By Corinne Murdock |

Grand Canyon University (GCU) is appealing the $37.7 million fine issued by the Department of Education (ED) for allegedly advertising false degree costs. 

GCU maintains ED targeted their institution over ideological differences, not the public allegations of misrepresented doctoral program costs. GCU is a private Christian university.

In a press release on Thursday, GCU President Brian Mueller said that thousands of students, parents, employees, alumni, and community stakeholders felt ED was behaving tyrannically and had been weaponized against them. 

“American people are losing confidence in the federal government to be fair and objective in their operations and there are clearly no checks and balances to prevent this type of behavior from the Department of Education, which is out of control and continues to broaden its authority and selective enforcement powers,” said Mueller.

ED announced its fine against GCU on Halloween. The agency accused the institution of deceiving over 7,500 doctoral students since 2017 — 98 percent of students reviewed — into paying more than advertised. ED said that GCU’s advertised cost of $40,000 to $49,000 amounted to false claims that violated the Higher Education Act, federal regulations on substantial misrepresentations, and Title IV’s fiduciary standard. 

ED said that 78 percent of GCU’s doctoral program graduates paid $10,000 to $12,000 more in tuition costs for continuation courses to complete their dissertation requirements. The agency declared that GCU’s various fine print disclosures given to students were “insufficient to cure the substantial misrepresentations regarding cost.” 

In addition to the fine, ED issued five conditions for GCU to meet: give prospective or current doctoral students the average total tuition and fees paid by graduates and the maximum number of credits that a student can take that are eligible for Title IV funds, and engage a monitor to oversee compliance; issue quarterly reports to ED about investigations, actions, or other legal proceedings by its accrediting agency or any government agency, as well as pending litigation in which a plaintiff seeks class certification; send a notice to all currently enrolled doctoral students informing them how to use ED’s feedback center to submit a complaint to ED; and send a notice to all current employees who provide recruiting, admissions, and other services to doctoral students about how to use the Federal Student Aid Tips line to submit information about misconduct or violations. 

As AZ Free News reported previously, the ED investigation began after GCU challenged ED’s rejection of GCU’s nonprofit status by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2019. After several years of attempting to overcome ED’s denial, GCU sued in 2021. Following that, ED announced a coordinated effort with the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Veterans Affairs to investigate GCU for unfair or deceptive practices.

As part of GCU’s appeal, Mueller maintained that GCU doesn’t mislead or deceive its students. Mueller cited his institution’s favorable federal court rulings in Young v. GCU, in which two courts rejected claims of misrepresentation regarding the time or cost for doctoral program completion. 

Mueller also cited a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report from last November, which determined that 91 percent of colleges mislead or understate the net price of financial aid to prospective students. 

Additionally, GCU noted that it has undertaken its own preliminary internal study of doctoral program costs at 100 other universities. The university claimed that only two percent of those universities disclose full costs, 51 percent failed to clearly or fully disclose anything about the need for additional courses to complete a dissertation, and 45 percent made statements that a doctoral degree could be earned in a set number of years despite the varying length of time needed to complete a dissertation. 

Mueller said that there was little incentive for their university to deceive doctoral program students, since it was their smallest degree program containing less than five percent of students. He pointed out that GCU hasn’t raised its tuition in 15 years. 

“If our goal was to generate more revenue, rather than allegedly deceive students we could simply increase tuition three to four percent a year for a few years — as most universities have done — and no one would bat an eye,” said Mueller. “We haven’t done that. In fact, we have frozen tuition on our ground campus for 15 straight years because our innovative approach to managing this university, which the Department objects to, has allowed us to do that for the benefit of our students.”

Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.