2021 Academic Annual Report

Innovation 2021 highlights Our students Student experience Improving outcomes Our faculty Our leadership Alumni Community engagement Diversity B2B alliances

Our mission
Our vision
Our guiding principles

Our mission

The mission of University of Phoenix is to provide access to higher education opportunities that enable students to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve their professional goals, improve the performance of their organizations and provide leadership and service to their communities.

Our vision

The vision of University of Phoenix is to be recognized as the most trusted provider of career-relevant higher education for working adults. The University will earn that trust through our:

Deep understanding of students’ needs

Deep understanding of employers’ needs

World-class assessment, analytics and innovation

Operational excellence

Our guiding principles

We believe that our students:

Deserve quality academic programs that are career-relevant and are offered by an accredited institution.

Should be supported by qualified staff and faculty, as well as by University efforts to help aid them on the path to graduation.

Should be the singular reason we continue to advance the quality, career-relevance and convenience of our academic programs.

Are entitled to transparency so they can make informed choices about their educational and financial future.

Should have the freedom and ability to choose the educational institution that best meets their needs.

We believe that as an institution, we should:

Ensure we are valuing students’ time and money.

Market responsibly and demonstrate integrity in all of our materials, exposures and engagements.

Collaborate with employers, public or government officials and regulators, researchers and peer institutions to enhance the experiences and outcomes for our students.

Be accountable to our students, our regulators and the general public for delivering skills, knowledge and opportunities through our educational programs.

Maintain financial stability as a measure of accountability to students, a means to provide for the long-term viability of our programs, and an indicator of our ability to invest in the student experience.

Innovation

Defining the curve

From our earliest beginnings as the University that changed higher education, University of Phoenix has embraced innovation.

Whether we’re aligning programs to the real-world skills valued by employers or awarding badges students have earned to help them showcase their achievements right away, we’re not just ahead of the curve — we’re defining the curve.

Scroll through the slides to find out how.

Skills-mapping

We’re closing the gap between the classroom and the workplace by aligning degrees and courses to skills employers want. More than 85% of our programs open for new enrollment were skills-mapped as of May 2022.

Digital badges

Our students can demonstrate the skills they are learning in coursework by sharing new digital badges on their resumés, social media channels and digital platforms as proof of learning for potential employers, current employers and colleagues.

Digital diplomas

With digital diplomas, our new graduates are empowered to celebrate their achievements immediately on social media, digital platforms and job boards. Plus, digital diplomas can be independently validated by future employers and licensing agencies.

Career Services for Life®

In 2021, we remained committed to offering our students and graduates Career Services for Life. Career advising with one-on-one coaching, resumé building and interview prep is offered to students and graduates at no additional cost.

Savings Explorer™ tool

Using the Savings Explorer, prospective students can quickly, and without any cost, explore how their work, life and school experiences might give them a jump start on their degree.

Career assessment interest tool

With this online tool, prospective students can explore potential careers — and see how their interests align with real-world careers and the degree programs that can help them with the educational groundwork to pursue such careers.

Competency-based education

With competency-based education (CBE) programs, working professionals can leverage their experience to earn a quality degree while making the most of their time and money. By the end of FY21, our CBE programs, which launched in 2020, had 208 graduates.

Set 1
Set 2
Set 3
Set 4

University highlights 2021

February

First CBE graduates

One year after launching competency-based programs, our first group of graduates had earned our fastest, most affordable degrees.

March

A pulse on career perceptions

To provide insights on workforce trends and identify solutions to support American careers, we published our first Career Optimism Index® study.

May

Aligning skills for the workplace

To further our emphasis on career-ready education, we launched a University-wide “skills-mapping” effort to align our degrees and courses to skills employers want.

May

Leading in online education

The University was recognized as an exemplary online education institution by UPCEA®, a leading organization supporting professional, continuing and online education.

July

DEIB

To develop strategies that foster a diverse community, we developed the framework for the President’s Advisory Council on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging.

August

Scholarship opportunities expand

To provide more scholarship opportunities, we uncapped our scholarships so that qualifying students can receive up to $3,000.

September

Advancing digital credentialing

To help students demonstrate career-relevant skills they’re learning, we introduced digital badges, which students can share on their resumés and digital platforms.

November

Continued cybersecurity excellence

For the third year in a row, we received the Academic Circle of Excellence Award from EC-Council®, the world’s largest cybersecurity certification body.

November

Digital diplomas launch

To enable students to show off their hard-earned degrees sooner, we introduced digital diplomas, which complement the physical diplomas students receive.

December

Career Services for Life® grows

Career coaching appointments have increased 148% — just one year since our Career Services for Life commitment launched in December 2020.

First set
Second set
Third set
Fourth set

Our students

Our students are working moms and dads who study during lunch breaks and sports practices, who dream of better lives for their families.

They’re adult learners, late bloomers, dream-chasers and trailblazers. We understand the key to serving our students well is knowing who they are.

Who they are

Phoenixes are as diverse as they are determined. Here’s who they are statistically.

78,600

Total Degreed Enrollment

70%

of our students are women

is the average student age of new students

56.8%

report as ethnic minorities

59.5%

are first-generation college students

80.9%

are employed while in school

63.6%

have dependents

Our students exceed expectations

University Learning Goals (ULGs) are a set of five overarching competencies that employers identify as top soft skills and that University of Phoenix incorporates into its academic programs. Students met or exceeded expectations for each of the following ULGs.

See all student assessment outcomes

Professional competence and values

Critical thinking and problem-solving

Communication

Information utilization

Collaboration

High student satisfaction

We value what our students say. One way we listen to them is through surveys.

Likely to recommend instructors to other students

8.8/10

Likely to recommend the University to colleague, friend or family

9.1/10

Student experience

University of Phoenix founder Dr. John Sperling knew what it meant to beat the odds. He grew up poor, he battled a learning disability, and he worked his way through school to earn a PhD.

The challenges he faced inspired him to create a better path for students like him. He saw adult learners struggling with rigid class schedules, often taking six to 10 years to earn a degree. And it gave him a revolutionary idea: What if he created a university for working adults?

His experiment didn’t make earning a degree easier — only more practical, with schedules that made sense for working adults and coursework that translated immediately to the real world.

Diverse colleges

100+

programs aligned with 300+ careers, 90% of which are in growing fields

College of Business and Information Technology

Program completions in 2021: 14,800

Equipping students with skills today to solve business and IT challenges tomorrow.

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Program completions in 2021: 3,591

Preparing students to elevate the social and mental well-being of their communities.

College of Health Professions

Program completions in 2021: 3,522

Equipping students with the leading-edge training needed to succeed in today’s dynamic healthcare environment.

College of Education

Program completions in 2021: 1,645

Improving the lives of our students, their families and communities one educator and administrator at a time.

College of Nursing

Program completions in 2021: 1,607

Embodying the value of caring, excellence in practice, and leadership in the nursing professions.

College of Doctoral Studies

Program completions in 2021: 341

Developing leaders whose research influences policy and guides diverse organizations through decision-making.

College of General Studies

Program completions in 2021: 289

Providing the foundational knowledge and skills for tomorrow’s critical thinkers and communicators.

Set 1
Set 2
Set 3
Set 4

Connecting curriculum to careers

In today’s competitive job market, skills can matter as much as a degree. Our career-focused education aligns degrees and select courses to skills important in today’s workplaces.

Gain skills

Our courses include career-relevant skills sought after by employers.

Track progress

Students can track progress and display their achievements on a personalized skills dashboard.*

Build resumé

Students can build their resumé one course at a time, sharing digital badges as proof of learning.

*Available in select courses; the dashboard is in the process of being rolled out more broadly.

Accreditation that matters

Learn more about our accreditations

YEARS

continuously accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (hlcommission.org)

PROGRAMS

carry programmatic accreditation, an additional level of evaluation and quality assurance

Improving student outcomes

From academic counseling and tools that help students manage their finances to our Career Services for Life® commitment, here are some of the ways we help and support our students as they move toward their academic and career goals.

Saving students time and money

In FY21, University of Phoenix students saved over $102 million in tuition between discounts, scholarships and other savings. Here are some highlights:

$9.6M

approximate tuition saved through our Prior Learning Assessment

$1M

in monthly scholarship opportunities available to students

1,500

organizations whose employees were eligible for education benefits

208

students completed competency-based education degrees in 2021 in less than a year and for under $11k

$2,880

in potential alumni savings for a bachelor’s degree ($2,200 on a master’s)

Responsible and appropriate borrowing

We offer extensive tools and resources before and after enrollment to help our students understand the different types of student loans and loan amounts that might be right for them.

For example, we offer memberships at no additional cost to the iGrad online money-management tool, which students can use to learn how to budget, save, minimize borrowing and understand future student loan payments.

See the full report for detailed borrowing information

OFFICIAL COHORT DEFAULT RATES

Cohort default rates. For (2016) UOPX 12.3%, Average for Proprietary Schools 15.2%, National average all institutions 10.1%

University retention and graduation rates

Data helps us improve our understanding of how to support our students through the obstacles they face on the way to their degrees. It also reinforces what’s working.

For example, 2021 retention rates are measurably better in three of four categories when compared with the same data from three years ago. Our institutional bachelor’s retention rate is up more than 4.5 percentage points in that time frame, which spans the COVID-19 pandemic.

See all retention and graduation rates

IPEDS AND INSTITUTIONAL RETENTION RATES

Our faculty

We believe students should be taught by accomplished professionals. Our faculty members average 27.6 years of career experience, and over 85% of our surveyed students would recommend their instructors to others.

27.6 YEARS

professional experience in FY21 (on average)

14.4 YEARS

University of Phoenix teaching experience in FY21 (on average)

Niraj Kohli

A recipient of the 2021 Faculty of the Year Award, Kohli has a long affiliation with University of Phoenix. He was a member of the second graduating class, earning his MBA in 1983. He was working at Motorola at the time, and University of Phoenix was the only path to an MBA that worked with his busy life.

Our leadership

Our leadership team is deeply committed to helping adult learners reach their education and career goals through continuous innovation that evolves with advances in education, technology and the workplace.

Alumni

We recognize the tremendous achievement of earning a college degree. Most of our students have worked years to reach this goal, and many are first-generation college students.

FEATURED ALUMNI

Teaser 1
Teaser 2
Teaser 3
Teaser 4

Community engagement

At University of Phoenix, we understand that community support and higher education go hand in hand. When we roll up our sleeves to help, we strengthen the communities we serve.

In 2021, the University:

Sponsored SHE Leads!^TM, focused on creating a better life for Arizona’s women and children
Donated to support City of Phoenix efforts in underserved communities
Worked with tribal leadership to help Native American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian students overcome educational barriers

Our commitment to diversity

At University of Phoenix, we’ve long been focused on creating a diverse, equitable, inclusive and belonging (DEIB) environment.

To continue fostering DEIB initiatives, we:

Developed the framework for the President’s DEIB Advisory Council
Expanded our Inclusive Café, a biweekly virtual meeting to foster DEIB dialogue
Co-hosted a panel of DEIB leaders in collaboration with Chicago United, an organization dedicated to achieving parity in economic opportunity for people of color, to share strategies on the creation of more inclusive, equitable workplaces

B2B alliances

University of Phoenix works with employers to create a range of tailored solutions to attract new talent, upskill and reskill existing talent, and retain high-performing talent.

Depending on employer needs, options can range from full degrees, competency-based education, six- to-eight-month role-aligned certificates, individual courses, apprenticeship pathways and skill-building workshops.

Learn more about B2B alliances

UOPX and Comcast form alliance to offer education benefits to employees

University of Phoenix and Comcast have an alliance that helps close the gap between workforce needs and employee goals through education benefits for employees.

The ultimate goal was for employees to see their potential, seek ways to enhance their career and pursue avenues for growth that mutually benefit both employees and employers. “We encourage employees to continue to grow themselves and use this time to find areas they are interested in,” says Dennis Mathew, regional senior vice president of Comcast’s Western New England Region.

Thank you

This is just a snapshot of the work we did in 2021. Download the full report to learn more.

Download full report