A San Diego-based for-profit, post-secondary education company said Thursday it will bring at least 500 jobs to downtown Denver, a number that could expand to 1,500 within three years.
Bridgepoint Education Inc. will lease 150,000 square feet at the Park Central building at 1515 Arapahoe St. to house an enrollment center for online students at its Ashford University in Clinton, Iowa, according to people familiar with the negotiations.
The jobs are expected to be for mostly entry-level college graduates, who are expected to help counsel interested enrollees to the private school that boasts some of the least expensive tuition rates nationally, said Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.
He said average salaries are expected to be in the mid-$30,000 range.
The company also operates the University of the Rockies in Colorado Springs and has a location in Bala Cynwyd, Pa.
Bridgeport spokeswoman Marianne Perez would not describe the types of jobs or any hiring time frame.
Gov. John Hickenlooper praised the move.
“Bridgepoint Education will bring needed jobs to Denver and surely boost our state’s highly educated workforce,” Hickenlooper said in a statement issued by Bridgeport. The company donated $10,000 to Hickenlooper’s inaugural fundraising effort.
The lease deal is being brokered by CB Richard Ellis.
Clark said negotiations lasted about a year and that Denver beat out other cities, including Atlanta.
The move to Denver makes sense, Clark said, especially with a feeder supply of graduates from colleges at the Auraria campus.
“They’re convinced with the plentiful supply of those young graduates who want to stay here that it will be a fertile place,” Clark said.
Shares of publicly traded Bridgepoint, which trade under the ticker BPI, closed Thursday at $17.20.
The company offers college degrees in disciplines ranging from business to psychology, either by online enrollment or traditional campuses.
Perez did not respond to questions about Bridgeport’s reaction to recent media attention revolving around for-profit schools and the number of defaulted federally guaranteed student loans they have.
The company’s website calls the reports “misconceptions” with “factually inaccurate statements,” “misguided rhetoric and exaggeration.”
The U.S. Department of Education’s inspector general is auditing Ashford’s distribution of financial aid and compensation of enrollment advisers.
With a market value of $877 million, the company relies heavily on federal student loans with one report putting it as high as 87 percent of its revenues.
U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, has said in congressional hearings on for-profit colleges that nearly two-thirds of all Ashford students drop out. The national rate for all college drop outs is 50 percent.
The Obama administration has called for a tightening of regulations on for-profit schools to make them more accountable for defaulted loans that taxpayers then have to pay.
David Migoya: 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com
