The University of Phoenix Continues to Fall

In a statement filed on October 9, 2015 with the Securities and Exchange Commission the University of Phoenix stated they were notified by the Department of Defense that “the university had been placed on probationary status in respect of its participation in the DoD Tuition Assistance Program for active duty military personnel, and that the DoD is considering whether to terminate the DoD Voluntary Education Partnership Memorandum of Understanding with the University which is the basis on which the University’s active duty military students participate in the DoD Tuition Assistance Program”. The University of Phoenix allegedly used coins bearing trademarked military insignia. They called on the VA to conduct its own investigation.

The University of Phoenix has been banned from recruiting on military bases after being criticized for aggressively targeting veterans.

The stock was down 10 percent early Friday on the news that the Department of Defense will no longer allow service members to use federal money to attend one of its subsidiaries, the University of Phoenix.

Slottow said it was troubling that the Defense Department used the investigations by the FTC and California as part of its determination to place the university on probation.

The department announced that decision on Thursday in a letter to the nation’s largest for-profit university, citing investigations by the Federal Trade Commission and the California attorney general into Phoenix’s practices for recruiting servicemembers.

“The Defense Department stood up for service members and taxpayers by enforcing its rules against deceptive college recruiting”, Walter Ochinko, policy director of Veterans Education Success, said in a statement this week.

However, as Reveal disclosed in its coverage, those agreements were not made with the military’s education wing, but instead through branches that handle entertainment and other kinds of events.

The University of Phoenix is a for-profit company that makes much of its money off of service members and veterans, including almost $300 million from the DOD Tuition Assistance program and the VA’s GI Bill a year ago alone.

However, the DoD isn’t the only government agency that’s not getting along with the University of Phoenix.

Durbin said University of Phoenix students owe more in cumulative student debt than any institution of higher education in America.

Current students receiving such assistance will be able to complete their courses already in progress and take courses needed for their academic program, a process known as “teach out”.

After reports of recruiting improprieties and administrative violations surfaced in July of this year the Department of Defense has put the University of Phoenix on tuition assistance probation and has banned it from any recruiting activities on military facilities, including job fairs.

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