EAB

Mission

Using its educational consulting services, EAB also promotes Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice initiatives (referred to alternately as DEIJ, DE&I, or DEI), in which race and race-related factors are taken into account in every aspect of the student experience in college. ³

The definition of DEIJ posted on EAB’s website includes validating alternative viewpoints and advancing the left-progressive concept of bias. ⁴ EAB encourages employees to express “their whole selves” at work, particularly those in the LGBT community. ⁴ The company was featured on the Human Rights Campaign‘s “Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality 2022” and has employee resource groups centered around “diverse employees” such as LGBT individuals, women, and people of color. ^{5 4}

Strategy

EAB’s strategy for bringing the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice agenda into schools includes advocating for changes to traditional grading practices. ³ A 2021 blog post by EAB associate director Margaret Sullivan criticized traditional grading as restricting the academic advancement of “underprivileged” students and promoting “grading biases.” Sullivan outlined “equitable grading practices” which would do away with core criteria such as completion of assignments. She emphasized that schools should adopt these objectives to “proactively signal a clear commitment toward DEIJ.” ⁶

Further steps to inculcating the DEIJ agenda on campuses include the EAB DEIJ Resources Center, which curates resources for institutes of higher education to combat alleged “racist systems of oppression.” ⁷ EAB’s Way Forward Initiative, funded by Bank of America, has partnered with multiple historically black colleges and universities and Native American tribal colleges to transform their campuses into DEIJ-compliant institutions, including “leadership training, on-demand market research” and working with partners to advance DEIJ strategies. ⁸

EAB directly engages with minority students through its College Greenlight initiative. The goal is to increase the number of non-white students who attend institutes of higher education. ⁹ EAB’s methods of advancing minority admissions include encouraging institutions to make standardized testing optional for admission. ⁶ A 2022 EAB survey showed that high school students, especially minority students, are increasingly choosing to attend colleges without an ACT or SAT requirement. ¹⁰

As of June 2022, EAB does not allow access to its “vast library” of research for individuals without an EAB account. ¹¹ Reports behind a member wall include “Hallmarks of an Antiracist Institution: The Behaviors and Actions that Promote Racial Justice in Education,” and “Compendium of inclusive tenure and promotion policy.” ¹²

The company’s various activities, from its main work on campuses to work culture and community outreach, “are deliberately linked” to promote DEIJ values in as many spheres as possible. ¹³

Business Model

Parent Companies

The Advisory Board Company was founded in 1979 by David G. Bradley. Initially, it focused on financial research, but branched into healthcare and clinical research in 1986. The company founded the Educational Advisory Board (EAB) in 2007 as its first foray into education. ¹⁴ In 2017, the Advisory Board Company split up and sold EAB to Vista Equity Partners for $1.55 billion. ¹⁵

Vista Equity Partners is a private investment firm with a portfolio of enterprise software companies. ^{16 17} It was founded in 2000 by philanthropist Robert F. Smith and has more than $93 billion in assets as of June 2022. ^{18 19} Vista espouses environmental, social and governance (ESG)  practices and DEIJ initiatives to advance left-progressive narratives on climate change and minorities. ^{20 21}

Vista owns a large collection of educational software companies. In 2015, it purchased K-12 platform PowerSchool for $350 million, and holds a 50% stake in higher education platform Ellucian. ^{22 23} Vista also owns Pipeline Analytics, an artificial intelligence that predicts which students are likely to “apply, accept and attend institutions.” ²⁴

Vista and EAB’s involvement in student data collection has raised concerns from parents and educators, according to a 2022 article from The Markup. The oversight journalism nonprofit outlined criticisms of demographic student success predictors used by Vista-owned platform PowerSchool and EAB’s student success management system Navigate. Parents were concerned that their children’s data were being manipulated behind the scenes without their consent. As of January 2022, one Colorado mother could not obtain her children’s full data records from Navigate even after bringing legal action against the company. ²²

Vista Equity Partners and BC Partners are EAB’s primary sources of funding. BC Partners, a London-based private equity firm with over €161 billion in holdings, acquired a 50% stake in EAB in 2021. ^{25 26} Similarly to Vista, BC supports left-progressive ESG initiatives. ²⁷

Services

EAB provides technology platforms and advisory services to more than 2,500 educational institutes from K-12 schools through graduate school. ²⁸ It has grown its offerings through purchases of existing student technology platforms, including:

• A $90 million acquisition of engagement firm Starfish in 2021. ²⁹
• Virtual campus tour platform YouVisit, which as of May 2022 is featured under every section on their website’s Solutions page. ^{30 28}
• Cappex, which helps students to research colleges and scholarships. ³¹
• Wisr, which allows students to speak directly to faculty and other students at colleges they are interested in. ³²

EAB also launched the data platform Edify in 2021 to consolidate student data from multiple institutions. ³³ Another EAB project, Intersect, connects with information platform Naviance, which is reportedly “in use by 41% of all U.S. high school students” and provides information about colleges and scholarships. ³⁴ EAB’s advisory service platforms include Enroll360, a marketing campaign manager for institutes of higher education. ³⁵

EAB’s student success management system (SSMS) Navigate provides more than 850 partner institutions with software applications for students and staff to organize their time. ³⁶ Its predictive model which measures students as “high risk” or “low risk” for dropping out of school has been criticized for using demographic information to keep minorities out of STEM majors. ³⁷

Leadership

David Felsenthal has been the chief executive officer of EAB since 2017. He became involved with the Advisory Board Company in 2001. After EAB’s founding in 2007, Felsenthal was in various high-level roles in the company, including chief operating officer and president. Felsenthal was promoted to his current position as CEO when EAB separated from the Advisory Board Company in 2017. ^{38 39}

Catherine Ewell has been senior vice president of Partner Success at EAB since 2016. Her EAB profile states that she previously worked “for over 20 years in healthcare and education.” She also serves as executive sponsor for EAB’s LGBT employee resource group, OUT@EAB, where she works to further the company’s “diversity, equity and inclusion” agenda. ⁴⁰

Sally Amoruso serves as chief partner officer for EAB. Amoruso held multiple executive positions within the Advisory Board Company before 1999. She then worked for the Corporate Executive Board, ran a network of medical spas, and worked as president of a medical weight loss program. In 2014, she returned to the Advisory Board Company as a general manager and stayed with EAB after the companies split in 2017. Amoruso then worked as executive principal until her appointment as chief partner officer in 2019. ^{41 42}