Apollo owners will close Western International

The new owners of Apollo Education Group have announced that they will close Western International University.

An announcement on the Western International website said that school’s board of directors approved a recommendation “to cease enrolling new students, develop a teach-out plan for current students and, ultimately, to close the university once the teach-out plan has been approved by the Higher Learning Commission and the Arizona Board for Private Postsecondary Education.”

This institution was founded in 1978 “with the best interests of its students at heart, and we are winding down operations in that same spirit,” according to the announcement, which asserted that degrees earned at Western International remain “relevant.”

Western International has around 1,300 students, according to a recent estimate by U.S. News & World Report. Apollo Education representatives didn’t provide additional comments beyond what was listed in the announcement.

An investor group led by Vistria Group and Apollo Global Management, a previously unaffiliated entity, took Apollo Education private earlier this year in a $1.1 billion purchase. At the time, Apollo Education’s CEO, Greg Cappelli, said the transaction “will allow us to accelerate our efforts at University of Phoenix, Western International University, College for Financial Planning and Apollo Global to improve outcomes for all of our students in the U.S. and around the world.”

Western International has provided degrees in business, information technology, behavioral sciences and other areas. The school-closing announcement cited the challenges that have resulted from a competitive higher-education marketplace, especially for institutions such as Western International that have small enrollments and are losing money. Advisers from the school will contact current students to discuss options, the announcement said.

Western International, the College for Financial Planning and a couple other small units have generated poor financial results for Apollo Education. The company’s most recent quarterly report, for the three months ending Nov. 30, 2016, cited operating income of $8.4 million for the company on $484.5 million in revenue. But excluding the much-larger University of Phoenix and Apollo Global divisions, the other small operations, including Western International, sustained a $20.5 million operating loss on just $9 million in revenue for that quarter, with the red ink primarily linked to restructuring charges.

Total Apollo Education enrollment had tumbled from a high of 477,000 in 2010 to 136,000 as of last November.