Grand Canyon University (GCU) is moving forward with plans to establish two new colleges focused on law and skilled trades as the university begins another record-breaking year.
GCU announced this week that it expects to serve approximately 141,000 students during the 2026-2027 academic year, representing a 6% increase from the previous year.
The university said the growth comes as it works to expand its academic offerings and respond to workforce demands in Arizona and across the country.
The planned College of Law and College of Construction and Industrial Technologies would become GCU’s 11th and 12th colleges.
“At a time when higher education is facing enormous disruption and uncertainty, GCU continues to grow because students and families are looking for something different,” said GCU President Brian Mueller. “They want a quality education grounded in Christian worldview principles that prepares them for a meaningful career, but they also want to be part of a community that helps them grow as people and understand the purpose behind their work.”
“Whether a student wants to become a lawyer, an engineer, an electrician, a nurse, a pastor, a teacher or a construction professional, we believe all work is sacred and has purpose,” he added.
A record 141,000 students are expected to delve into their studies at GCU in the 2026-27 academic year! GCU has also announced plans to establish the College of Law and the College of Construction and Industrial Technologies. Read more: https://t.co/I2vuoH5k5v
GCU is moving forward with plans to establish a College of Law that would incorporate a Christian worldview into its curriculum while emphasizing Constitutional law, free-market principles, and the rule of law.
The proposed law school has not yet received all of the necessary approvals. Its establishment remains subject to approval or accreditation from the Arizona Supreme Court justices, the Higher Learning Commission, the Arizona Board for Private Postsecondary Education, and the American Bar Association.
If those approvals are obtained, GCU said it would welcome its first law students as early as fall 2027 or spring 2028.
If the program ultimately receives American Bar Association accreditation, GCU would become the third ABA-accredited law school in Arizona, joining Arizona State University and the University of Arizona.
The university is currently conducting final interviews for the founding dean of the College of Law and expects to make a selection in the coming weeks.
“The legal profession plays a critical role in preserving the institutions and principles that make a free society possible,” Mueller said. “We believe there is an opportunity to create a law school that produces outstanding attorneys while also grounding students in a Christian worldview, a deep understanding of the Constitution and an appreciation for the principles of free markets, individual liberty and the rule of law.”
The proposed college would expand GCU’s focus beyond undergraduate education and provide students with a pathway into the legal profession while emphasizing service and leadership.
GCU is also preparing to launch its College of Construction and Industrial Technologies (CCIT), which will focus on workforce development and skilled trades.
The college is designed to offer multiple pathways into the workforce, ranging from short-term credentials and apprenticeships to bachelor’s degrees and eventually graduate-level education.
GCU said the goal is to allow students to enter the workforce after completing shorter-term programs and potentially return later to pursue additional education while already employed.
“For decades, students have been told they had to choose between college or the trades,” Mueller said. “CCIT is unique in that we offer both — an opportunity to experience life on a major college campus while also getting instruction specifically devoted to manufacturing, electrical work, micro-chip technology and construction. Those students might enter the workforce immediately after completing short-term credentials or an apprenticeship, then return later with a job in hand to pursue a four-year degree.”
The college will focus on fields including manufacturing, electrical work, microchip technology, and construction.
GCU mentioned it is working with companies including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Amkor, Lux Precision Manufacturing, Benchmark, and McCarthy Building Companies as part of its workforce-development efforts.
The partnerships are intended to help address labor shortages by combining academic instruction with hands-on technical training.
Mueller said Arizona’s continued growth in semiconductor manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, and construction has created demand for workers at multiple levels, including engineers, technicians, electricians, machinists, and construction professionals.
“Arizona is attracting billions of dollars in investment in advanced manufacturing, semiconductor production, construction and other industrial sectors,” Mueller said. “Those investments are creating significant demand not only for engineers and other professionals with four-year degrees, but also for thousands of highly skilled technicians, electricians, machinists, construction professionals and other tradespeople.”
The expansion comes as GCU prepares for another record enrollment year.
The university projects approximately 141,000 students for the 2026-27 academic year, including more than 24,000 students on its Phoenix campus and approximately 117,000 online students.
GCU said fully admissible students entering its Phoenix campus in 2025 had an average GPA of 3.6, while the Honors College reported an average weighted incoming GPA of 4.1.
The Honors College now has more than 3,400 students.
The university currently offers approximately 400 degrees, emphases, and certificates across 12 colleges.
As GCU expands its academic offerings, university officials said the two proposed colleges are intended to address different areas of eduction while supporting the same broader goal, preparing students for careers and encouraging them to contribute to their communities.
“America has historically been a nation of builders, and we want to help bring that back,” added Mueller. “These are high-skilled, in-demand, good-paying professions that can provide tremendous opportunities for students and their families while strengthening the communities and economy around them.”
Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
The Arizona Supreme Court will hear arguments Sept. 1 in Arizona State University (ASU) professor Owen Anderson’s effort to pursue a lawsuit alleging the school’s mandatory employee training violated state law. The law bars public employers from requiring training that assigns blame or judgment based on race, ethnicity, or sex.
The justices agreed to review whether the Arizona Court of Appeals should have applied factors established in a 1988 state Supreme Court decision before concluding that the law gives employees no implied private right to sue. The court’s review is limited to that enforcement question.
Anderson’s allegation that ASU violated the law remains unresolved. The Court of Appeals also did not decide whether the training’s contents violated the statute.
As AZ Free News reported in February, Anderson asked the high court to take the case after the Court of Appeals held in December that the statute supplied no private cause of action. His attorneys at the Goldwater Institute argued in their petition that the ruling departed from the method Arizona courts have used to determine whether lawmakers intended an implied remedy.
ASU forced a professor to take DEI training as a condition of employment.
ASU required employees to complete its “Inclusive Communities” module, one of three employee-training modules described in the Court of Appeals’ memorandum decision. According to Goldwater’s case materials, employees were instructed to repeat the training every two years, and Anderson viewed but did not complete the module or its accompanying quiz. The philosophy professor brought his lawsuit against the Arizona Board of Regents in 2024, alleging that the training presented race- and sex-based concepts prohibited by state law.
The statute bars the state and its political subdivisions from requiring employee training that presents “blame or judgment” based on race, ethnicity, or sex. It also prohibits the use of public money for such training and directs the Arizona Department of Administration to submit an annual compliance report to the governor and legislative leaders. The law exempts sexual harassment training from its restrictions.
“Ultimately, the question now before the Arizona Supreme Court isn’t a left or right issue—and it’s not just about DEI—it’s about whether a state employee has the right to hold their employer accountable when it violates the law,” Anderson said in a statement released by the Goldwater Institute.
In a statement to AZ Free News, Dr. Anderson added, “This case is now an employment case. ABOR/ASU is arguing a state employee does not have standing to hold them accountable for breaking § 41-1494. That means this is not a conservative vs. liberal issue. It is an employment issue that will affect all state employees going forward.”
A Maricopa County Superior Court judge denied the Board of Regents’ motion to dismiss Anderson’s statutory claim. The judge found that the Legislature had created an implied right for affected public employees to enforce the prohibition, despite the absence of an express authorization to sue. The Board then filed a special-action petition with the Court of Appeals, which accepted jurisdiction and vacated that portion of the trial court’s ruling.
The appellate panel concluded that the statute’s text contains neither an express nor an implied private right of action. It pointed to the statutory compliance reporting system and said a mandamus action could compel officials to submit the required reports. The panel left the superior court free to consider a separate request for equitable or declaratory relief if a proper party raises that issue on remand, according to the December decision
Goldwater’s petition for review argues that the appellate court should have applied the factors set out in Transamerica Financial Corp. v. Superior Court. Those factors include the statute’s context, language, subject matter, effects, consequences, spirit, and purpose. Goldwater contends that the law protects an identifiable group of public employees and that the reporting requirement does not give an employee a remedy after an alleged violation.
In its supplemental brief, the Board of Regents argues that the Court of Appeals correctly began with the statutory text. The Board says the provision prohibits specified government conduct without granting individuals a cause of action, and that the Legislature’s inclusion of a reporting system shows the enforcement approach it selected. It also points to express private remedies in surrounding statutes and argues that the Legislature deliberately left them out of § 41-1494.
Goldwater Vice President for Litigation Jon Riches said that lawmakers intended state employees to be able to challenge alleged violations in court.
“There is no doubt that when Arizona lawmakers banned mandatory DEI trainings for state workers, they intended for those workers to have ability to challenge their employers in court,” Riches said. “We’re now asking for the Arizona Supreme Court to correct the lower court’s error and restore Arizonans’ right to hold government agencies accountable when they violate the law.”
The hearing comes as Arizona voters prepare to consider Proposition 142 on the November ballot. The separate proposed constitutional amendment would expand the state’s prohibition on preferential treatment and restrict compelled support for race- or ethnicity-based preferential treatment in public education and employment, according to the official ballot language.
The Higley Unified School District (HUSD) community must choose between two candidates to fill a governing board vacancy, per a new court ruling.
The Maricopa County Superior Court ruled last week that voters must choose between two write-in candidates, Kathleen Richards and Travis White, who appear to have gotten special notice of a board vacancy after board member Scott Glover waited to file his resignation until July 20, 2026, the same day as the candidate filing deadline.
District policy requires board members to give resignation letter copies to the superintendent and the board prior to the effective resignation date. However, Glover not only waited until the morning of the candidate filing deadline to notify the superintendent, he waited until one minute before the candidate filing deadline to notify his fellow board members of his resignation.
Approximately two hours after Glover filed his resignation letter, Richards and White arrived at the superintendent’s office to file as write-in candidates for the vacancy.
Maricopa County School Superintendent Shelli Boggs decided to fill the vacancy through appointment, rather than election, given the timing of the write-in filings.
“Because the seat was not otherwise scheduled to appear on the 2026 ballot, the timing of the vacancy created an extraordinary situation: few who knew about the vacancy had a narrow window to file for the seat, while the broader Higley community had no opportunity to learn that the seat was even available,” stated the county superintendent’s office.
A week later, White sued Boggs to force an election in which only he and Richards would be the eligible candidates.
Since Richards and White were the only individuals to file prior to the deadline, only those votes with their names will count.
Richards is a private music and substitute teacher who has previously run for the board, and has served on the HUSD Citizen’s Committee.
White is the director and deputy chief information security officer for Shutterfly. Federal Elections Commission records only reflect a few small donations to Democrats in recent years: Sen. Bernie Sander’s 2020 presidential campaign and former congressman Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 Senate campaign.
Although school boards are nonpartisan, the two write-in candidates have hinted at their political affiliations.
Last January, Richards stated in a Facebook post that supporters of President Donald Trump and those not actively protesting his administration don’t deserve to live.
“We have a president who wants to rewrite the history that is taught to our students so that it makes cis white men more palatable,” said Richards. “If you have been able to sit for the last two weeks and be quiet, I question your morality, your humanity, and your place in this world sharing oxygen with those of us who will go to that for the marginalized in our communities.”
In a May board meeting, White defended the independence of teachers and said that student proficiency wasn’t as low as portrayals of data would indicate.
“To suggest that our teachers just teach what they were hired to teach without evolving is a recipe for stagnation. When a teacher finds an amazing tool at a conference, they don’t go rogue, they bring it to their leadership because they’re professionals who care about student achievement,” said White.
White said the district’s “A” rating nullified the low proficiency rates in math and English Language Arts: 61% and 55%, respectively.
“It’s one thing to have a different vision for our schools. It’s quite another to manufacture a crisis using alternative facts. When it’s claimed that 50% of our students are not proficient, it isn’t just misrepresenting a spreadsheet, it’s actively disparaging the hard work of our teachers and the achievements of our children,” said White.
Richards and White volunteered together on Yes for Higley Schools, a nonprofit political action committee urging a favorable vote on an override for HUSD. Voters rejected the override.
Boggs justified her decision to seek appointment over election to fill Glover’s vacancy in a post-court ruling press release issued on Friday.
Boggs implied that the two candidates had enjoyed special access to information that inherently deprived the Higley community the proper opportunity to access the ballot.
“I was not willing to simply look the other way when the circumstances gave a small number of people an opportunity that thousands of other Higley residents did not even know existed,” said Boggs. “I acted because I believe every qualified member of that community deserved a fair and meaningful opportunity to be considered for the seat.”
The timing of the resignation has led some community members to suspect that Glover’s departure was intentionally timed to wrest control of the board.
Board member Anna Van Hoek echoed those speculations.
“Nothing says defending democracy quite like secretly coordinating with a sitting Board member while denying everyone else in the community an equal opportunity to compete for the seat,” said Van Hoek.
However, board president Amanda Wade disputed the claims.
Wade did express frustration with Glover’s failure to follow board policy on resignations and his decision to wait until the day of the candidate filing deadline, but denied that his tardiness and lack of communication were part of an intentional political maneuver.
“Mr. Glover’s actions and decisions he made in this resignation process are his alone,” said Wade. “I do have a hard time with a sitting board member recklessly implying actions made by the district, Higley Educators Association [sic], and other board members because they are unhappy with choices Mr. Glover made.”
AZ Free News is your #1 source for Arizona news and politics. You can send us news tips using this link.
The University of Arizona and Gila River Health Care have announced a long-term partnership to establish what the university says will be the nation’s first MD-granting medical school branch located on the lands of a sovereign Tribal Nation.
The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix Regional Medical Branch will operate in Sacaton within the Gila River Indian Community and place medical students inside the community’s tribally operated healthcare system for part of their training.
Beginning in July 2027, the branch will admit 10 students each year to the College of Medicine – Phoenix’s three-year Primary Care Accelerated Program. Students will complete the first 18 months of their medical education in Phoenix before moving to Sacaton for another 18 months of clinical education.
Gila River Health Care will provide full-tuition scholarships to participating students and has committed more than $25 million through 2034 for scholarships, faculty positions, and educational infrastructure supporting the branch.
U.S. Reps. Eli Crane (R-AZ-02) and Greg Stanton (D-AZ-04) joined Gila River Indian Community, university, and healthcare officials at Tuesday’s announcement.
Crane praised the agreement Wednesday, saying the partnership would strengthen healthcare in his district.
“It was great to visit the Gila River Indian Community yesterday with @RepGregStanton to celebrate an important agreement between @uarizona and @Gilariverhealth,” Crane wrote. “This partnership will strengthen healthcare in #AZ02 for years to come.”
It was great to visit the Gila River Indian Community yesterday with @RepGregStanton to celebrate an important agreement between @uarizona and @Gilariverhealth.
This partnership will strengthen healthcare in #AZ02 for years to come.
The program is intended to increase the number of physicians working in tribal, rural, and medically underserved communities, where officials say recruiting and retaining healthcare professionals has remained difficult. The University of Arizona said Arizona ranks 42nd nationally for primary care access and cited projections from the Association of American Medical Colleges that the United States could face a shortage of as many as 86,000 physicians by 2036.
University President Suresh Garimella said the program combines accelerated medical education, scholarships, and potential residency opportunities aimed at keeping physicians in the communities where they train.
“Tribal and rural communities have some of the nation’s greatest unmet primary care needs,” Garimella said. “This partnership to establish the country’s first medical school branch within a Tribal Nation will train physicians through an accelerated three-year MD program, support them with full scholarships to free them of debt burden and provide residency opportunities that anchor them to the places and patients they know. That is how you build a physician workforce that remains in the communities that need them most.”
Gila River Indian Community Gov. Stephen Roe Lewis said the program could allow members of the community interested in medicine to pursue careers closer to home.
“For too long, many of our young people who dreamed of becoming doctors had to leave home to pursue that goal,” Lewis said. “This partnership with the University of Arizona changes that. It gives them the opportunity to learn, train and build their careers right here in the Community, where they can make a real difference for the people they serve.”
Students will work under faculty supervision across multiple clinical settings within Gila River Health Care while learning about historical, cultural, and social factors affecting healthcare in Native communities. Officials are also exploring the development of primary care residency programs within Gila River Health Care in an effort to retain graduates in underserved communities.
Dr. Fredric Wondisford, dean of the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, told Arizona’s Family that patients in some rural communities can face drives of two to three hours to obtain healthcare.
“The tribal community has unique ways of viewing Western medicine, all of which requires students to be in that community to learn about the community,” Wondisford said. “If they don’t learn about the community, they’re not really going to reach their patients, and they’re not really going to deliver good healthcare.”
Gila River Health Care Board Chairman Robert Pablo said rural healthcare facilities continue to face difficulties attracting trained medical professionals.
“There’s a real challenge for rural health hospitals to recruit trained professionals to come and work in their communities,” Pablo said. “We are very fortunate to launch this first-of-its-kind partnership between Gila River Health Care and the University of Arizona, which will establish a starting ground for these young doctors to jumpstart their careers.”
The Gila River initiative follows another community-based medical education partnership announced by the University of Arizona with Onvida Health in Yuma last year.
The Gila River medical school branch is scheduled to enroll its first 10 students in July 2027.
Arizona’s state-sponsored education savings program has reached a record $3.2 billion in managed assets, with the Arizona Treasurer’s Office reporting a 96.9 percent increase since Treasurer Kimberly Yee assumed administration of the plan in October 2020.
The Arizona Treasurer’s Office announced Tuesday that the AZ529 Education Savings Plan has also added 74,995 new accounts during the 69 months it has operated under Yee’s administration.
The latest figures represent continued growth from the beginning of the year. In January, the Treasurer’s Office reported that the plan held $2.87 billion in assets and had added 63,586 accounts since its transfer to the office. The new figures represent approximately $330 million in additional assets and another 11,409 accounts compared with those totals.
Under the leadership of Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee, the @AZ_529 Education Savings Plan has increased assets under management by 96.9% to a new record high of $3.2 billion after 69 months of operation with 74,995 new accounts. | @AZTreasurerYeepic.twitter.com/mPXFB7rDQJ
— Office of the Arizona State Treasurer (@AZTreasury) August 18, 2026
AZ529 came under the administration of the Treasurer’s Office on Oct. 1, 2020, after then-Gov. Doug Ducey signed SB 1528, transferring administration of the program from the Arizona Commission for Postsecondary Education to the State Treasurer and establishing the State Board of Investment as trustee. The plan itself was created by the Legislature in 1997 and launched in 1999.
Two years after the transfer, the Treasurer’s Office reported that the plan had added 22,326 accounts and held approximately $1.67 billion in assets. At that time, assets had increased 3.1 percent since the Treasury took control of the program.
By January 2026, assets had risen 76.7 percent from the October 2020 level to $2.87 billion. The Treasurer’s Office said at the time that 63,586 new accounts had been opened during the first 63 months of Treasury administration.
The program allows parents, grandparents, and other account owners to invest money for a beneficiary’s education through tax-advantaged accounts. Funds may be used for qualified expenses including college and university costs, community college, vocational and trade programs, registered apprenticeships, and certain other educational expenses.
Arizona taxpayers may deduct contributions made to any qualifying state 529 plan from state taxable income, up to $2,000 per beneficiary for single filers and heads of household and $4,000 per beneficiary for married couples filing jointly. Earnings grow tax-free, while qualified withdrawals are exempt from federal and Arizona income taxes.
Families can begin saving with as little as $15 per month, depending on the plan provider. The program currently offers a direct-sold plan through Fidelity Investments and an advisor-sold plan through Goldman Sachs.
Federal changes have also expanded the ways some unused 529 funds can be handled. AZ529 beneficiaries may roll qualifying unused funds into the beneficiary’s Roth IRA, subject to federal requirements and a $35,000 lifetime limit.
The plan has received national recognition during its growth. In January, the Treasurer’s Office announced that Forbes named AZ529 one of six plans selected from 70 evaluated for its 2026 list. The program has also received a Silver rating from Morningstar for 2023, 2024, and 2025.
Yee, who is running for Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction and serving her final year as state treasurer, has made expansion of the 529 program and financial-literacy outreach part of her office’s priorities. In her 2025 accomplishments report, the Treasurer’s Office said its outreach included communities across Arizona’s 15 counties, along with Spanish and Navajo-language materials promoting the education savings program.
Teachers’ union activists were once again dealt a serious blow after the Arizona Supreme Court issued an order effectively removing an initiative from the ballot that aimed to undo the state’s universal school choice program.
Nearly four years ago to date, a similar initiative was removed from the ballot for failing to have the required number of signatures. Katie Hobbs, secretary of the state at the time and now the governor, held out on invalidating the ballot initiative.
The court’s order to recalculate the signature totals using the trial court’s formula, issued on Tuesday, is projected to have brought Proposition 212, the Protect Education Act, below the required signature total following a legal challenge filed by the Goldwater Institute in Clark v. Fontes.
Protect Education Accountability Now, the political action committee (PAC) behind the Protect Education Act, confirmed that the Arizona Supreme Court order meant their initiative would not qualify for the ballot.
The PAC blamed “big money in partnership with Republican lawmakers and the anti-public education lobby” for the initiative’s demise.
A spokesperson for the PAC stated that the initiative should have been included on the ballot regardless of the invalid signatures.
“This does not reflect what Arizona voters want. It does not reflect the overwhelming support of educators, parents and public school advocates across the state who volunteered their time and demanded a voice in reforming a program that abused taxpayer money and pulled funding from their neighborhood public schools,” said the spokesperson. “Instead, the hard-earned resources educators raised to fund this were buried under a mountain of big money, political power, and a system that consistently sides with special interests.”
— Protect Education Ballot Initiative (@ProtectEdAct) August 18, 2026
Activists submitted around 420,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot. Pending a review incited by the Goldwater Institute’s court challenge, the number of valid signatures will fall to a projected total of approximately 245,000. The initiative needed approximately 256,000 to qualify for the ballot.
Nearly 70,000 signatures were invalidated due to their discovery as duplicates or having been collected by legally ineligible circulators, like felons. The court also upheld the trial court ruling which invalidated entire sheets of signatures due to the petition circulator providing an address at which they weren’t living.
The ballot measure would have rolled back the universality of the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program by imposing an income cap.
The union-backed Protect Education Act appears to have fallen short of the valid signatures needed to make the November ballot.
In this special Keep Arizona Free Update with @Darla4freedom:
➡️ The campaign submitted roughly between 416,000-421,000 signatures, but after trial… pic.twitter.com/l7886cgtT9
The court also agreed with a lower court ruling that the ballot language drafted by Secretary of State Adrian Fontes was false and misleading because it used the term “voucher” to describe the ESA program. Vouchers must be spent immediately and only at certain approved schools, whereas ESA program funds may be rolled over and applied to various schooling types and educational resources.
The PAC behind this second failed initiative to end universal school choice raised more than $7.5 million and spent more than $7.2 million.
More than $6.5 million, or 87%, came from the National Education Association. $810,000, or nearly 11%, came from the Arizona Education Association.
Other major donors included $50,000 from the United Food and Commercial Workers Active Ballot Club, the PAC of a D.C.-based union; and $50,000 from Arizonans for Quality Education, a corporation or LLC based in Phoenix.
The latter entity was formerly known as Friends of ASBA, with ASBA standing for the Arizona School Boards Association, and was registered as a domestic nonprofit corporation, according to Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) records.
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