At the University of Phoenix, the impossible seems to be happening.

According to University Business Magazine, the for-profit giant has laid off 900 employees since last September.  Enrollments and profits are down 14% since  this time last year.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/30/investing/university-of-phoenix-lays-off-900/

This news comes on the heels of earlier stories this year... of Corinthian Colleges' bankruptcy... and the indictment of two top ITT execs for fraud.

The University of Phoenix, aka Apollo (a publicly traded corporation), is the GM of for-profit higher education.   It traces its roots to San Francisco in the late 1970s and grew down the decades to be ubiquitous both on the ground and on the Internet across the nation and around thew world.

Meanwhile, it has had its share of legal hassles.  Qui tam suits by former admissions recruiters resulted from time to time in multi-million-dollar settlements with both the litigants and Uncle Sam.  These cases usually swirled around allegations by the former employees that the university bonused admissions personnel by the head, which if true would be a violation of federal student-loan laws.

On the other hand, the school was a leader in assessment, being able to muster impressive quantities of data to demonstrate the success of its graduates.  

Just as the financial troubles of the big three auto makers shocked many of us over the years, the faltering of Phoenix is a harbinger of disaster for private higher education in a way that the demise of tiny Marian College and the near-death experience of equally tiny Sweet Briar College this spring could never be.