It appears that the folks of one Iowa city are proud to number among their esteemed corporate citizens a leader in the private-sector higher education industry. "With a nearly 70-year history in Davenport, Kaplan University has a long tradition of serving adult learners and doing it well," the Quad-City Times reports.

This decades-long commitment only reinforces the fact that Kaplan University meets a very real market need. All you need do is look at the profile of the typical Kaplan student to understand this. Specifically, according to Kaplan's own studies, the typical student:

• Is around 30 years old;
• Is already holding a job;
• Is taking care of a family.

Little wonder, then, that Kaplan students gravitate to the many online courses offered by the university.

Indeed, so dedicated is Kaplan University to meeting its students educational needs that it hews to what it calls the "Kaplan Commitment," which affords students time to sample courses to see if they're right for them.

Such service falls under the umbrella of what Kaplan calls "outcome-based learning," which tools curricula to job-market demands in order to optimize the chances of their students' finding gainful employment upon graduation.

It looks like Kaplan University is doing a lot of things right. Admittedly, the school has found itself subject to controversy of late. But scandal and innuendo can only obscure real results, they cannot erase them. And it appears that Kaplan has distilled valuable lessons from the experience -- lessons that will no doubt translate into an even better higher-education product for years to come.