Once the BlendedSchools acquisition closes, Sibling and its educational offerings should be viewed well and have a bright future.
Investing in for-profit education is soaring - the public and non-profit models are profoundly broken.
For-profit education is one of the largest U.S. investment markets, currently topping $1.3 trillion in value.
Look at the current state of K-12 public education. School districts across the U.S. are underfunded, underperforming, and well behind the curve when it comes to adopting quality technologies.
Many simply lack the expertise to treat today’s applied technologies as not just gadgets or strategic opportunities, but as real solutions for expanding their capacity to teach students.
And in the post-secondary world, non-profit institutions are finding that very few enticements are bringing in money. Not sports. Not research. Not classrooms.
Public funding and private endowments are both down, and neither will be particularly reliable in the future.
So 2014, and beyond, should see numerous for-profit companies making inroads into public and non-profit education by taking over large swaths of the market. What’s more, they’ll prosper in the corporate training and continuing education marketplace as well.
Consider --
• The entire education sector now represents nearly 9 percent of the U.S. GDP.
• Merger and acquisition activity in for-profit education last year surpassed activity at the peak of the Internet boom.
• More and more non-profit colleges are hitting the wall and seeking investors to help them transform into for-profit institutions.