The Nonprofit Approach to Online Education
Unlike for-profit schools, Western Governors University doesn't have to answer to shareholders.
While well-known, for-profit online schools—such as University of Phoenix and Kaplan University—are enduring scathing criticism and ever-tightening restrictions from regulators,Western Governors University, the nation's only nonprofit online school, has been winning prizes and praise from some prestigious education organizations.
Earlier this year, the school's president, Robert Mendenhall, won the McGraw Prize for post-secondary education from textbook giant McGraw-Hill for his efforts expanding the school and providing access to education for an undeserved population. WGU also received an award for quality online education from the Sloan Consortium, a preeminent online education organization. "They've gotten to a point in their relatively short history that the quality is so high," says Burks Oakley II, who oversaw the Sloan-C awards committee. "And they want to get better."
[See other Sloan-C award winners.]
The school, which was founded in 1997 and received seed money from 19 state governors