Foundation and early history
Dr. Siebert Irving Strayer founded Strayer's Business College in
Baltimore, Maryland in 1892.[1] Strayer established the college to teach
business skills to former farm workers, including shorthand, typing and
accounting. In its first decade of operations, enrollment at the school
gradually increased, attracting students from other states, and in 1904
Strayer opened a branch of the school in Washington, D.C.
Enrollment further expanded as demand for trained accountants grew after
the passage of the Revenue Act of 1913 and World War I increased the
need for government clerks with office skills. During the 1930s, the
college was authorized to grant collegiate degrees in accountancy by
Washington, D.C.'s board of education.The school founded Strayer Junior
College in 1959, when it was given the right to confer two-year degrees.
In 1969, the college received the accreditation needed to grant
four-year Bachelor of Arts degrees and was renamed Strayer College
In 2012, a United States Senate committee reported that, as of 2010, 83
percent of Strayer's 2,471 faculty members were employed
part-time.Strayer's faculty are not required to do research but are
encouraged to focus on teaching.
Strayer University's total number of students is approximately
40,000.According to the university, two thirds of Strayer's students are
women and over half are African American or Hispanic.Since the early
2000s, Strayer University has had a high proportion of minority
students. The college has had more women students than men since the
late 1990s.The average age of students at the college is approximately
33, and the majority work full-time. Many students receive financial
assistance from federal government financial aid programs or education
assistance programs operated by the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs; U.S. federal government sources
accounted for 84.9% of Strayer's 2010 revenue. In addition, about
one-quarter of students have tuition assistance from their employers. In
2010 the U.S. Department of Education, reported that the repayment rate
of federal student loans at Strayer University was 25%. Strayer claimed
its loan repayment rate to be 55%.
Strayer has higher rates of student retention than other for-profit
schools. Among students first enrolled in 2008-9, by mid-2010 slightly
less than one-third had withdrawn without completing their degree
programs. Withdrawal percentages ranged from 17.9% for master's degree
students to 48.8% for students seeking an associate degree. In 2011 the
Washington Post claimed that Strayer had a 15% graduation rate, listing
it among the lowest college graduation rates in the Washington, D.C.,
area. Strayer claimed the graduation rate for its full cohort of
bachelor's students was 33%. In 2013 USA Today listed Strayer University
of Washington D.C. as a "red flag" institution for posting a student
loan default rate that surpassed its graduation rate
