Public universities are elephants; Private universities are lions

By George ILIEV
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 95

Big public universities are large herbivores: elephants, rhinos and hippos. They are slow(ish) but powerful and as a result are safe and well-established in their local environment.

For-profit universities are predators: lions, tigers and leopards. They punch above their weight (pound for pound) as their aggressive nature makes them more visible, with their much bigger marketing spend. They cannot kill the largest herbivores but they feast on medium-sized and smaller ones: zebras, antelopes and gazelles (i.e. outcompeting local universities and community colleges).

If elephants were more aggressive, they would be a formidable force in the savannah. But they rarely are, which leaves significant space for predators to mark as their territory. This goes along with the saying: "Public universities don't sell well what they do. Private universities often sell well what they don't do."

African elephant (Source: Wikipedia)