New Nonprofit Online University Has Unusual Corporate Beginnings

By Goldie Blumenstyk

A new online university with a colorful academic and financial pedigree could soon be competing for adult students with the institutions that helped to hatch it.

The new nonprofit institution, Ellis University, began five years ago as a partnership between a once high-flying company called Cardean Learning Group LLC and the nonprofit New York Institute of Technology. Now Ellis has received accreditation from the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools to operate as