John Sperling, 1921-
John Sperling was born to a poor sharecropping family and struggled in school. Dyslexic and semiliterate when he graduated from high school, Sperling joined the merchant marines and sailed the world. Along the way, he taught himself to read. During WWII, he served in the Navy. When the war ended, Sperling attended Reed College, completed graduated work at Berkley, and earned his Ph.D from Cambridge; his childhood teachers had clearly underestimated him.
Sperling spent the next couple of decades as a professor, but he never could shake his concern that colleges were filled with the middle and upper classes, while those who were not well-off were left out of academia. At age 53, he decided to do something about it. He tried to bring a program for working adults into the university but was rebuffed. So he created his own university for adults. In 1976, he started the University of Phoenix, a franchise that would quickly expand around the country. This for-profit enterprise not only gave working adults a alternative for regular college, it made John Sperling a billionaire.
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