Various international newspapers, including Reuters, recently announced the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of an education company that began in Naglee Park fifty years ago (1976).
Dr. John G. Sperling, at one time a faculty member at San Jose State, founded the University of Phoenix (NYSE:PXED) to provide post-secondary education to working adults. It was a radical idea at the time; now it is seen as an accepted model for providing education to underserved populations.
The University of Phoenix should have been called “The University of Naglee Park” since many of its early faculty and staff lived here. Dr. Sperling lived in various locations, several places on William Street and elsewhere in the neighborhood. His estranged wife Virginia Sperling lived for decades at 574 South 13th Street. Co-founder John D. Murphy lived on East San Antonio Street. Two other early local participants in the New College experiment, neighbors who knew Sperling well, were the late John Mitchell of South 14th Street and librarian Jack Douglas, who also lived on South 13th.
The University of Phoenix grew out of a “school within a school” concept, the New College experiment at San Jose State in the early 70s. This college had no bricks-and-mortar and no tenured faculty. Today 97% of the Univ. of Phoenix faculty teach part-time, usually in rented spaces. The University of Phoenix name grew from the state that allowed the group to be legally chartered as a school.
John G Sperling was considered a “colorful hippie” in his early, free-wheeling days on the San Jose State faculty. He was born in the Missouri Ozarks in the town of Willow Springs; his biographies note that he was illiterate. He left home and joined the Merchant Marine, later serving in WWII. He taught himself to read and after the war he graduated from Reed College in Portland, OR on the GI Bill. He attended UC-Berkeley for his master’s degree and then read for a PhD in economic history from King’s College, Cambridge. His subject was maritime economic history.
He attracted a following in the neighborhood and at San Jose State, where he developed his ideas of a new type of school for working adults. It was a very simple idea but it took a great deal of energy to overcome decades of academic tradition and licensing. Today the University of Phoenix reportedly offers 72 degrees at the bachelor’s, master’s and PhD levels and 33 non-degree certificates. While the acceptance rate for students is very high, the program is often criticized for its low graduation rate – sometimes under 30%.
Dr. Sperling died in 2014 at the age of 93; his many obituaries note that he was a billionaire at his death. With the advent of the Internet Age and the appearance of Zoom, education has become available to everyone with a telephone line. John Sperling was able to make his dream a reality.
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