Up until now, Laureate Education has been pretty much the only institution working to build a truly global university. Most recently, Laureate was taken private by a group of heavy hitters (including the endowment funds of Stanford and Harvard) so that it could take an even more aggressive approach to creating the first really global higher education entity (see Doug Becker moves to China, July 26, 2007). However, Apollo Group, which previously has had a relatively unsuccessful venture into globalization, has now taken on a substantial partner itself with the goal of stepping up the competition with Laureate.
Apollo has partnered with the Carlyle Group to form a $1B joint venture called Apollo Global to invest in education services outside the US. Details are scarce at the moment, but it appears likely that the focus of this new enterprise will be on China, India, and Latin America. Brooke B. Coburn, Managing Director and Co-head of Carlyle Venture
Partners III, L.P., said in a Carlyle press release, “Global demand for higher education is
strong. Apollo Group’s operational expertise coupled with Carlyle’s
global network make this a powerful partnership.” Some financial analysts are suggesting that the approach taken by this new partnership will be similar to that taken by Laureate - buying existing schools in the target regions. It will be very interesting to learn more about the strategy of this new player - and to watch the response of Laureate.
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