NYU sets up for-profit spin-off to sell courses online

Academe, Jan/Feb 1999

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY HAS ANnounced that it is setting up a for-profit educational subsidiary to produce educational "courseware" to be delivered online. NYU Online, Inc., which received $1.5 million in start-up money from the university, plans to offer its first courses early this year in areas such as real estate, finance and development, and information systems management.

NYU's educational spin-off hopes to compete with the University of Phoenix and other for-profit companies that sell business and training courses, but it may also create specialized courses to be offered at small traditional colleges and universities. The new corporation's first courses will be noncredit and will be marketed to "corporate universities," other corporate training programs, and individuals interested in professional certification or in satisfying state-mandated continuing education requirements.

NYU is the first American university to start a for-profit spin-off. "We wish that the administration had left the forprofit online business for others and would focus instead on NYU's mission as a research university," says AAUP associate general secretary Jordan Kurland.