rogers3 wrote: ↑August 28th, 2020, 5:05 pm
El Scorcho wrote: ↑August 28th, 2020, 2:17 pm
flameshaw wrote: ↑August 28th, 2020, 1:24 pm
I have ALWAYS thought he got too much credit for being a good businessman. I am not saying he was bad, but I believe he did benefit significantly, from the timing of certain things that he couldn't/didn't control.
I agree with these takes, but would add an additional wrinkle: I don't think Jr. got entirely lucky with online. I think he exploited it by giving the whole thing rock bottom standards, and I would argue that speaks further to his lack of ethics.
The timing was fortunate, but if you don't care about student outcomes or academic standards the "business" of a university isn't that hard.
I’ve never thought of that perspective, but it could well be true. LUO sprung out of what was LUSLL, and Jerry had nothing to do with that. I’ve always considered him to be a person who excels by exploitation, and the model was certainly ripe for that. Maybe he got out while the getting out is good. The current health problem is forcing states to be unwilling competitors, so now the private providers might find that they have to deliver on a playing field that means less revenue per student.
Having worked at LUO for 11 years (2007-2018) holding various management positions across several departments, I can attest to this. When I started in 2007, LUO had just ended the 06-07 year by eclipsing 18,000 students online. The end of the 07-08, it bumped to 25,000. So similar to a football coach, Jerry Jr. already had the previous years work and "recruits" in place to hit 25,000, due to Jerry Sr. What happened after was in large part due to the momentum that Jerry Sr. allowed but Jr did put the foot on the pedal to accelerate it at ludicrous speed. For the record, it went 35k by June 09, 50k by June 10, 60k by June 11, 80k by June 12, and so on. It's mind boggling to look at the growth through this lens.... we went from 18k students to 80k students in 5 years.