Where AP was once founded upon the ideals of the Morrill Act, emphasizing the access of affordable higher education for all, in recent years, it has shifted to standard corporate ideals: more, bigger, faster. More saturation of university partners’ programs for bigger revenue gains as fast as possible, quality and accountability be damned. The vision of AP has truly become a game of numbers. How many universities can AP sign, how quickly can programs be ramped up, and how many leads can be generated to satisfy ever-changing goals within an ever-changing, reactive environment. Those who have attempted to rectify AP’s business model of over promising, over charging, and under delivering to university clients have been discarded unceremoniously. Others who toil endlessly to feed the machine eventually leave to pursue employment opportunities where loyalty, honesty, and integrity remain valued commodities. Where AP once prided itself for recruiting practices that set it apart from rival proprietary universities, it now embraces those same tactics; leveraging their university partners’ reputations to increase revenue.
