Case Study American Public Univeristy

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Case Study: American Public Education, Inc. . INTRODUCTION: American Public Education, Inc. consists of two strictly online only colleges, American Military University (AMU) and American Public University (APU). American Military University was the first of these two colleges to open in 1991 under the direction of Jim Etter, a newly retired USMC colonel. It was one of the first 100% online colleges. AMA was designed to meet the need of military personnel who more often than not would have a difficult time attending a brick and mortar college. The online format would work better for attendees with jobs and families and even those called out to serve their military duty. In 2001 the branch APU was launched to serve the increasing number of civilians looking for an affordable online education. INDUSTRY OVERVIEW: Online colleges have become much more the norm in the last 10 years, Etter was somewhat of a trendsetter. At the time of the creations of AMU there were not very many online post-secondary colleges. Currently there are over 900 accredited online college institutions (“Online colleges.org” ). Just because a college is online does not mean that it is inexpensive, actually many times it can be more expensive. University of Phoenix, a very well-known strictly online college charges $375. per credit plus a $70. resource fee which makes the total per credit $445. for the first two years for a total of $22,100 for an Associate degree. The tuition increases for the next two years to $550. per credit plus a $90. resource fee for a total of $640. per credit for a total of $56,900 for a Bachelor degree (“online degree cost.org” ). At University of Phoenix a student would only have to purchase one book with the rest of the material available online. This cost analysis appeared to be about average for most of the strictly online colleges.

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