Grand Canyon College (GCU), the nation’s largest Christian college, has been hit with a file advantageous of $37.7 million by the federal authorities that alleges the establishment misled over 7,500 college students in regards to the prices related to its graduate applications, the Division of Schooling (DOE) introduced on Tuesday.
“GCU lied about the price of its doctoral applications to draw college students to enroll,” stated Federal Scholar Assist (FSA) COO Richard Cordray within the launch. “FSA takes its oversight duties severely. GCU’s lies harmed college students, broke their belief, and led to unexpectedly excessive ranges of pupil debt.”
Situated in Phoenix, Arizona, GCU has a pupil physique of over 100,000 college students.
The FSA investigation discovered that since 2017, GCU had been misinforming college students in regards to the prices of their doctoral applications, promoting bills between $40,000 and $49,000. Nonetheless, lower than 2% of graduates managed to finish the applications inside the marketed prices. Extra bills, primarily for “continuation programs,” had been crucial for almost all of graduates, resulting in a major enhance in tuition bills of roughly 25% in comparison with what GCU initially promoted.
GCU’s advantageous print disclosures had been deemed “inadequate to treatment the substantial misrepresentations concerning price,” and the college didn’t contest its dedication that 98% of scholars enrolled in sure doctoral applications paid greater than marketed, the DOE famous.
In response, Grand Canyon College refuted the accusations in a assertion on Tuesday and vowed to take all crucial steps to defend itself in opposition to the claims.
“Grand Canyon College categorically denies each accusation within the Division of Schooling’s assertion and can take all measures essential to defend itself from these false accusations,” GCU stated within the assertion.
GCU added that it believes it’s being “unjustly focused” because the nation’s largest Christian college and that people inside the authorities companies have used their positions “to assault establishments with whom they’re ideologically opposed.”
The DOE has imposed the $37.7 million advantageous, plus particular necessities for the college’s participation in federal pupil support applications, together with prohibiting additional misrepresentations in regards to the prices of their doctoral applications, oversight by a monitor, and obligatory reporting on authorized proceedings or investigations associated to accreditation or pending litigation.
