Grand Canyon University (GCU) is one of America's largest non-profit Christian universities, with close to 120,000 students online and on campus.
And the Biden administration hates it.
They hate it like Gollum hates hobbits.
It's that serious.
In a House Appropriations Committee meeting Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona vowed to shut GCU down.
Here's a transcript of the relevant part of that exchange with Congresswoman DeLauro.
"Last year, your Department took action against Grand Canyon University, a predatory for-profit college, over the school's failure to accurately disclose its cost to students, driving up the true cost for those students requiring for them to pay for continuation courses before they would graduate - scam courses added about $10,000 or more to the cost of education to these kids," DeLauro said.
"Going after predatory schools preying on first generation students. They have flashy marketing materials, but the product is not worth the paper it is printed on. Increased enforcement budget to go after these folks and crack down. Levied largest fine in history against a school that lied about costs and terminated a school from Title IV. We are cracking down not only to shut them down, but to send a message not to prey on students," Cardona responded.
Note the highlighted part from the congresswoman: "Predatory for-profit college."
You'd never guess from that language that GCU is a non-profit university. A fact that the Department of Education refuses to acknowledge. In 2021, GCU sued the department for refusing their legal non-profit status to participate in Title IV funding.
To be fair, GCU did briefly switch their status to being a for-profit school from 2004-2018 because of financial difficulties in 2004. However in 2018, they successfully and legally transitioned back to non-profit status. The IRS and Arizona state approved GCU's status as a non-profit, and they are the only entities legally able to make that determination.
However, the Department of Education doesn't care.
Have I mentioned that the Biden Administration hates GCU?
And it's not just the Department of Education. The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Veteran Affairs also refuse to acknowledge GCU's non-profit status.
Grand Canyon officials said,
By intentionally mis-classifying GCU as a for-profit institution for purposes of federal student aid, ED is now able to target the university as part of a coordinated effort … to ‘pursue the full range of sanctions' against for-profit institutions that they frequently decry as bad actors due to the disproportionate number of Americans who attended those schools and then defaulted on federal student loans.
Which brings us to the next issue: The fine.
The Department of Education levied a $37.7 million fine against GCU for "lying about costs." As Secretary Cardona proudly touts, it's the largest fine levied against a school in U.S. history for this issue.
The specific reason for the fine is that grad students often have to pay more for their doctorates than what is advertised by the school, often being forced to take extra classes for dissertation review and the like.
On a side note, I went to a state school while working on a PhD and had exactly the same issues. The requirements were constantly shifting: some classes no longer counted toward the degree, while new ones were added to the requirements, to the tune of thousands of dollars.
It was maddening.
But there is no attempt by the Department of Education to hold those institutions to account!
There must be something more going on than just not being forthcoming about requirements and costs.
Consider that the Biden Administration also just fined the largest Christian university, Liberty, $14 million for "failure to report crimes on campus," the largest fine ever levied for that issue too.
Liberty said in response,
"In the report, many of the Department's methodologies, findings, and calculations were drastically different from their historic treatment of other universities," the statement reads. "Liberty disagrees with this approach and maintains that we have repeatedly endured selective and unfair treatment by the Department."
In addition to being Christian, both of these universities have something else in common. Unlike their secular and state counterparts, they both have growing student populations during our baby bust.
Liberty University has the largest enrolled student population in history (158,000).
No wonder Biden's Education Department is upset.
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