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MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — Two decades ago, Southern New Hampshire University was so obscure that most people in New England had never heard of it. It enrolled a few thousand students on its 300-acre campus along the Merrimack River, 25 miles from the Massachusetts border. Many students came from nearby towns looking for practical skills in fields like business, culinary arts or hotel management.
Today, SNHU is one of the largest universities in the country after a massive expansion of its online degree programs. Enrollment took off as the school plowed $1.6 billion into advertising and reaped more than $1 billion in profit since 2010. Last fiscal year, the nonprofit school estimates, 300,000 students took at least one class for credit.
"The growth has just been absolutely phenomenal," said Margaret Moffett, who is writing an academic book about the school's expansion.
The vast majority of SNHU students are completely online and live all over the country. Some visit the campus for the first time at graduation, while many never set foot there.
Most of its online courses are asynchronous, allowing students to contribute to class discussion boards and complete other assignments on their own time. Standardized courses are prepackaged and provided to the legion of adjunct professors who grade students, field questions and manage discussions. Students may never hear a teacher's voice unless they make an appointment.
SNHU's growth represents a transformation in higher education, with nonprofit schools barreling into territory once dominated by for-profits.
Nonprofit and public universities like SNHU have built giant online programs after more than half a dozen large for-profit colleges were forced to shut down, merge or retrench because of allegations of fraudulent marketing, including false promises that students could land lucrative jobs after graduation.
While Corinthian Colleges and ITT Educational Services shut down, DeVry Education Group changed its name and transferred its trademark university to another firm. And the University of Phoenix shrank by nearly half since 2014 to about 177,000 students taking classes for credit in 2025. The university estimates that enrollment peaked in 2010, with nearly half a million enrolled in degree programs that year.
Meanwhile, Western Governors University, a nonprofit online school founded by a group of governors in 1997, mushroomed from just over 19,000 students taking classes for credit in 2010 to nearly 314,000 last year. Liberty University's enrollment doubled during the same time period, with the majority of its students online. And SNHU grew by 24-fold during the span.
Proponents say the nonprofit schools offer affordable degrees from accredited programs to students who can't attend traditional classes in person. They often charge less than for-profit universities and have mostly avoided the lawsuits and fines for fraudulent recruiting that dogged some of the large for-profit schools.
"Public and nonprofit offerings have not exhibited the same predatory behavior that we have seen from for-profit schools," said Robert Shireman, who served as a deputy undersecretary of education in the Obama administration.
But the new programs have faced scrutiny. That includes questions about their lower-than-average graduation rates, large advertising budgets and robust profit margins.
"The dangers and hazards for consumers have always been larger for online colleges because it is so easy to expand quickly," Shireman said.
Despite the concerns, several current students and alumni who attended SNHU online told The Washington Post they were happy with their education, even though some people mistakenly assume it's a diploma mill because of the television commercials and remote coursework, said Stephanie Forbes, who graduated in 2024.
"It's not what people make it out to be," said Forbes, 42, who earned a master's degree in public health, which she said helped her land a spot in a doctoral program at George Washington University in D.C. She said the school requires people "to actually do the work" to graduate - not just pay for a degree.
SNHU had a fledgling online program when Paul LeBlanc became president in 2003. But LeBlanc sensed an unusual opportunity after some large for-profit schools came under fire.
He remembers telling the SNHU board in 2007, "We have this open window right now - this open field to run in - because the for-profits are back on their heels." LeBlanc also said the school needed to move quickly to capitalize on the moment.
SNHU had started a small online program in 1995 (when the school was known as New Hampshire College) that LeBlanc thought had potential to grow. And he said he was willing to emulate some of the successful tactics pioneered by for-profit schools.
For instance, LeBlanc said, his school copied the University of Phoenix's strategy to quickly enroll students when they expressed interest. The school aimed to respond to prospective students within minutes when they asked for help or more information.
"If someone inquired and it took too long for us to move them through the process, we would lose them," LeBlanc said.
And the school took on the task of obtaining transcripts for students to transfer credits from past schools, instead of requiring students to do it themselves.
"We literally had people fanning out to post offices and grocery stores," he recalled, to obtain "money orders of $10 to send to these schools."
SNHU grounded its program on a standardized curriculum with many courses that offer no lectures or classroom meetings, making it easier to expand and serve students with busy schedules.
Like for-profits, SNHU also adopted another game-changing strategy: significant advertising. To further boost its name recognition, the school acquired the naming rights to the Granite State's largest indoor events arena.
According to its latest public financial filing, SNHU spent nearly $196 million on advertising in fiscal 2024, largely television ads and sponsored links to boost its position in internet search results. That's more than 14 percent of the school's annual budget. By comparison, nonprofit colleges on average spend less than 1 percent on advertising, according to a Post analysis of data from the Internal Revenue Service.
Moffett, the North Carolina writer working on a book about SNHU, said the school's television commercials were highly unusual for a nonprofit when LeBlanc started running the ads (outside of free ads some schools obtain through their sports programs).
"Colleges never advertise on television," Moffett said. "You'd have to bring in a fainting couch for the academic faculty."
The SNHU ads have differed from the for-profit ads in key ways: For years, they mentioned that the school was a nonprofit. Many ads also feature the physical campus. LeBlanc said the image of a traditional campus helped assure online students who weren't familiar with the school that it is legitimate.
Shireman, the former Obama administration official, said it's a red flag when schools spend more than 10 percent of their budget on advertising.
"Students' tuition money should not largely be going to marketing," Shireman said. Federal data also shows that SNHU spends a smaller share of its budget on instruction than most U.S. colleges do.
But SNHU's current president, Lisa Marsh Ryerson, said advertising helps the school fulfill its commitment to meeting the needs of more nontraditional students. She pointed out that well over 40 million people in the U.S. started college but never finished.
"Our advertising is in direct relation to our mission," she said. "They need to know that there is an SNHU and that there is a place for them."
Along the way, SNHU's robust profits have raised questions. The university has consistently reported surpluses, even during the pandemic. It reported net income of nearly $131 million in fiscal 2024, the latest year publicly available through its IRS filings.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) grilled LeBlanc about the double-digit profit margins SNHU earned at a congressional hearing in 2013, when the online program was still relatively small but starting to garner attention. LeBlanc told Warren that since the school is a nonprofit, it puts all the money back into the university.
"We're not paying dividends," he told Warren. "There are no shareholders."
LeBlanc also noted that the online courses at SNHU are cheaper than classes at most private universities. It currently charges a little over $1,000 for a three-credit undergraduate class.
Despite its ability to attract students, SNHU - like many community colleges and predominantly online schools - has struggled to help them graduate. Only 35 percent of students graduate within six years, far below the 58 percent average for four-year schools, according to federal data.
School officials say the low graduation rate partly reflects the fact that the school admits almost everyone, including people with disabilities or other challenges. And many students juggle school with full-time jobs.
Carlos Lopez, a Marine veteran, said he picked SNHU in part because it allowed him to continue his work in security while earning a bachelor's degree in business last year. Lopez said the degree helped him enter a police academy in New Jersey in December.
He said the first time he saw the college in person was when he traveled to New Hampshire for commencement.
Lopez said he was the first in his family to graduate from college, and he wanted his relatives to see him walk across the stage.
"It was an amazing experience," Lopez said.
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