Sisters of St. Francis ended.
. The 24 acre (0.09712464 km²) campus is about a half-mile from the Mississippi River
and about a mile north of Highway 30. The most notable building on campus is St. Clare Hall, which has served as the Mount St. Clare Convent, Novitiate, Academy, and College. Today, the lower floors in St. Clare Hall house administrative and support staff, while the upper floors contain classrooms.
The newest building on campus is the Durgin Educational Center, which houses Kehl Arena, the athletics department, and the animation lab. The university has recently purchased the Best Western hotel for use as a dormitory. Land from a local country club has been purchased for use as a football stadium, although no football team exists on campus.
. Through 2011-2012, the school's athletics teams, The Saints, have competed in the Midwest Collegiate Conference. The official team colors are purple and gold, and the mascot for the Saints is a Saint Bernard
dog named Champ. The Saints field teams in both men's and women's basketball, golf, tennis, cross country and soccer. The Saints also compete in women's softball
and volleyball, as well as men's baseball and men's track and field. The University constructed a $4.6 million dollar athletic facility in 2010. As part of the complex, a state of the art football field was built, though the Saints do not currently field a football team. In May 2011, Ashford University and another school were removed from the Midwest Collegiate Conference, effective in the 2012-2013 academic year, as a result of their for-profit status.
Ashford has also received the Midwest Collegiate Conference President’s Cup for the years 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 for high academic excellence among their student athletes with 96 individual students chosen for the Academic All-MCC Team. Additionally, 21 students were named Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athlete s which requires a GPA of 3.5 to 4.0 at the time of certification. Eight of Ashford’s athletic programs have been named as NAIA Scholar Teams, which requires individuals on the team to maintain a minimum GPA of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale. The programs named were men’s tennis, women’s soccer, women’s basketball, men’s soccer, volleyball, baseball and men’s basketball.
The stock of Ashford's parent company, Bridgepoint Education
, fell the most in almost five months when the misuse of federal student aid was first publicly disclosed in 2009. When the official results were released in 2011, Senator Tom Harkin
said this audit "reveals the same troubling pattern of for-profit colleges
' taking advantage of students and taxpayers." The Department of Education has not yet responded to the findings.
The audit was the subject of a U.S. Senate committee hearing on March 10, 2011.
of Ashford's parent company, which has experienced near-exponential profit growth in the last few years despite low graduation rates. Bridgepoint owns two universities that it purchased when both were near bankruptcy, Ashford University in Iowa and the University of the Rockies in Colorado. When it purchased Ashford University in 2005, it had less than 300 students but today it claims to have over 78,000 students, 99% of which are online.
Senator Harkin took issue with the fact that despite such growth of the company, student success was lacking. According to information provided by Senator Harkin in the committee hearing, 63% of students who enrolled at Ashford University during the 2008-2009 school year withdrew before completion of their perspective program. Senator Harkin pointed out that Bridgepoint recorded more than $216 million in profits in 2010; of which 86.5 percent of its revenues come from federal funds. In reference to the dependence of Bridgepoint on public funds, Senator Harkin was quoted as saying, "I think this is a scam, an absolute scam."
Kathleen Tighe, who is an inspector general with the U.S. Department of Education, testified at the hearing that in an audit of Ashford, she discovered Ashford was improperly distributing student aid to students. "Seventy-five percent of the improper disbursements to students in our sample were made to students who never became eligible," Tighe said. Bridgepoint hadn’t returned the improperly obtained student aid to the federal government, and said on a recent report she’d seen that Bridgepoint was “sitting on $130 million” in these types of funds.
Due to the ongoing Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) proceedings, and in order to preserve due process, Ashford's parent company, Bridgepoint Education, chose not to send executives to the HELP committee hearing while engaged in negotiations with FSA. Rather, Bridgepoint published a summary of responses called Bridgepoint Education Transparency.http://bpitransparency.com
Willems also testified that Ashford entered into partnership with Rio Salado Community College whereas education courses from the Ashford BA in Social Science with a Concentration in Education could apply to Rio Salado’s post-baccalaureate teacher education program. Once students have completed the online Ashford BA and the online Rio Salado teacher education program, they are eligible for an Arizona teaching license. Willem's noted that this partnership could be seen as a creative way to solve a problem in order to continue drawing students, or it could be seen as a way to circumvent the accountability system for quality in order to continue collecting tuition from students. An individual who has attained an Arizona license in this way does not automatically receive an
Iowa license because Iowa and Arizona do not have a reciprocity agreement.
According Willem's, complaints from Ashford students concerning this agreement and licensure include:
1) Individuals from Iowa and many other states who had completed Ashford's online Bachelor of Arts in Social Science with a Concentration in Education. These individuals had been led to believe that, upon completion of this program, they would be eligible for a license in their home state because Ashford has a state-approved teacher education program (the on-ground
undergraduate program).
2) Individuals who were students or graduates of the Ashford online baccalaureate program, but were not aware of the need to complete the Rio Salado program as well in order to receive an Arizona license. These individuals were not even aware of the Rio Salado partnership.
3) Ashford students who were intending to complete student teaching through Rio Salado College and believed they would then automatically be eligible for an Iowa teaching license.
4) Students who were completing an online degree through Ashford in early childhood and believed that this degree would lead to an Iowa teaching license. It does not.
Private university
Private universities are universities not operated by governments, although many receive public subsidies, especially in the form of tax breaks and public student loans and grants. Depending on their location, private universities may be subject to government regulation. Private universities are...
, for-profit university
For-Profit School
For-profit education refers to educational institutions operated by private, profit-seeking businesses....
located in Clinton
Clinton, Iowa
Clinton is a city in and the county seat of Clinton County, Iowa, United States. The population was 26231as of 2010. Clinton, along with DeWitt, Iowa , was named in honor of the seventh governor of New York, DeWitt Clinton. Clinton is the principal city of the Clinton Micropolitan Statistical...
, Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
. It is the largest educational holding of Bridgepoint Education
Bridgepoint Education
Bridgepoint Education is a San Diego, California-based publicly held, for-profit education services holding company which owns for-profit, online and land-based Ashford University and University of the Rockies.-History:...
. Although the university is regionally accredited
Educational accreditation
Educational accreditation is a type of quality assurance process under which services and operations of educational institutions or programs are evaluated by an external body to determine if applicable standards are met...
by The Higher Learning Commission
The Higher Learning Commission
The Higher Learning Commission is part of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. The Higher Learning Commission oversees the accreditation of degree-granting colleges and universities in nineteen Midwestern and South-Central states, including Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa,...
of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools
North Central Association of Colleges and Schools
The North Central Association of Colleges and Schools , also known as the North Central Association, is a membership organization, consisting of colleges, universities, and schools in 19 U.S. states, that is engaged in educational accreditation...
, it has begun the process of seeking regional accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges
Western Association of Schools and Colleges
The Western Association of Schools and Colleges is one of six official academic bodies responsible for the accreditation of public and private universities, colleges, secondary and elementary schools in the United States and foreign institutions of American origin. The Western Association of...
.
The university offers Associate's
Associate's degree
An associate degree is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by community colleges, junior colleges, technical colleges, and bachelor's degree-granting colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study usually lasting two years...
, Bachelor's, and Master's degrees in more than 50 degree programs on campus and online. The majority of the student population is enrolled in online courses but the campus has experienced growth in recent years.
As for-profit colleges have come under increasing scrutiny, a U.S. Senate report in 2011 revealed that Ashford has one of the highest withdrawal rates of any publicly traded school in the industry. Ashford has also been faulted for its recruiting and finance practices in a U.S. Department of Education audit. Bridgepoint Education responded in March 2011 with a report asserting that the information used in the Senate hearing was either inaccurate or incomplete.
Mount St. Clare history (1893 - 2003)
Sisters of St. Francis
Sisters of St. Francis can refer to:* Sisters of St. Francis Health Services, Inc., now named Franciscan Alliance, Inc.* Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi* Sisters of St Francis of the Martyr St George* Sisters of St. Joseph of the Third Order of St. Francis...
to help teach in Clinton, Iowa
Clinton, Iowa
Clinton is a city in and the county seat of Clinton County, Iowa, United States. The population was 26231as of 2010. Clinton, along with DeWitt, Iowa , was named in honor of the seventh governor of New York, DeWitt Clinton. Clinton is the principal city of the Clinton Micropolitan Statistical...
. The new Mount St. Clare building was erected for this school in 1910 and remains in use today.
Seeing a need for higher education in Clinton County
Clinton County, Iowa
-2010 census:The 2010 census recorded a population of 49,116 in the county, with a population density of . There were 21,733 housing units, of which 20,223 were occupied.-2000 census:...
and the surrounding area,
the Sisters founded Mount St. Clare College in 1918. This liberal arts institution was also an approved teacher education college from 1932 to 1954. In 1942, 60% of the rural teachers in Clinton County and 62% of the teachers in the city of Clinton school system had received all of their training from Mount St. Clare College.
In 1950, the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools
North Central Association of Colleges and Schools
The North Central Association of Colleges and Schools , also known as the North Central Association, is a membership organization, consisting of colleges, universities, and schools in 19 U.S. states, that is engaged in educational accreditation...
first accredited Mount St. Clare College. Following the accreditation, the school quickly began to expand. A convent building, new library, new gymnasium, the Science Building, and Durham Residence Hall were acquired by the college during this period of growth. The college eventually became coeducational in 1967.
For the 1979-1980 school year, the college received approval for its first four-year degree, a bachelor's program in business administration. During the same year, Mount St. Clare Academy merged with St. Mary's High School in Clinton, forming Mater Dei High School (now known as Prince of Peace Preparatory
Prince of Peace Preparatory
The Prince of Peace Preparatory School is a Catholic high school in Clinton, Iowa, USA. It is located in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport....
). With the space freed by the academy's merger, the school began to offer additional four year programs. In 1997, the sisters moved off campus into their new mother house, The Canticle. In 1998, the Durgin Educational Center was opened, which included new athletic facilities, including Kehl arena.
University history (2003 - present)
In 2003, Mount St. Clare College changed its name to The Franciscan University. At the same time, the university received approval to offer its first master’s degree online. In September 2004, the school modified its name to The Franciscan University of the Prairies in order to avoid confusion with similarly named schools.After a period of financial difficulty, the University was purchased by Bridgepoint Education
Bridgepoint Education
Bridgepoint Education is a San Diego, California-based publicly held, for-profit education services holding company which owns for-profit, online and land-based Ashford University and University of the Rockies.-History:...
in March 2005. After the completion of the sale, the institution's name was changed to Ashford University. Sponsorship by the Sisters of St. Francis ended.
Former presidents
Past leaders of Ashford and its predecessor institutions have been:- Mother Mary Paul Carrico, O.S.F., 1918–1921
- Mother Mary Fidelis Ruddy, O.S.F., 1921–1924
- Mother Mary Paul Carrico, O.S.F., 1924-1936
- Mother Mary John McKeever, O.S.F., 1936–1948
- Mother Mary Regis Cleary, O.S.F., 1948–1958
- Sister Mary Cortona Phelan, Ph.D., O.S.F., 1958–1968
- Sister Mary Cecile Devereux, O.S.F., 1968–1971
- Sister Eileen Smith, O.S.F., 1972–1976
- Dr. Dan C. Johnson, 1976–1985
- Rev. Charles E. Lang, Ph.D., 1986–1991
- Dr. James J. Ross, 1991–2000
- Sheila Smith, 2001–2002
- Dr. Michael E. Kaelke, 2002–2005
- James Chitwood, M.B.A., 2005–2007
- Dr. Jane McAuliffe, 2007–2011
Campus
The Ashford ground campus is located in Clinton, IowaClinton, Iowa
Clinton is a city in and the county seat of Clinton County, Iowa, United States. The population was 26231as of 2010. Clinton, along with DeWitt, Iowa , was named in honor of the seventh governor of New York, DeWitt Clinton. Clinton is the principal city of the Clinton Micropolitan Statistical...
. The 24 acre (0.09712464 km²) campus is about a half-mile from the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
and about a mile north of Highway 30. The most notable building on campus is St. Clare Hall, which has served as the Mount St. Clare Convent, Novitiate, Academy, and College. Today, the lower floors in St. Clare Hall house administrative and support staff, while the upper floors contain classrooms.
The newest building on campus is the Durgin Educational Center, which houses Kehl Arena, the athletics department, and the animation lab. The university has recently purchased the Best Western hotel for use as a dormitory. Land from a local country club has been purchased for use as a football stadium, although no football team exists on campus.
Athletics
Ashford University is a member of the NAIANational Association of Intercollegiate Athletics
The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics is an athletic association that organizes college and university-level athletic programs. Membership in the NAIA consists of smaller colleges and universities across the United States. The NAIA allows colleges and universities outside the USA...
. Through 2011-2012, the school's athletics teams, The Saints, have competed in the Midwest Collegiate Conference. The official team colors are purple and gold, and the mascot for the Saints is a Saint Bernard
St. Bernard (dog)
The St. Bernard is a breed of very large working dog from the Italian and Swiss Alps, originally bred for rescue. The breed has become famous through tales of alpine rescues, as well as for its large size.-Appearance:The St. Bernard is a large dog...
dog named Champ. The Saints field teams in both men's and women's basketball, golf, tennis, cross country and soccer. The Saints also compete in women's softball
Softball
Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...
and volleyball, as well as men's baseball and men's track and field. The University constructed a $4.6 million dollar athletic facility in 2010. As part of the complex, a state of the art football field was built, though the Saints do not currently field a football team. In May 2011, Ashford University and another school were removed from the Midwest Collegiate Conference, effective in the 2012-2013 academic year, as a result of their for-profit status.
Ashford has also received the Midwest Collegiate Conference President’s Cup for the years 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 for high academic excellence among their student athletes with 96 individual students chosen for the Academic All-MCC Team. Additionally, 21 students were named Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athlete s which requires a GPA of 3.5 to 4.0 at the time of certification. Eight of Ashford’s athletic programs have been named as NAIA Scholar Teams, which requires individuals on the team to maintain a minimum GPA of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale. The programs named were men’s tennis, women’s soccer, women’s basketball, men’s soccer, volleyball, baseball and men’s basketball.
U.S. Department of Education audit
In May 2008, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Inspector General (OIG) audit services division commenced a compliance audit of Ashford University covering the period March 10, 2005, through June 30, 2009. The OIG audit reached the following conclusions:| Audit focus | Audit result |
|---|---|
| Compensation policies and practices relating to enrollment advisers | Rewarded recruiters based on their success in securing enrollments |
| Calculation, timeliness, and disbursement accuracy of Title IV Title IV Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 covers the administration of the United States federal student financial aid programs.... program funds |
Improperly retained at least $1.1-million during the 2006-7 period |
| Student authorizations to retain credit balances | Kept credit balances without the proper authorization |
| Maintenance of supporting documentation for a student's leave of absence | Took too long to return money awarded to students who withdrew |
The stock of Ashford's parent company, Bridgepoint Education
Bridgepoint Education
Bridgepoint Education is a San Diego, California-based publicly held, for-profit education services holding company which owns for-profit, online and land-based Ashford University and University of the Rockies.-History:...
, fell the most in almost five months when the misuse of federal student aid was first publicly disclosed in 2009. When the official results were released in 2011, Senator Tom Harkin
Tom Harkin
Thomas Richard "Tom" Harkin is the junior United States Senator from Iowa and a member of the Democratic Party. He previously served in the United States House of Representatives ....
said this audit "reveals the same troubling pattern of for-profit colleges
For-Profit School
For-profit education refers to educational institutions operated by private, profit-seeking businesses....
' taking advantage of students and taxpayers." The Department of Education has not yet responded to the findings.
The audit was the subject of a U.S. Senate committee hearing on March 10, 2011.
2011 Senate Hearings
On March 10, 2011 Senator. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) chaired a hearing of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that examined a case studyCase study
A case study is an intensive analysis of an individual unit stressing developmental factors in relation to context. The case study is common in social sciences and life sciences. Case studies may be descriptive or explanatory. The latter type is used to explore causation in order to find...
of Ashford's parent company, which has experienced near-exponential profit growth in the last few years despite low graduation rates. Bridgepoint owns two universities that it purchased when both were near bankruptcy, Ashford University in Iowa and the University of the Rockies in Colorado. When it purchased Ashford University in 2005, it had less than 300 students but today it claims to have over 78,000 students, 99% of which are online.
Senator Harkin took issue with the fact that despite such growth of the company, student success was lacking. According to information provided by Senator Harkin in the committee hearing, 63% of students who enrolled at Ashford University during the 2008-2009 school year withdrew before completion of their perspective program. Senator Harkin pointed out that Bridgepoint recorded more than $216 million in profits in 2010; of which 86.5 percent of its revenues come from federal funds. In reference to the dependence of Bridgepoint on public funds, Senator Harkin was quoted as saying, "I think this is a scam, an absolute scam."
Kathleen Tighe, who is an inspector general with the U.S. Department of Education, testified at the hearing that in an audit of Ashford, she discovered Ashford was improperly distributing student aid to students. "Seventy-five percent of the improper disbursements to students in our sample were made to students who never became eligible," Tighe said. Bridgepoint hadn’t returned the improperly obtained student aid to the federal government, and said on a recent report she’d seen that Bridgepoint was “sitting on $130 million” in these types of funds.
Due to the ongoing Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) proceedings, and in order to preserve due process, Ashford's parent company, Bridgepoint Education, chose not to send executives to the HELP committee hearing while engaged in negotiations with FSA. Rather, Bridgepoint published a summary of responses called Bridgepoint Education Transparency.http://bpitransparency.com
Iowa Attorney General Investigation
According to a February 15, 2011 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ashford University and its parent company Bridgepoint Education received a letter from the Iowa Attorney General's office on Feb. 9 requesting "documents and detailed information" from Jan. 1, 2008, to the present to determine if Ashford's business practices possibly violated the state’s Consumer Fraud Act.Iowa Department of Education
According to Senate testimony by Arlie Willems (ret.) reviewer for the Iowa Department of Education, in 2006, the Iowa Department of Education denied Ashford University's request to offer an online Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) on the grounds that the program "was more a collection of discrete courses than a cohesive program, was understaffed for appropriate interaction with students and supervision of both courses and clinical experiences, including student teaching. Many faculty members lacked appropriate academic background and/or experiences for their assigned responsibilities. The most serious concern noted by the team was the lack of responsibility on the part of the program in providing quality clinical experiences, the aspect of teacher preparation considered the most important by preparation programs in Iowa."Willems also testified that Ashford entered into partnership with Rio Salado Community College whereas education courses from the Ashford BA in Social Science with a Concentration in Education could apply to Rio Salado’s post-baccalaureate teacher education program. Once students have completed the online Ashford BA and the online Rio Salado teacher education program, they are eligible for an Arizona teaching license. Willem's noted that this partnership could be seen as a creative way to solve a problem in order to continue drawing students, or it could be seen as a way to circumvent the accountability system for quality in order to continue collecting tuition from students. An individual who has attained an Arizona license in this way does not automatically receive an
Iowa license because Iowa and Arizona do not have a reciprocity agreement.
According Willem's, complaints from Ashford students concerning this agreement and licensure include:
1) Individuals from Iowa and many other states who had completed Ashford's online Bachelor of Arts in Social Science with a Concentration in Education. These individuals had been led to believe that, upon completion of this program, they would be eligible for a license in their home state because Ashford has a state-approved teacher education program (the on-ground
undergraduate program).
2) Individuals who were students or graduates of the Ashford online baccalaureate program, but were not aware of the need to complete the Rio Salado program as well in order to receive an Arizona license. These individuals were not even aware of the Rio Salado partnership.
3) Ashford students who were intending to complete student teaching through Rio Salado College and believed they would then automatically be eligible for an Iowa teaching license.
4) Students who were completing an online degree through Ashford in early childhood and believed that this degree would lead to an Iowa teaching license. It does not.