Otterbein and Antioch universities, two private nonprofit institutions that each enroll several thousand students, are working to affiliate and start a national university system to share graduate and adult education programs, they announced Thursday. The institutions laid out two goals for the planned system that are often considered at odds in higher education: train students for careers and pursue a batch of non-economic priorities associated with the liberal arts, like advancing the common good, social justice and democracy. They will also seek to contain costs through shared services and expand education offerings beyond what individual universities can offer on their own.
