The educational technology stock that went from $98 to $1. Inside the 2U debacle.

It was a tip from an analyst at an investment firm roughly a decade ago that first pushed Kevin Kinser, an education professor at Penn State University, to start looking into companies that work with colleges to create online degree programs. 

Back then, the typical model for these online program managers, or OPMs as they’re known, was to provide recruiting, marketing and back-end support to name-brand universities as they launched online graduate degrees in social work, nursing, international relations and other fields. In…