Talk:Laureate Education

COI disclosure and infobox updates

Hello, my name is Patrice. I'm here on behalf of my employer, Laureate Education. Per WP:COI, I've disclosed my conflict of interest here and on my Talk page. When I first came to Wikipedia, I was not aware of the rules for COI editors and made the mistake of directly editing this article. From now on, I will strictly follow the rules and as such will only post suggestions for updates and changes to the article here and on appropriate discussion pages. My goal here is to improve the quality of this article and the encyclopedia overall by providing up-to-date information, improving sourcing, addressing inaccuracies, and suggesting structural changes.

The first change I'd like to propose is the addition of some information to our company infobox. It appears common for infoboxes to list key people within the company and a link to the company's page. Ours currently only mentions the company's founder, Douglas Becker and does not include an external link to our website. I'd like to suggest the following:

• Addition of our current CEO Eilif Serck-Hanssen, per this Baltimore Business Journal article.
• Review the list of key people in The Wall Street Journal's profile of Laureate Education and add whoever editors feel is appropriate.
• Addition of a link to Laureate Education's website.

Feel free to reach out with questions or comments here or on my talk page. Thanks! PMV1111 (talk) 05:08, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Link to company's website was already present, but added to the Infobox (standard). The CEO change is mentioned in article already, I'll add your source later. I need more time to look at key people, but a larger rewriting of this article is needed (e.g. the section about visits is highly unusual). I also checked the article on French Wikipedia and it is very poor... but "I'll be back". --Anneyh (talk) 11:09, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi, Anneyh,

Thanks so much for your thoughts here and for your recent improvements to the page. Sensitive to your volunteer time, I'm following up to see if there is any way that I can help to provide you with more info about key people. I'm also happy to collaborate further and welcome your thoughts on "larger rewriting of the article" as you point out is much needed. Thanks again, I'll be standing by in case I may be helpful. Much appreciated! PMV1111 (talk) 08:03, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Right now Laureate Education mostly sells its assets and the higher education business in which it operates is disrupted by the covid. I think the best is to keep the article as it is (no more, but also no less) and see how the situation develops. In case a major coverage appears in the news (e.g. New York Times) this will be the base for a restructuring. Do you agree to close this? --Anneyh (talk) 14:01, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Hello again Anneyh. It makes sense to leave the article as-is for now, as you say, and address larger rewrites later as media coverage allows. However, to answer your question about whether to close this, I believe some points in my initial request above are still unanswered. Before marking this as "closed", can you please advise on these points, specifically:

• Addition of our current CEO Eilif Serck-Hanssen, per this Baltimore Business Journal article. (current mention within the article is unsourced)
• Review the list of key people in The Wall Street Journal's profile of Laureate Education and add whoever is appropriate.

Let me know if I can offer any other helpful information and thanks again for your continued coordination. All the best! PMV1111 (talk) 09:11, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Hello editors, I'm appreciative of user:Anneyh for getting this started and responding to my initial request. It seems they may be busy and I am respectful of their time as a volunteer. In hopes of capturing other editors' attention, I'm reopening the edit request here for assistance with:

• Addition of sourcing about current CEO Eilif Serck-Hanssen, as the current mention of him within the article is unsourced. Suggested source: Baltimore Business Journal
• Update the infobox with a list of key people, according to The Wall Street Journal's profile of Laureate Education

Let me know if I can offer any other helpful details. Thank you in advance for any other considerations. Best, PMV1111 (talk) 04:08, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

I did the easy adding of citations, but I don't know this infobox template, so I'll leave that for someone else. Cheers, Suriname0 (talk) 15:21, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

 Done Ferkjl (talk) 12:50, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Updates to Visits by world leaders

Hello, hello! After some recent collaboration with editors to improve the page (for which I am very appreciative of Ferkjl's efforts, thank you!), I have some new notes to share about the Visits by world and business leaders content. I suggest trimming this content by removing mentions that are unsourced, reliant on press releases and other primary sources, or that are otherwise unacceptable for use on Wikipedia. Specifically, I suggest removing the following content based on these points:

• (Press release) Condoleezza Rice, addressed students from the University of Petroleum & Energy Studies and Pearl Academy, in India in December 2013
• (source inaccessible) José Miguel Insulza, Universidad Viña del Mar (2011)
• (video) Lech Wałęsa, Campus Symposium at BiTS (2008) and Universidad Europea de Madrid (2011)
• (press releases and sources missing) Tony Blair, key-note speech at BiTS Campus Symposium (2009), Anhembi Morumbi University (2010), Universidad Europea de Madrid (2011), Centro Universitário Ritter dos Reis (UniRitter) and Campus Eiffel Ecole Centrale d'Electronique Paris (ECE PARIS)
• (unsourced) Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico, Presidential Counselor at Laureate International Universities (2015)

One editor noted above, generally, that the section is "highly unusual". I am interested in thoughts from others for the best handling of this atypical information, beyond my observations listed here. I will continue to avoid changing the article myself, understanding rules about my conflict of interest. If there are any interested volunteers, I look forward to collaborating and will ask you to make edits on my behalf. Thanks for any help, in advance! PMV1111 (talk) 04:09, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

As you just explained yourself, there are no secondary sources on such topics (press release, videos of the event, unsourced), so it shall not be included in the article. --Anneyh (talk) 06:22, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi Anneyh,

To clarify, the items I listed are included now within the current article. I am requesting that they be removed, for lack of relevance and appropriate, secondary sourcing for Wikipedia. Do I understand correctly that you are in agreement and these details should not be included in the article? If so, would you be willing to remove these details from the contents of the Visits by world leaders section?

• Condoleezza Rice, addressed students from the University of Petroleum & Energy Studies and Pearl Academy, in India in December 2013
• José Miguel Insulza, Universidad Viña del Mar (2011)
• Lech Wałęsa, Campus Symposium at BiTS (2008) and Universidad Europea de Madrid (2011)
• Tony Blair, key-note speech at BiTS Campus Symposium (2009), Anhembi Morumbi University (2010), Universidad Europea de Madrid (2011), Centro Universitário Ritter dos Reis (UniRitter) and Campus Eiffel Ecole Centrale d'Electronique Paris (ECE PARIS)
• Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico, Presidential Counselor at Laureate International Universities (2015)

Thanks again. Best, PMV1111 (talk) 03:43, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Hello again, I noticed that User:Anneyh has not been active on the site since their last post here, based on contributions. I hope all is well. Meantime, Ferkjl, I wonder if you have any thoughts to share, or if this request interests you like the last one for implementation within the live article on my behalf? I am happy to collaborate further here but will not edit the main article myself because of my conflict of interest. Thanks for any consideration! PMV1111 (talk) 03:40, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

@PMV1111: Couldn't agree more. I think the entire section could be removed, and its "spirit" incorporated, if and when warranted, as a phrase in the Corporate History section, maybe something along the lines of "Laureate institutions have been visited by world leaders such as X°, Y°, and Z° among others, in the context of XYZ". From a cursory read, it seems some of those visits are tangentially related to the institution (e.g. they were there for a symposium), some were invited to be awarded an honorary title, so it's quite chaotic and a tad misleading. Ferkjl (talk) 06:11, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Ferkjl, thanks for these thoughts. That makes sense to me. To make it easy, I have tried to fill in the blanks for what you suggested and included references from the section within the live article, as follows:

Laureate institutions have been visited by world leaders such as Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Henry Cisneros among others, to speak at honor and commencement ceremonies respectively.

References

If this fits the bill, would you be willing to incorporate it (or similar) within the live article on my behalf, and delete the excess information as you suggest? I prefer not to update the text myself to be respectful of rules about my conflict of interest. Thanks again for collaborating! PMV1111 (talk) 12:06, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Sure does, it's short and neutral. I went in and implemented it. Ferkjl (talk) 10:47, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

Corporate history rewrite

Hello hello! I'm back again to request the help of editors. I've noticed that the current Corporate history section is quite detailed and seems like could be shortened to fit Wikipedia's summary style. I've worked to consolidate the existing section and updated it to follow a chronological timeline. Ferkjl and Anneyh, since you've both provided constructive feedback and assistance implementing my previous requests, I thought I'd ask if you'd be willing to review and leave feedback or implement changes as appropriate? I've posted a link to the draft at the end of this message and some highlights of changes below.

• Renamed the section as History, incorporated details from the current Debt and downsizing subsection throughout, and organized it into chronological subsections based on major moments in the company's history.
• Throughout the draft, I've worked to improve sourcing where possible by replacing primary sources with secondary coverage, or removing content when I could not find appropriate sources.
• I've reworked some content which felt unbalanced and like the content did not meet Wikipedia's standards for being impartial. As an example, content about the Thunderbird partnership currently says that four board members resigned in protest. To me, that seemed vague, so I've replaced it with a summary of why some trustees were concerned about the partnership and why some were in favor. I hope that provides more complete context to readers.
• I've also worked to trim unnecessary details and cut information that is no longer relevant or is captured later in the article. For example, the reference to Bill Clinton's compensation is discussed later in the article, so it seemed redundant here.
• Ferkjl, you helped work on the previous Visits by world leaders section, and moved a shortened version into Corporate history. In my rewrite, I modified this based on a better source available from The Washington Post and moved it into a position that made sense chronologically.

Because it is a longer draft, and I don't want to clog up this Talk page, I posted it for review here.

Again, I welcome all feedback and suggestions here or on the draft's Talk page. My goal is to provide content that will improve the article from an encyclopedic standpoint, and requires less maintenance. As always, I appreciate volunteers who can help me with these requests so I can follow the conflict of interest guidelines. Many thanks! PMV1111 (talk) 04:50, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Closing — this appears to have been done several months ago, with substantial discussion occurring on the requester's talk page and in the below section. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 17:38, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Assistance

I rarely give substantial assistance to paid editors, because I'm not all that happy doing work as a volunteer for which someone else is being paid. ( But I saw a request for assistance here, and this is so very closely in my field that I think I can help, in terms of clarity, style, and NPOV. I will look at the rewritten draft in detail next week days. But before I do , you might want to modify it as follows:

• a. Visits by world leaders is promotional entirely---all such references should be removed. And the connection with Clinton is worth including, but not to the current extent. Names of prominent investors is promotional  ; names of the major financial partners however is not, if you have actual data.
• b. It seems reasonable to divide the extensive history section as you did, by the 3 periods of foundation, grown, and then decline, and dividing them by years is indeed NPOV. . But you might want to put some more emphasis on 2020-2021.
• c. Some straightforward basic material could be put in a separate section. I'd like to see financial results and enrollment year by year.
• d. So I won't have to do it, please replace 90% or so of the "Laurate Education" with " the firm" or, if unambiguous, "it"
• e. So I won't have to do it, remember that only the first instance of a linked schpool or person is linked. (and because of the many institution names, perhas a shortened title could be used for some of them after the first mention), Similarly for people: after the first time, the last name is usually sufficient.
• f. The association with Walden is worth fuller coverage. Perhaps not a separate section, but cetain a separate paragraph.
• g. Please confirm here that List of Laureate Education institutions is up to date, but if not, I'll make the actual changes. Please indicate here which of the schools were closed, as compared to sold or consolidated, I'll make the changes.

And I want to commend you for writing a version that is already much better and clearer than what you started out with. One of the reasons I'm willing to help is that it's a relief to work with a paid editor who knows how to write. And you deserve credit for the honest admission that you hadn't declared, and your decision to declare. DGG ( talk ) 21:43, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

@DGG: Thanks so much for your offer to help, your feedback, and your kind words! I wanted to check in quickly to let you know that I'll get to work updating the draft based on your suggestions. If it's easier, I can ping you here when I'm done making changes and you can review at that point.

As for the List of Laureate Education institutions, I'll double check and get back to you here if changes are needed.

Again, I really appreciate you taking the time to help me with this. Cheers, PMV1111 (talk) 08:13, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Hello DGG, I've been working on the draft and have some updates to share with you.

• a. I removed mention of any "visits by world leaders", as well as individual investors/investment groups when it wasn't a financial partnership with data. I left in mention of Douglas Becker leading the group that took the company private. As for the Clintons, I agree that there is a lot of unnecessary detail in the article about them, I will get work on suggestions for trimming that down.
• b. Working on further emphasis for 2020-2021. For now, I expanded details on the Brazilian deal, and reorganized the section to be 2019-2021. I'll keep working here and come back when I have new content for review. I should also note, I see that some new enrollment statistics have been added to the live article recently. Those numbers only represent enrollment for the Mexico operations. I'll see if I can find a source that isn't primary for our current overall enrollment.
• c. Working on putting this together for you and will come back with content to review
• d. I've worked on making these changes throughout, fixed a few typos here and there, and made some other minor language changes when needed to accommodate use of "the firm" and "it". I left "Laureate" in place when needed for clarity, such as in the space where Laureate's relationship with Thunderbird is discussed.
• e. I think I've taken care of this. Douglas Becker is referenced with just his last name after first mention, shortened names/abbreviated schools mentioned more than once, and checked to make sure only the first reference is linked. Please let me know if you see any that I missed.
• f. I'll work on writing up a paragraph on Walden and will share that with you for review when it is ready.
• g. Looks like the list has our current institutions:
  • Mexico
    • Universidad del Valle de México (UVM)
    • Universidad Tecnológica de México (UNITEC)
  • Peru
    • CIBERTEC
    • Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas (UPC)
    • Universidad Privada del Norte (UPN)
  • One note, Walden University is still a Laureate institution (sale is in process).
  • There are inaccuracies in the list of previously held schools, but I think going through all of them and checking sources is a bigger project than we can address at this point.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I'll be back when I have new content. Thanks again! PMV1111 (talk) 21:56, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

@DGG: Hi there, checking in with a couple of updates and questions.

• You suggested breaking out financial details and enrollment into its own subsection. I put together some content here, is this the direction you're thinking? For some periods, such as when the company was private, there's not as much data available through appropriate sources.

In 2007, enrollment among the firm's institutions was 243,000. Laureate reported revenues of $3.37 billion in 2011, $3.4 billion for the 2012 fiscal year, and $4.41 billion in 2014. Enrollment by December 2015 had neared one million students around the world.

When the firm went public again in 2017, according to its IPO filings its schools enrolled more than one million students in 28 countries. It also stated in those filings that it had more than $4.7 billion in debt. The firm reduced its debt to $2.5 billion by 2019, and further to $1.1 billion by March of 2021. Revenue in 2020 was $1.02 billion and total enrollment was 336,500. In March 2021, the firm reported $1.1 billion in debt.

• For adding more emphasis on 2020-2021, here's some additions I think make sense. If you're looking for more detail, I could add more specifics from sales, but it seemed like a few key examples and summaries would suffice.

11 institutions were included in the sale of the firm's Brazilian operations. The firm also said it had stopped enrolling students in its United Kingdom programs in 2020.

In 2021, the firm focused on its continuing operations in Mexico and Peru and plans to safely return to in-class education, noting increased demand for higher-education in those markets.

• You also mentioned that content on Bill Clinton could be consolidated. I agree, the current article seems to have a lot of unnecessary details and arbitrarily listed events he attended, many of which are poorly sourced. Below is a condensed version of what's currently in the article, I think it catches the highlights and still gives examples of the types of work he did with Laureate.

Former United States President Bill Clinton held a role as honorary chancellor of Laureate from 2010 until early April 2015. Clinton's publicly disclosed tax returns showed he was paid just short of $16.5 million for his work with the firm. His position included attending meetings on education issues, campus openings, and commencement ceremonies.

• As far as Walden goes, the sale to Adtalem is complete, but I haven't seen a source yet that would be usable on Wikipedia. If you don't mind, I'd like to hold off on working on that content for now.

I really appreciate your offer to help. I know this is a lot of content to review. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help. Cheers, PMV1111 (talk) 09:27, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

References

PMV1111 (talk)

"::next up. I will still have sonme qys,, mainly stats and financials DGG ( talk ) 10:18, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

@DGG: Sounds good. I'm happy to answer as best I can. Cheers, PMV1111 (talk) 10:19, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

@DGG: I didn't see our conversation on your Talk page, so I thought I'd respond here. Take all the time you need for review. I went back over the sources in the draft and replaced this press release based article from Seeking Alpha with this source from the Baltimore Business Journal. I also updated the draft with information about the Walden deal closing. If you see any other sources I should replace, or have any additional questions, please let me know. Thanks! PMV1111 (talk) 10:49, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

@PMV1111, my apologies--I seem to have discarded some material in my peculiarmanual way of archiving,and I need to go back andfix itPlease use the Seeking Alpha data to give the most recent financial state of the company. This is a little more improtant than the intermediary figures for the various years, and needs to be highlighted. (It might be posible to do this in a table for selected years). I cannot see how the statement that it has 184,000 students is compatible with all the closures. Does the figure represent full or part time students, or both? From List of Laureate Education institutions , it seems it currently has only 4 schools in operation-- but the number in the outline seem confusing-- is 3.1 the list of all schools ever open or closed in Latin America, or just the open ones, or just the closed ones. please go ahead and update the figures for all the open schools on that page, giving a ref for each. and reorganize. the outline, Tell me, and I'll OK it. -- or prepare a replacement page in talk space and let me know. DGG ( talk ) 00:00, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

@DGG: No problem at all. I made a couple of updates to my draft: added in the Seeking Alpha source and revenue reported so far for 2021; and made a table of some financial and enrollment data. I picked out points that I think highlight the company's trajectory from when Sylvan Learning became Laureate Education, through private ownership, returning to public ownership and through the present. For ease of access, I used SEC filings for revenue data. Let me know if that looks like a valuable addition.

As far as changes to the List of List of Laureate Education institutions, your comment got me thinking. Is that list still necessary and relevant to the encyclopedia? Curious to hear your thoughts. Many thanks! PMV1111 (talk) 03:21, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

I think it is, tho not necessarily as a separate article. There have been so many colleges connected to the firm at one time or another, that I think it's necessary to keep them all straight. It's much clearer than trying to do it as a narrative; make sure the list is right, and I will look to see where it fits. And SEC filings are a very acceptable source. If there are changes, make it in a copy in user space and let me know. DGG ( talk ) 04:26, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

@DGG: I'm back with an update. I went through the list and it was pretty accurate. I think it could be moved over to the main article. I added what I think that could look like to my draft, and formatted in a way that's hopefully a bit more concise for an article. Here are some other changes:

• Added this SEC filing to the top of the list, it confirms nearly every institution listed. I left current sources.
• Removed Instituto Tecnologico del Norte because that institution merged with CIBERTEC
• Cut language about when institutions were sold, or anything that mentioned in process sales
• Changed some names to match the SEC filing
• Renamed the list to "Institutions previously in the Laureate Education network" since not all were owned by Laureate. Some were managed by the firm, or partnered with us to offer courses.

Please let me know what you think. Thanks, PMV1111 (talk) 09:48, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

tis week, I hope. DGG ( talk ) 04:36, 16 October 2021 (UTC).

@DGG: okay, sounds great. I tinkered with the draft a bit more. I moved over the content I proposed above on Bill Clinton and the additions on 2020-2021, clarified the language on Bilgi University (we never owned it), and added "health sciences" to the list of subjects covered. Please let me know if you have questions about any of those changes. Thanks! PMV1111 (talk) 08:28, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

@DGG: are you finished with this edit request? If so, can you close it? Thanks. Z1720 (talk) 18:03, 19 November 2021 (UTC)