Founded 1875 as an independent, liberal arts, four-year coeducational residential institution. Now an accredited University serving both on-campus and off-campus students.
Locations The main campus School of Arts and Sciences is located in the town of Parkville, Missouri. The School for Extended Learning has 40 Resident Centers, plus numerous satellites, in 21 states across the U.S. Of the 40 campuses, 38 are located on military installations, one at a community college, and one is an online program. The School for Extended Learning has served the non-traditional, working adult since 1972.
DIRECT ALLOWS FOR GROWTH
Park University - Parkville, Missouri
"It was extremely important that we had a textbook company that could grow with our demand and service our students completely – MBS Direct has been able to fill that bill. We have been pleased with the ability of MBS Direct to meet our very high student demand, and to provide the very best service for our students."
Brian Davis Director of Administrative Services
College for Distance Learning, Park University
Client Challenge
In 1992, Park University, then Park College, had 28
extended learning sites located on 28 military bases
throughout the U.S. Despite the program’s success, the school was losing money due to unusually high operational costs. Park College was distributing course materials to all 28 sites from their main campus bookstore. Shipping expenses and excessive amounts of unsold and returned inventory were causing the program to run at a deficit.
Solution
Park College approached MBS Textbook Exchange with their distribution problem
and asked if the wholesaler could take on the task of textbook distribution for their
distance learning program. MBS accepted the challenge and created MBS Direct,
a comprehensive fulfillment program that assumed all responsibility for individual
student sales, inventory acquisition, inventory management, and distribution.
Since then, Park University has seen phenomenal growth in their distance learning
program. Last year alone, the program grew by 14%. In the 12 years that MBS
Direct and Park University have been partners, Park’s DL program has grown by 97%, projecting 227,005 credit hours at the conclusion of the ’03-’04 academic year. MBS Direct’s scalability has proved an invaluable addition to the services Park offers its students.
Park University