The Vagary and Value of Resource Dependence in Understanding Institutions of Higher Education

• Author: Robert K. Christensen
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12613
• Published date: 01 September 2016
• Date: 01 September 2016

Book Reviews 819

The Vagary and Value of Resource Dependence in

Understanding Institutions of Higher Education

Robert K. Christensen is associate

professor in the MPA Program at the

Romney Institute of Public Management

in the Marriott School of Management at

Brigham Young University. He specializes

in public and nonprofit management,

and his current research examines public

service employees and public service

organizations. He is a research fellow

at Arizona State University ’ s Center for

Organization Research & Design and

co-researcher at Seoul National University ’ s

Center for Government Competitiveness.

Rob is coeditor, with James L. Perry, of the

Handbook of Public Administration

(3rd

ed., Wiley).

E-mail: rc@byu.edu

Mission Forsaken offers a rich perspective on

the unexpected birth and accreditation,

celebrated maturation, and lamented

decline—including a period of accreditation

probation—of the University of Phoenix (UPX).

The author, John D. Murphy, is well positioned

to comment on each of these phases. Murphy and

oft-attributed UPX founder, John Sperling, worked

together for decades to organize the prominent for-

profit institution of higher education that took as its

mission to meet working adult learners’ unique needs.

Operationally, between its 1976 birth, 1978

accreditation, and meteoric rise through 2004, UPX

focused on a clientele of employed adults with real

work experience. UPX catered—through rolling

admissions deadlines, nontraditional course schedules,

“hands on” class instruction, and more flexible

locations for instruction—to needs purportedly

unmet by traditional, resource-intensive colleges and

universities. Organizationally, a for-profit model

was chosen for a host of reasons, including increased

accountability and the ability to lithely manage higher

education according to UPX ’ s chosen nontraditional

mission, where educators meet students where they

are at rather than requiring students to meet educators

where they are at (x). On the note of accountability,

Murphy observes that “working adults and their

employers enjoy little direct accountability from

tax-supported colleges and universities, but because

UPX was for-profit, they could and did hold it

accountable for the quality of its education and the

academic achievements of its students. This corporate

tax status buoyed the UPX during some of its darkest

and defenseless hours” (54), and eventually led the

UPX via its holding group, Apollo Education Group

(Apollo), to a 1994 public offering and Fortune 500

status.

Danny L. Balfour and Stephanie P. Newbold , Editors

Robert K. Christensen

Brigham Young University

John D. Murphy , Mission Forsaken:  e UPX Af‌f air

with Wall Street (Proving Ground Education,

2013). 286 pp. $20.95 (cloth, paper), ISBN:

9780966968316 .

However, therein lies the rub, according to Murphy.

The public offering triggered a series of events—

each ably laid bare by Murphy—that ultimately

led the UPX to relax its admissions standards,

“. . . forsaking its founding mission, [and having

its] revenue from the private sector almost totally

supplanted by revenue from American taxpayers”

(xii). Among the consequences cataloged by Murphy

have been loss of “generous private sector corporate

financial support through the payment of employee

tuition . . . disgraceful declines in the percentage

of students completing degrees, embarrassing

percentages of student-loan defaults, reprehensible

payment of millions of dollars in regulatory

fines and whistleblower judgments” (xx) and the

aforementioned accreditation probation.

Mission Forsaken is an accessible, passionate, and

instructive read. The majority of the book focuses

on the UPX saga, which it does well. But the author

concludes, in the book ’ s third part, with some

additional laments and prescriptions for higher

education generally. While interesting and thought-

provoking, I found many perspectives in this final part

to be more argumentative than observational, and the

potency of the UPX case study was not as carefully

integrated to support the author ’ s conclusions, giving

way to a rather unstructured despair—that “our entire

education system . . . is at the tipping point” (243),

which if breached will be impossible to rectify. Toward

the end of the book, Mission Forsaken starts to feel

like a Mission Impossible rant on higher education in

general.

I readily concede that there are numerous problems with

institutions of higher education—whether organized

and managed traditionally or nontraditionally. These

problems persist, evolve, and continually demand our

attention. As one who has personally taught working

adults during late evening hours both online and at

satellite campuses nearer to students’ employers, I

also concede that innovation—an implied mainstay

of Murphy ’ s prescription for “gainful education” and

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 76, Iss. 5, pp. 819–821. © 2016 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12613.