When 2U went public a decade ago, the company was out to prove it could make a splash in the notoriously difficult $550 billion U.S. higher education market. For a while, it was on to something. The stock price ballooned from $13 at 2U’s 2014 IPO to a high of $98.58 four years later as demand increased for the company’s online education offerings. At its peak, 2U had a market cap of more than $5 billion and growth rates comparable to high-flying cloud software companies. Revenue climbed 44% i...