John Sperling
John Glen Sperling (January 9, 1921 – August 22, 2014) was an American billionaire businessman who is credited with having led the contemporary
Early life and education
Sperling was born to a poor
Entrepreneurship
Apollo Group
Apollo Group (Nasdaq: APOL) was an S&P 500 corporation based in the South Phoenix area of Phoenix, Arizona. Apollo Group, Inc., through its subsidiaries, owned several for-profit educational institutions before it was acquired by Apollo Global Management and two other companies.
Apollo was founded by John Sperling in 1973.[7] Sperling founded the University of Phoenix in his 50s with no investors and no track record in businesses while facing what he described in his biography as "mean-spirited" opposition from accreditation agencies, competitors, and the press.[8]
The company owned and operated four higher-learning institutions: the
Additionally, Apollo Group, Inc. was the owner of
University of Phoenix
The University of Phoenix was a
The school formerly had an enrollment of 420,700 undergraduate students and 78,000 graduate students,
Activism
Before becoming an entrepreneur at age 53, Sperling was a tenured professor at San Jose State University. He was an activist for several liberal causes during the 1960s, such as building a powerful new California faculty union, and was part of several conflicts with authorities and university leaders regarding his experimental adult education schemes.[8]
John Sperling was also an opponent of
Bio-medical projects
Longevity research
Sperling directed significant amounts of his attention and financial resources toward extending the
Cloning
Sperling provided financing to Genetic Savings & Clone (GS&C), of Sausalito, California, which closed in 2006. He spent seven years and $20 million trying to clone a dog named Missy in a project called Missyplicity. Clones of Missy were produced in December 2007.[23] A subproject of Missyplicity was called Operation CopyCat, which successfully created the first cat clone, named CC.
Writing
For-profit Higher Education
In 1997 Sperling and Robert W Tucker published a book, For-profit Higher Education: Developing a World-class Workforce.
Most of the content of this book was derived from a series of internal position papers written by Sperling & Tucker (Tucker was a Senior Vice President). The papers, some 47 in all, were written from 1992 through 1997 to guide the development of the institution to serve the adult-centered market effectively.
Perhaps the most controversial argument made in this book was its analysis of taxpayer costs associated to the three basic models of higher education: public, private (non-profit), and private (for-profit). By accounting not only for direct taxpayer funding associated to the three models, but also for government support to non-profits and, especially, forgone revenue in the non-profit models (including: taxes on endowments; property, sales, use, taxes; federal and state taxes on profit or surplus revenue), Sperling & Tucker's model showed that taxpayers realized a profit of several hundred dollars per student per year from a successful for-profit university. The model also showed that taxpayers underwrite costs amounting to several thousand dollars per student per year for students attending public and non-profit institutions. Sperling & Tucker's model showed that taxpayers underwrite the highest dollar value for students attending a small number of highly elite institutions, largely because of their very large tax-free endowments.
There are criticisms of Sperling & Tucker's economic and financial arguments. At the time this book was published, the student loan default rate for University of Phoenix students was at or below the average for state 4-year institutions. This parity eliminated loan default costs as a significant factor in the analysis. (Although the model included default rates by institution.) Today, the default rate for-profit institutions is above the average for public and non-profit institutions, leading critics to argue that the difference in the level of taxpayer support required under the three models is not so large and perhaps does not exist. Considerable disagreement centers on this point. Some of the disagreement rests on which economic and financial variables to consider in the taxpayer cost equation; some disagreement rests on uncertainties and disputes surrounding true taxpayer costs in loan defaults.
Other themes in the 1997 book include an argument that regional accrediting bodies play an inconsistent and restrictive role in innovation and an overview of the integrated assessment, academic decision-support, and quality management system developed and implemented by Tucker.
Rebel with a Cause
In 2000, Sperling published an autobiography called Rebel with a Cause.
After reviewing Sperling's autobiography Alex Lightman wrote, "Sperling's unflinching honesty in recounting his childhood of poverty and illiteracy in the
The Great Divide: Retro vs. Metro America
In August 2004, he co-authored The Great Divide: Retro vs. Metro America, released by his newly created publishing firm,
Despite a $2 million[3] advertising campaign, the book was not widely embraced by its intended progressive audience. Thomas Frank, author of What's The Matter With Kansas?, ridiculed Sperling's view of American society:
One America, to judge from the book's illustrations, works with lovable robots and lives in 'vibrant' cities with ballet troupes, super-creative Frank Gehry buildings and quiet, tasteful religious ritual; the other relies on contemptible extraction industries (oil, gas and coal) and inhabits a world of white supremacy and monster truck shows and religious ceremonies in which beefy men in cheap clothes scream incomprehensibly at one another.[24]
The book, however, did succeed in causing controversy in conservative media. Gary Gregg of National Review Online called the book the work of a "metropolitan elite who disdain the cultures and values of middle America."[25] R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, called it a work of "hate, cultural condescension, and bizarre proposals backed up with hare-brained analysis."[26]
The Great Divide is a blueprint for the Democratic Party to control the presidency and both houses of congress. Sperling and his co-authors claim that the United States has seldom been truly united and that there currently exists such a wide gap that the country is effectively two nations: "one traditional and rooted in the past, and one modern and focused on the future." Sperling and his co-authors say these two nations are divided along racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, political, and geographic lines. They claim that political conflict in American is not really about left-wing or right-wing ideology but about the differences between what they call Metro America and Retro America; Metro America consists of the two coasts and the Great Lakes states. The authors argue that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are national parties, so there is no point in behaving as such. They recommend that the Democrats concede the Retro states and focus entirely on the Metro states. This would allow the party to develop a coherent message that would connect with voters and to take advantage of the fact that Metro states account for 65 percent of the population. Then, once a strong base is built, the Democrats can work on unifying America.
Works authored
- Sperling, John (2000). Rebel with a Cause. J. Wiley. ISBN 9780471326045.
- Sperling, John; Tucker, Robert W (1997). For-profit Higher Education: Developing a World-class Workforce.
- Sperling, John; Suzanne Helburn; Samuel George; John Morris; Carl Hunt (August 2004). The Great Divide: Retro vs. Metro America. PoliPoint Press. ISBN 9780976062103.
- Sperling, John G. (1962). The South Sea Company: an historical essay and bibliographical finding list.
See also
- Biological immortality
- For-profit higher education in the United States
- Futures studies
- Life extension
- Longevity
- University of Phoenix
References
- ^ Barton, Randall S. "Obituaries: John Sperling: The Henry Ford of higher de". www.reed.edu. Reed College. Retrieved 12 July 2021.
- ISBN 9780966968316.
- ^ a b Rosin, Hanna (October 26, 2004). "Red, Blue and Lots of Green; John Sperling Divides America Into 'Metro' And 'Retro.' His Money's on 'Metro.'". The Washington Post. p. C1.
- ^ Bartlett, Thomas (July 6, 2009). "Phoenix Risen". The Chronicle of Higher Education.
- ISBN 978-0-465-00105-7.
John Sperling missouri.
- ^ Green, Ashbel S. (October 21, 1997). "Pot referendum gets its money from out of state: Three men with deep pockets contribute most of the cash for a measure to overturn Oregon's marijuana recriminalization law". The Oregonian.
- ^ "About Apollo Group". Archived from the original on 2011-12-07. Retrieved 2011-12-09.
- ^ a b c Lightman, Alex (1 July 2001). "The Accidental CEO; Review". Chief Executive (U.S.).
- ^ Apollo Group Annual Report 2004 Archived 2011-09-28 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Apollo Group Buys University in Chile". The Chronicle of Higher Education. 20 February 2008. Retrieved 30 April 2011.
- ^ New Models For Higher Education: Creating an Adult-Centered Institution Archived 2009-02-26 at the Wayback Machine Craig Swenson. Retrieved 18 Sept, 2008.
- ^ Frank Donoghue, The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008),97.
- ^ The Story of the University of Phoenix American Public Media. Retrieved 4 August 2020.
- ^ Andrew Farrell Forbes (hosted on CBCNews), The Web Billionaires, September 19, 2008
- ^ "Telephony Online, Desktop degrees, University of Phoenix takes education on-line, May 26, 1997". Telephonyonline.com. Retrieved 2010-09-03.
- ^ "Apollo Group Inc. Reports Fiscal 2009 Third Quarter Results, Forbes, BusinessWire, June 29, 2009". Forbes.[dead link]
- ^ a b University of Phoenix provides growth opportunities for working adults Lee Allen. Retrieved 18 September 2008.
- ^ "The Almanac of Higher Education". The Chronicle of Higher Education. LVI (1): 5. August 28, 2009.
- ^ "University of Phoenix Admissions Profiles". Eduers.com. Archived from the original on 2010-01-24. Retrieved 2010-09-11.
- ^ "Prior Learning Assessment | University of Phoenix". www.phoenix.edu.
- ^ Stein, Joel (October 27, 2002). "The New Politics of Pot: Can it go legit? How the people who brought you medical marijuana have set their sights on lifting the ban for everyone". Time. Archived from the original on October 19, 2004.
- ^ Bartlett, Thomas (July 10, 2009). "Phoenix Risen". The Chronicle of Higher Education. LV (41): A13.
- ^ Konigsberg, Eric (December 31, 2008). "Beloved Pets Everlasting?". The New York Times. Retrieved July 14, 2009.
- ^ Thomas Frank, "American Psyche", New York Times, November 28, 2004.
- ^ Gary Gregg, "Metro vs. Retro", National Review Online, October 27, 2004
- ^ R. Albert Mohler piece at Christianity.com, http://www.christianity.com/blogs/mohler/1280648/print/
External links
- Executive Officers of Apollo Group
- Forbes.com: Forbes World's Richest People
- American's 25 most fascinating entrepreneurs Inc.com magazine
- Fast Company magazine, 'The Hard Life and Restless Mind of America's Education Billionaire'
- Utah Initiative B Contribution Details
- News articles