In today’s Chronicle of Higher Education, Goldie Blumenstyk writes about changes at the University of Phoenix, the giant for-profit school that was once a Wall Street darling. Enrollment is falling and students are dropping out—but the motivation for the changes is just as likely to be the growing number of regulations (and threats of regulation) from the Department of Education.

UoP has 206,900 students now, compared with 460,000 in 2010. It is closing a number of physical locations—but plans to stay in major cities. It is setting up admissions requirements for the first time and ending its effort to create an associate’s degree.

Some years ago, I imagined that the impending problem of the for-profits would be price competition (they typically set tuition close to that of non-profits, but have a weaker brand). I was wrong—no one else is lowering prices! But I was right about one thing: for-profits are nimble; they can act quickly when hit with problems; and we’re seeing UoP do that.