GCU categorically refutes Department of Education’s lies and deceptive statements
October 31, 2023
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.
The Department’s decision to fine Grand Canyon University $37.7 million and impose conditions on its program participation agreement confirms what we previously outlined in this detailed statement and is further evidence of the coordinated and unjust actions the federal government is taking against the largest Christian university in the country.
The Department’s actions today are not validated by either the federal court system, which has already ruled in GCU’s favor in a similar matter at both the district and appellate court levels in Young v GCU, or other regulatory agencies that spend many days on our campus reviewing the robust and transparent disclosures the University provides its students. Specific to the Young case, the courts rejected the claim that GCU’s disclosures of doctoral program requirements misrepresented the time or cost it would take a student to complete a doctoral program, and it found the net impression of GCU’s many disclosures make clear the cost to complete the program. Contrary to the Department’s assertion that these are “fine print” disclosures, GCU makes clear in the most prominent place it provides financial disclosures for academic programs – its Degree Program Calculator (see pdf image in original statement) – that there can be continuation courses, and the costs associated with those, in doctoral programs in order to complete the dissertation process. GCU’s disclosure is in full-size red type and placed above the Degree Program Calculator calculation in order to bring attention to it. Continuation courses are common in higher education doctoral programs in addition to the total cost of the required 60 credits. In fact, we believe our disclosures related to continuation courses are more extensive than other universities, yet only GCU is being targeted by the Department.
