John Sperling

Sperling was born to a poor sharecropper family in the Missouri Ozarks. His father worked for the railroad and his mother was a fundamentalist Christian. He spent several years as a sailor in the merchant marine, and even as a wandering 1950s beatnik. He received his undergraduate education at Reed College, Portland, Oregon, a master's degree from the University of California, Berkeley under the G.I. Bill, and then went on to read for a PhD in economic history at King's College, Cambridge. His doctorate thesis examined 18th-century English mercantile history.

University of Phoenix

The University of Phoenix is a for-profit institution of higher learning. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Apollo Group Inc. which was a publicly traded (Nasdaq: APOL) S&P 500 corporation based in Phoenix, Arizona. The University of Phoenix was founded by John Sperling, who felt that "working adult students were often invisible on traditional campuses and treated as second-class citizens." Sperling is also quoted as saying "We are not trying to develop [students'] value systems or go in for that 'expand their minds' bullshit." In 1976, it began in Phoenix, with the first class consisted of eight students. In 1980, the school expanded to San Jose, California, and in 1989, the university launched its online program.

The school formerly had an enrollment of 420,700 undergraduate students and 78,000 graduate students, or 224,880 full-time equivalent students. The university had more than 200 campuses worldwide and conferred degrees in over 100 degree programs at the associate, bachelor's, master's and doctoral levels. University of Phoenix has an open enrollment admission policy, requiring only a high-school diploma, GED, or its equivalent. The school also provides associate or bachelor's degree applicants opportunity for advanced placement through its prior learning assessment, which, aside from previous coursework, college credit can come from experiential learning essays, corporate training, and certificates or licenses.

Apollo Group

Apollo Group (Nasdaq: APOL) was an S&P 500 corporation based in the South Phoenix area of Phoenix, Arizona. Apollo Group, Inc., through its subsidiaries, owned several for-profit educational institutions before it was acquired by Apollo Global Management and two other companies.

Apollo was founded by John Sperling in 1973. Sperling founded the University of Phoenix in his 50s with no investors and no track record in businesses while facing what he described in his biography as "mean-spirited" opposition from accreditation agencies, competitors, and the press.

The company owned and operated four higher-learning institutions: the University of Phoenix, Western International University, Axia College, the College for Financial Planning, the Institute for Professional Development. It also owned Insight Schools (Online Public High Schools for Washington, Wisconsin, and other locations), and Olympus High School. As of November 2005, the combined enrollment of the four U.S. domestic universities (UOPX, WIU, Axia, CFFP) was approximately 315,350 students. Of these, nearly 90% attended the University of Phoenix, which Apollo Group described as "the nation’s largest regionally accredited private university".

Additionally, Apollo Group, Inc. was the owner of BPP University in the United Kingdom. It joined forces with Carlyle Group to create Apollo Global for investing in education abroad. Apollo Global also purchased UNIACC college in Santiago, Chile and ULA college in Mexico.

Sperling was married and divorced twice. He had one son, Peter Sperling, who took over his role as chairman of the Apollo Education Group for some time, and two grandchildren at the time of his death.

Sperling's close friendship with Nancy Pelosi was documented in the book Degrees of Inequality.

Before becoming an entrepreneur at age 53, Sperling was a tenured professor at San Jose State University. He was an activist for several liberal causes during the 1960s, such as building a powerful new California faculty union, and was part of several conflicts with authorities and university leaders regarding his experimental adult education schemes.

John Sperling was also an opponent of drug prohibition and was financing initiatives to decriminalize medical marijuana in the United States. According to Time magazine, Sperling used marijuana to combat pain caused by the cancer he fought during the 1960s. Together with George Soros, and Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance, Sperling raised considerable amounts of money for drug and other related causes, especially during the 2004 presidential campaign.