Brazil proves fertile ground for US for-profits

As United States-based for-profit education companies continue to face stricter regulations and slumping enrolments and revenues at home, some are venturing abroad in the name of diversification, with Brazil being a main destination, writes Elizabeth Redden for Inside Higher Ed.

For example, DeVry Education Group, an Illinois-based publicly traded for-profit education company, reports that it enrols more than 58,000 degree-seeking students in Brazil, plus another 53,000 students in test preparatory programmes there. According to the company’s latest earnings report, released in April, revenue for DeVry’s Brazil division grew by 38.8% over the previous year, while it declined by 15.7% for the flagship DeVry University campuses located across the US. The company is shutting down 14 of its US campuses.

“It represents a growth area and it also represents an escape from the regulatory environment in the US that has proven so difficult for for-profits to adjust to,” said Kevin Kinser, the chair of the department of educational administration and policy studies at the State University of New York at Albany and an expert on for-profit higher education.
Full report on the Inside Higher Ed site