Grand Canyon University, a for-profit Christian university, is being fined $37.7 million by the U.S. Education Department for falsifying the costs of its doctoral programs.
According to the agency, Grand Canyon University informed students that it would cost between $40,000 and $49,000 to enroll in the doctoral program. That was meant to cover 60 credit hours and the tuition. Nonetheless, 98% of PhD candidates required more than 60 credit hours to graduate, according to the department.
According to the Education Department, 78% of Grand Canyon doctorate recipients required five or six three-credit courses between 2017 and 2022. That added $10,000 to $12,000, and occasionally even more, to the cost.
“Almost no students are able to complete their doctoral program within the represented number of credits,” the department stated.
Many times, students were not eligible for federal financial aid for those extra classes.
In a letter dated Tuesday, the Education Department informed university President Brian Mueller of the fine. It stated that the college can ask for a hearing and challenge the fine until November 20.
Grand Canyon University referred to the government’s claims as “lies” and “deceptive” in an email statement sent to NBC News.
“Grand Canyon University categorically denies every accusation in the Department of Education’s statement and will take all measures necessary to defend itself from these false accusations,” it stated.
With over 100,000 students, the majority of whom attend online, the Phoenix-based college is the largest for-profit institution in the nation by enrollment. It has been awarded over $1.1 billion in federal funding under Title VI of the Higher Education Act, mostly for its bachelor’s degree programs. More than any other participating school, that was.
7,547 students enrolled in its doctoral programs between November 1, 2018, and October 19, 2023, according to the Education Department. The school is being fined $5,000 by the government for misleading each of those students.
Grand Canyon is subject to stricter regulations than not-for-profit colleges because the Department of Education views it as a for-profit institution for the purposes of federal student aid. The IRS views Grand Canyon as a nonprofit for tax purposes, while the university contests the for-profit designation.
The letter to Mueller claims that Grand Canyon University rarely disclosed to students the possibility that they would need to take additional courses in order to complete their doctorates; when it did, it frequently did so in small print or within lengthy documents, and those infrequent disclosures did not address the university’s other misrepresentations or provide an explanation for the additional course costs.
