In late April, Purdue University, a selective-admission public university, shocked the higher education community (including its own faculty) by announcing that it had purchased a large chunk of for-profit Kaplan University. The purchase would give Purdue an immediate, mostly-online operation consisting of 32,000 students, 15 physical locations, and 3,000 employees. The new name for the Kaplan side of Purdue has not yet been announced, leading many to dub it “New University.”
On the surface, this is a positive and logical move.