The U.S. Department of Education has dropped, with prejudice, the historic fine of $37.7 million that it levied against Grand Canyon University (GCU), a private Christian university in Phoenix, in October 2023. The university celebrated the news in a statement published May 16.
“The facts clearly support our contention that we were wrongly accused of misleading our Doctoral students and we appreciate the recognition that those accusations were without merit,” said Grand Canyon University President Brian Mueller. “GCU is a leader in innovation, transparency and best practices in higher education and we look forward to working cooperatively with the Department in the future—just as we have with all regulatory agencies.”
Grand Canyon University Celebrates Win
Grand Canyon University is the largest Christian university in the United States. In October 2023, the Department of Education, under the Biden administration, handed down the largest fine of its kind to the college, claiming that GCU had been lying to doctoral students about the program costs. According to the department, the university was estimating the expenses to be $10,000 to $12,000 less than the programs actually cost.
GCU denied the allegations and said that the reality was “GCU is looked at by its peers as an industry leader in transparency and its employees have been invited to speak at seven different higher education conferences on these matters.”
The university appealed the fine and claimed that the Education Department’s actions were a result of a 2021 lawsuit GCU filed against the department because of its rejection of the GCU’s request to be a nonprofit entity.
GCU became a for-profit institution in 2004 as a way of avoiding financial collapse. Its request to become a nonprofit was rejected in 2019 by the Trump administration on the grounds that GCU was too closely affiliated with its former parent company, Grand Canyon Education (GCE).
However, the IRS and GCU’s accreditor consider the university to be a nonprofit.
In December 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued GCU, Grand Canyon Education (GCE), and Brian Mueller for “deceiving prospective doctoral students about the cost and course requirements of its doctoral programs and about being a nonprofit while also engaging in deceptive and abusive telemarketing practices.”
In a statement, GCU said it “categorically denies these unsubstantiated allegations and will take all measures necessary to refute them.”
RELATED: Christian University ‘Deceived Students’ and Used ‘Abusive Telemarketing,’ Says FTC in Lawsuit
.jpg){kind=link}
, a private Christian university in Phoenix.){kind=link}