Higher education turns private in LV

Wednesday, July 21, 1999 | 11:13 a.m.

When Joe Estrada, director of Webster University's Las Vegas campus, brought the St. Louis-based private school to Southern Nevada five years ago he wasn't sure what to expect.

Las Vegas didn't exactly have a reputation for higher education.

In fact the state had one of the highest dropout rates in the country and ranked last in the number of graduates moving on to college.

It was and still is a town where cocktail waitresses and valet attendants can make more than $50,000 a year -- diploma, degree or not.

What the city did have was growth in nongaming industries and a switch to corporate-run casinos. That trend caught the eye of Webster officials -- but Webster was not the only private university to notice the potential.

By the time Webster University had opened its doors offering business-oriented degrees, the University of Phoenix had already been operating in the valley for a year with graduate and undergraduate programs in business-related courses.

Although the schools offer high numbers of off-campus sites in other states -- 65 campuses for Webster and 20 for the University of Phoenix -- only in the past few years have they taken an interest in Las Vegas.

But it is an interest that appears to be growing. This fall to meet the need for schoolteachers in Clark County, Jesuit schools Regis and Gonzaga universities will set up campuses in the valley to train educators and offer other business-related degrees.

Ten years ago, bringing Webster University to Las Vegas wouldn't have been an option, Estrada said.

The one private university that was here 10 years ago did not stay. San Diego-based National University averaged 350 students per month in Las Vegas from 1985 to 1992.

The school closed when its new president decided off-site campuses outside California weren't productive enough, Victoria Hilton, spokeswoman for National University, said.

By 1994 when Webster came to Las Vegas, Estrada saw a changing demographic and a potential market.

The population in Las Vegas had just reached 1 million, and a shift from gaming to nongaming entities was noticeable, Somer Hollingsworth, CEO for Nevada Development Authority, said. Las Vegas has continued to grow, and that growth is still generated by gaming, but not all of those newcomers come here to work in casinos.

That's creating a work force that has caught the eye of some companies, Hollingsworth said. "Las Vegas is becoming a real corporate center.

"The future of the nongaming side is going to end up in high-tech," he said. "That's going to require even better-educated people."

Target: Working students

As local employees find a greater demand for education, the new entries in Las Vegas' higher education market are targeting working students.

"In management positions, one of the very few ways to distinguish yourself from other managers is advanced degrees," Estrada said.

Like University of Phoenix and incoming Regis, the programs at Webster are geared toward adults in their 30s who want to complete classes quickly and are committed to the more intense workload.

At Webster's Las Vegas campus, which offers master's degrees in business administration, computer resource, information management and human resource development, the majority of students are full-time workers pursuing their educations part time.

The universities' admission requirements reflect their focus on working adults.

At Regis, admission requirements for its undergraduate programs include three years of work experience and 30 hours of college credit from other institutions.

The University of Phoenix's graduate program requires in addition to an undergraduate degree, three years of full-time work experience related to the degree program.

The working student focus also shows in the schools' choice of faculty. At Webster, the 22 approved professors are people from the industry.

"Primarily these are business people with a master's degree or better," Estrada said, adding that the list of professors include vice presidents and CEOs of companies and K-12 schoolteachers, some with doctoral degrees.

The key for the working adults, however, is the accelerated coursework. "Where the accelerated programs excel is the time," said Bill Turk, human resources administrator at Southwest Gas, who oversees the company's tuition reimbursement program. "People are more likely to manage their time more intensely over the next couple of months so there is some preference for it."

At the private universities, students can complete a course in eight or nine weeks. At UNLV, by comparison, the semesters last 13 weeks, though summer courses are more intense, at five weeks.

"It's the academic product of the late '90s," Turk said. "Education is a fairly competitive industry. You have to adapt to the market change."

Five semesters can be completed per year at Webster. Attending two classes per semester, a student can earn a graduate degree there in 15 months, Estrada said.

Accelerated courses that help working adults juggling a busy schedule generally are far more in tune to industry standards, said Margaret Kaus, an assistant director at the Commission of the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges.

But, she said, they also require adult ability, and especially adult motivation. They're not for everyone -- even all adults, Turk said.

"There are other people who really like a more traditional setting that is more spread out," Turk said.

UNLV not worried

Which is why UNLV officials see the incoming schools as no threat to the state university's enrollment.

For example, an even number of the 240 Southwest Gas employees using its tuition reimbursement program attend Webster and graduate programs at UNLV, Turk said. Sometimes they attend both. The majority of the undergraduate employees attend the Community College of Southern Nevada. The rest are enrolled at UNLV and the University of Phoenix.

"What private universities offer," Provost Douglas Ferraro said, "are different options." Most of those proprietary schools target particular audiences and offer convenience, he said. "There is a role and a place for such institutions."

Besides convenience, Regis and Gonzaga stay true to their Jesuit roots and offer religion coursework and a value-oriented curriculum. Those things, Ferraro said, do not typify a public institution.

The idea, Bill Husson, dean of Regis University's School for Professional Studies, said, is "to create leaders in the Las Vegas community who have a good perspective in relating to values and ethics."

"Private universities offer more opportunity to explore such ethical values in the curriculum," Husson said. "It's more difficult for a public university to do that."

Students wanting a broad-based comprehensive college experience will continue to come to UNLV, Ferraro said. "There's no question that UNLV will be the college culture center."

UNLV has a couple of other big advantages. It offers graduate degrees in 40 areas, compared with a handful of degrees offered in Las Vegas by each of the private competitors.

And it costs less.

UNLV charges $72 per credit for undergraduates and $97 per credit hour for graduate level courses compared with University of Phoenix's rate of $240 per credit for undergraduates and $268 per credit for the graduate programs.

Regis charges $285 per credit hour for graduate teacher education, $223 per credit hour for basic business at undergraduate level and $345 per credit hour for its MBA program.

Tuition at Webster is $322 per credit hour.

"In terms of quality, standards and faculty UNLV will remain the best value in Las Vegas relative to all other schools that are coming in," Ferraro said.

That cost factor can be important to employees who rely on a company's tuition assistance to pay for their educations. For example, Southwest Gas employees receiving $2,000 per year for tuition reimbursement can attend more classes for their dollar at UNLV whereas at the private universities they are limited to a few, Turk said.

Growing but still small

While the private universities are still small compared with UNLV's 20,000-plus student body, they are experiencing tremendous growth.

The University of Phoenix finished its first year in the valley with an enrollment of 350 students in its undergraduate and graduate business programs.

The school has since grown about 20 percent each year, Ingrid Berlin, director of enrollment at the University of Phoenix, said. Its four campuses in Las Vegas and one campus in Reno average an annual enrollment of 2,000.

"Nevada has had its fastest percentage growth in the first five years of any University of Phoenix campus," Berlin said.

"I think they were just waiting for us to come along."

Webster opened its Las Vegas campus five years ago serving only three students. The school now averages 90 students a semester.

Regis officials do not have any estimates yet on how many students they expect to enroll, but with a shortage of teachers in the Clark County School District, the need is clear.

An estimated 1,500 new teachers are needed each year to fill county needs. UNLV graduates around 300 teachers a year and licenses another 500.

"It's a good time for us to come," Husson said. "The economy is strong."

Although the school has six off-campus sites in Colorado, this will be its first off-campus site beyond the Rocky Mountains.

Once Regis gets the education and business courses off the ground, the university will evaluate bringing in other programs, Husson said, possibly computer and accounting degree programs at the graduate level.

"It think we're in a good place for expansion," Husson said. "There are no other Catholic colleges in the state of Nevada."

But future expansion -- of the schools putting down roots here or of more private schools coming to Las Vegas -- "depends on the success of all of us," Estrada said.

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