“I am a Phoenix” is no more. The once-ubiquitous TV commercials touting student and faculty pride in the University of Phoenix have been replaced by a new ad campaign that its marketers hope will “project a hopeful, positive message for America.” It’s also designed to lay the ground for what one university executive called “a massive repositioning” of the institution.

The new ad push is hardly surprising. As The Chronicle reported this week, Phoenix and just about every other major for-profit college are scrambling to reverse more than a year and a half of enrollment declines.

Phoenix’s new “Let’s Get to Work” campaign, showcased here on the university’s YouTube feed, reflects market research that found that many Phoenix students don’t enroll for a degree per se. “They come,” said Barry Feierstein, the university’s chief operating officer, “for what the degree will do for them.”

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