Sperling brought the business model of higher education to the forefront, a model that employed the scientific management of higher education to the forefront: diminishing the power and importance of labor, increasing the importance of technology, marketing and advertising, and as University of Phoenix cofounder John D. Murphy explained, maximizing profit.
[2] For ventures ranging from pet cloning to green energy, he has widely been described as an "eccentric" self-made man by The Washington Post and other media.
[7] Sperling founded the University of Phoenix in his 50s with no investors and no track record in businesses while facing what he described in his biography as "mean-spirited" opposition from accreditation agencies, competitors, and the press.
It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Apollo Group Inc. which was a publicly traded (Nasdaq: APOL) S&P 500 corporation based in Phoenix, Arizona.
The University of Phoenix was founded by John Sperling, who felt that "working adult students were often invisible on traditional campuses and treated as second-class citizens.
He was an activist for several liberal causes during the 1960s, such as building a powerful new California faculty union, and was part of several conflicts with authorities and university leaders regarding his experimental adult education schemes.
[21] Together with George Soros, and Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance, Sperling raised considerable amounts of money for drug and other related causes, especially during the 2004 presidential campaign.
Wired magazine reported in their February 2004 article "John Sperling Wants You to Live Forever" that his fortune was quickly approaching US$3 billion, and that he had plans to donate it to human biology research if and when he died.
Other themes in the 1997 book include an argument that regional accrediting bodies play an inconsistent and restrictive role in innovation and an overview of the integrated assessment, academic decision-support, and quality management system developed and implemented by Tucker.
After reviewing Sperling's autobiography Alex Lightman wrote, "Sperling's unflinching honesty in recounting his childhood of poverty and illiteracy in the Ozarks; his battles over academic accreditation and 'the war on drugs;' his investments in cloning, anti-aging, and in crops that can grow amidst salt and sand; and, especially, his founding of a big, profitable public university that will probably generate more MBA holders than any other, all add up to a CEO whose life will echo, even thunder, for decades to come."
"[8] In August 2004, he co-authored The Great Divide: Retro vs. Metro America, released by his newly created publishing firm, PoliPoint Press.
Thomas Frank, author of What's The Matter With Kansas?, ridiculed Sperling's view of American society: One America, to judge from the book's illustrations, works with lovable robots and lives in 'vibrant' cities with ballet troupes, super-creative Frank Gehry buildings and quiet, tasteful religious ritual; the other relies on contemptible extraction industries (oil, gas and coal) and inhabits a world of white supremacy and monster truck shows and religious ceremonies in which beefy men in cheap clothes scream incomprehensibly at one another.
Gary Gregg of National Review Online called the book the work of a "metropolitan elite who disdain the cultures and values of middle America.
"[25] R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, called it a work of "hate, cultural condescension, and bizarre proposals backed up with hare-brained analysis.
This would allow the party to develop a coherent message that would connect with voters and to take advantage of the fact that Metro states account for 65 percent of the population.