Rebel with a Cause : The Entrepreneur Who Created the University of Phoenix and the For-Profit Revolution in Higher Education

Sperling, who began his career at 53 years of age, is now a member of the Forbes 400-richest, and a true latecomer (and self-made man) to entreprenurial success,. Per usual, he exemplifies the adage that change only comes to an industry from the outside. And thus, he began on a shoe string and succeeded because academia, then and today, remains bloated with unnessessary costs while ignorant and unconcerned with the outcomes of its graduates.

While the Univ of Phoenix has grown mightily, students at traditional colleges are going broke on ever higher tuition rates and concommitantly increasing student loans while professors continue to jack up their annual salaries and benefits far beyond the annual CPI index increases. Of note is that such increases have closely paralleled the explosion in Title-IV government loan appropriations to the point where state governments and the U.S. Congress are jointly searching for new ways to control these out-of-control expenditures.

Sperling tells a story of life changing bifurcation's as good as any "cliff-hanging" tale of fiction. His narrow misses and perilous good fortunes culminate in a 30-year old company with a $12 billion dollar market-cap on NASDAQ and a growth rate surpassing that of almost any dot.com on the board. With no-debt and loads of cash Sperling's University of Phoenix is bringing the lie to the whiners who run establishmentarian academic institutions as they flail about attempting to defend their delusional and profligate ways.

The new models of for-profit, post-secondary education such as those exemplified by Phoenix look alike Grantham University, a 4-year degree granting, low cost provider, all-online, 50-year old engineering and business school, will continue to follow in Phoenix's footsteps as the for-profit crowd ratchets up the pressure on the hollow reasoning of indifferent and out-of-touch academics who continue in charge of our nations non-profit institutions of higher learning.

John Sperling is a hero to the working men and women of America and his story needs to be told near and far. Just as the sand pile of chaos theory begins to collapse when the slope becomes too steep, establishment academia has begun to feel the inevitable hand of self governing criticality in its non-linear system of business. Indeed, this phenomena can be found in all the cycles of history where continuing excess leads to collapse and renewal. Sperling is just the latest of magnificent catalysts to accelerate this process in this latest of instant cases.


Rebel, rebel, you've outdone yourself!   January 2, 2003
 5 out of 6 found this review helpful

If you are in your forties and have not yet been wildly successful, take heart. John Sperling, once an unhappy 52 year old Cambridge-educated history professor with $26,000 in savings, grew into an enormously successful entrepreneur. Now in his early 80s, Sperling is a billionaire, and heads the Apollo Group, a holding company whose main component is the University of Phoenix (UoP). UoP is revolutionizing access to business education for working adults in N. America and abroad. Rebel With a Cause is Sperling's personal memoir of his long struggle against the educational establishment to found and develop the for-profit UoP, transforming American education in the process. Sperling's background differs from that of many successful entrepreneurs. Born in a backwoods log cabin, Sperling started as a socialist and successful union organizer. Throughout his changing roles, the opportunistic, energetic, and apparently indefatigable Sperling thrived on adversity that would make most give up. In stolid but personal writing, Sperling reveals the details of the endless conflicts and triumphs, up to and including his new fights with the establishment over the legalization of marijuana. Still iconoclastic and entrepreneurial in his ninth decade of life, Sperling is now developing innovative new ventures including the Kronos age management clinics, and Seaphire, a project for developing aquaculture. Good reading for anyone facing adversity as they pursue their vision of something both worthwhile and potentially profitable.


The subject is interesting, but watch out for the writing.   March 31, 2001
 10 out of 11 found this review helpful

This book is a bit puzzling. Looking at the title, you feel that the book is a biography of John Sperling. Reading the subtitle, you would think he is going to focus on the University of Phoenix and the growth of the Apollo Group. After reading the book cover to cover, I am not sure what the author wanted me to take away from this.

Some parts of his life get rather detailed (like his childhood sickness and early schooling) and could be interesting. His tone makes me think of someone on a pulpit trying to get me to acknowledge his past. I would not question the effects of his past if he didn't fly through other parts of it (all the quick affairs/relationships/friendships) which he mentions. His son is part of his company, so I was puzzled to see that there was little mention of him.

Given the sections that Sperling highlights for us, am I supposed to be awed by the rough start and many love affairs? Am I to be astounded by his success because of this?

I personally liked the history of the University of Phoenix. He does go into great detail on the political and legal wrangling with the accrediting board. He touches on the help from some people, but will then mention later that the person no longer had the "fire" and was let go from the company. It sounds like the university is his quest and he will not let marriage or friendship get in the way.

In the last sections of the book, Sperling talks about other projects he is passionate about. How did he decide to cover these? The Kronos Group took me by surprise. I saw no mention of this in the book until the very end. I have the feeling that the publishers were trying to make the book longer, so they just added some other thoughts in there. It does make for a very coherent picture of Sperling.

I have listened to the author speak before and find him fascinating. Reading the book gives me a different picture of him altogether. Either way, I would recommend the book for readers wanting a background on the creation of the University of Phoenix. Even though this is by Sperling, I would not read this for a good understanding of him. I believe some objectivity would be necessary for that.


He IS a Rebel and the book is FIRST RATE!   February 13, 2001
 12 out of 16 found this review helpful

"Rebel With A Cause," by Dr. John G. Sperling, is part memoir, part social critique, and part business history. Though Sperling begins at the beginning - his birth in log cabin in the Missouri Ozarks in 1921 - he mainly focuses on his personal and profession battles over the past 20 years to build a university catering to the needs of working adults. The result of his efforts - the for-profit University of Phoenix - is now one of the largest accredited universities in the world, as well as the source of Sperling's considerable fortune.

Speaking of which, Sperling must be one of the few people on the planet ever to make real money in education (he parlayed a $26,000 investment into a $4 billion company). This alone is a remarkable and significant achievement - not just for Sperling and his investors but for their thousands of customers as well. Yes, "customers" is how Sperling refers to UOP students; I can't help but recall that not once in my own Ivy League education did any administrator use the words "customer service" and "higher education" in the same sentence ("Donation" and "probation" were used frequently, but that's another story.)

Sperling describes numerous obstacles on his long and winding road to "overnight success", including dastardly accreditation bureaucrats, disloyal employees; gratuitous FBI harassment, as well as the usual personal detritus of broken marriages, illnesses, etc. Perhaps the biggest potential hazards that Sperling had to overcome - "harness" is perhaps more precise - was his own penchant for risk-taking coupled with his low threshold of boredom. In fact, Sperling begins his tale by exhorting his readers "to strenuously avoid most of the behaviors that made me successful" - the very opposite of the message of most business books. Add "cautionary tale" to the list of Rebel's parts.

Reading some of the other Amazon comments on Sperling's book, I can't help but wonder if we're all reading the same book, or - perhaps more to the point - if Sperling's critics have ever read another book by a businessman. I had to chuckle in particular at the knucklehead who chided Sperling for abandoning the general "theme of business books where ethics is very important and that it is important to support your fellow human being." I suppose there could be a new business book by the Dalai Lama, but most are written by self-promoting consultants pushing obvious insights and simple-minded formulas. Those few business authors who've actually founded or run large companies tend to produce highly-sanitized success-filled tomes completely devoid of the real carnage, cowardice and occasional brilliance of business.

Though readers seeking mainly to learn the history of UOP as an educational and social phenomenon will not be disappointed, it's the arc of Sperling's life and the honesty with which he recounts it that impressed me most. To quote one of countless juicy examples: The day young Sperling's abusive father died, he "rolled in the grass squealing with delight." Now seriously, would Kenneth Blanchard have the guts to admit such a thing? With reference to the infidelities of one of his wives, Sperling writes, "I was too cowardly to bring her to heel and I lacked the needed sophistication not to care." This quote highlights the deep source of Rebel's appeal: at 79, Sperling is finally sophisticated enough (and rich enough) not to care what anyone thinks about him personally - which makes for engrossing prose (though his life does occasionally resemble a train wreck).

In the last few chapters of Rebel, Sperling focuses on his current pet projects, which include health and longevity clinics, an aquatic agriculture company, an animal cloning venture and a very successful political campaign against the federal government's War on Drugs - a war that Sperling argues is already lost. The pride and hope of these chapters contrasts somewhat with the weariness with which he recounts his earlier struggles, and this contrast highlights what is ultimately so inspiring about "Rebel": This is the story of a man who simply never gives up - but instead keeps fighting, building, and leading.


Winners Never Quit!   February 3, 2001
 9 out of 12 found this review helpful

Not the first to have grown up poor or the child of a lazy, abusive father, the difference in Sperling's story is that he acquired two things most do not: A desire to understand the economics of a world in which some go hungry while others do not, and a "nothing to lose" attitude that prevails throughout his life, both in his business dealings and personal relationships. Sperling survived his childhood, but it's not the Cambridge education, career in acadame, his years as a union leader, or the trail of broken relationships that draw the reader in. During his tenure at San Jose State, Sperling began to focus on a problem no one else wanted to bother with - the barriers to working adults who wanted to return to school. And so this is the real story - his unrelenting determination to create the University of Phoenix, a for-profit institution for working adults that is now the largest private university in the U.S. These chapters, sometimes a little heavy, leave the reader dumbfounded as to the lengths which his detractors will go to quash his efforts. (And isn't it funny? Most of the traditional universities in the country now copy his model for adult education.) Although at times it seems his determination grew as a result of so many wanting him to fail, it becomes obvious that his sole intent was not the pursuit of wealth. Yet wealthy, he became - albeit in his seventies! It was interesting to learn that contrary to the status quo, acquiring wealth was not the end of his story. Not only does he still play an active role in the continuing evolution of adult education, he's a proponent of drug law reform, and is investing in numerous other projects destined to change the world; seawater agriculture, anti-aging medicine, and the storage of pet DNA for future cloning. Does he hope to get rich from these ventures as well? You bet he does! Sperling makes no apologies for his "take-no-prisoners" attitude - he's learned something about economics today's nouveau rich will never get. You can only buy so many toys, but if you make money trying to make the world a better place, it gives you the ability to keep trying to make the world a better place. I highly recommend this book. This is a great story - honest, fast-paced, thought provoking. His story is certainly proof of the old addage that "winners never quit." With all Sperling has accomplished - and at 79, still hopes to accomplish -this is one book that motivates you to put down the remote, get up off the sofa, and start making a difference.