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'Kaplan, Inc.' is an education company headquartered in New York City, founded in 1938 by Stanley Kaplan. Kaplan provides learning and test preparation materials for various levels of education.

Contents

Company

Subdivisions

History

Acquisitions

Class-action lawsuit

References

Company

Kaplan is a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company. Its Chairman and CEO is Jonathan Grayer. Its 2006 revenue was nearly $1.7 billion.^[1]

Subdivisions

Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions and kaptest.co.uk sells preparation materials for standardized tests and tutoring services. Kaplan currently offers classes to prepare students for various exams: college admissions tests including the SAT and ACT; graduate school admission tests such as the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), Graduate Record Examination (GRE), DAT, and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT); and other tests including the NCLEX, USMLE, CPA, and TOEFL exams. Outside of the United States and Canada, Kaplan operates in the UK and France, and also operates Kidum, a test preparation company in Israel, and Aspect, a provider of English language training based in the U.K.
Kaplan Kids and Schools provides educational materials and services to children in grades pre-K through 12 and individual school districts,¹ and advises school districts on compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act. Also, Kaplan's Score Learning Centers provide after-school tutoring services in reading and math for children in grades kindergarten to tenth grade.
Kaplan Higher Education is a group of institutions that offer fixed-facility and online certificate and degree programs in fields such as criminal justice, health care, business, information technology and legal studies. Kaplan University also offers online programs, and had approximately 28,000 students in 2006.¹ Kaplan also owns the online Concord Law School. Outside the United States, Kaplan operates Dublin Business School in Ireland, which offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs in business and the liberal arts, and Asia Pacific Management Institute (APMI) in Singapore.
Kaplan Professional offers education for licensing, certification, and training purposes, in areas including accounting, insurance, securities, real estate, financial planning, information technology, and architecture. FTC Kaplan, a London-based company that offers accounting and financial services training in the United Kingdom and in Asia, was acquired in 2003 (as The Financial Training Company). Kaplan also operates Tribeca Learning in Australia, which provides financial services and real estate training.

History

Kaplan was founded in 1938 by Stanley Kaplan, who started the business by tutoring students for the New York State Regents Exam in the basement of his Brooklyn home. He eventually franchised the business around the country. In 1984, Kaplan sold the company to The Washington Post Company, which ended the franchises and centralized control. The company grew significantly in the 1990s by expanding its business and purchasing other test preparation and educational companies^[2]

Acquisitions

Some of Kaplan’s major acquisitions during the last 10 years include:^[3]

★ 1996 – Score, a network of after-school tutoring centers based in California with locations around the country

★ 1998 – Dearborn Publishing, a publisher of professional training books in Chicago

★ 2000 – Quest Education Corporation, a network of career colleges with 30 schools that brought Kaplan into the higher education industry

★ 2003 – The Financial Training Company, a provider of accounting and financial service training based in London with operations in Asia

★ 2003 - Dublin Business School, a university in Ireland that offers undergraduate and postgraduate business and liberal arts programs

★ 2005 - Asia Pacific Management Institute (APMI), a Higher Education company providing Diploma to Doctoral degrees offered by different universities.

★ 2006 – Tribeca Learning, a financial services and real estate training provider based in Australia

★ 2006 – Aspect Education, a provider of English language instruction based in the U.K.

★ 2007 - Finsia Education, a provider of financial services training.

★ 2007 - EduNeering Inc.

Class-action lawsuit

Kaplan Inc. recently agreed to settle a class action lawsuit that had been brought against BAR/BRI and Kaplan. Among the allegations in the suit, which charged that BAR/BRI had overcharged students, was an allegation of antitrust violation claiming that Kaplan had agreed not to compete in the bar review business while BAR/BRI agreed it would not compete in the LSAT business. Both West Publishing Company (parent of BAR/BRI), and Kaplan, Inc., denied the allegations and the matter was resolved without any finding of wrongdoing.^[4]

References

1. Washington Post Shareholder website
2. Kaplan, Stanley H. ''Test Pilot''. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.
3. About Kaplan Press Releases
4. BAR/BRI Class Action Lawsuit website