The U.S. Department of Education’s historic fines for Grand Canyon University (GCU), a Christian university in Phoenix, Arizona, have been dropped, according to the facility.
GCU president Brian Mueller told CBN News on Tuesday that he believed the government was unfairly targeting his school and told him the layoff of a massive $37.7 million fine as a victory.
The Ministry of Education confirmed its decision to CBN News. The spokesman pledged to “not persecute or prosecute universities or universities based on their religious affiliation,” and accused the previous administration of doing so.
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It was a moment that has fought back and forth with the Department of Education for years, and the Biden administration has taken what Mueller regarded as an offensive approach.
“This all started six years ago and we reverted to non-profit status, including the authorized (Internal Revenue Service) and the expertise to do so,” he said. “And we tried to work with the (educational) department because everyone else approved our nonprofit status, which was important for many reasons for the university.”
How did the problem begin?
Mueller said he was forced to file a complaint when GCU was not moving forward to the Ministry of Education.
“After we filed a complaint, they began retaliation and launched five different investigations that cost millions of dollars, literally (they have),” he said. “They looked at thousands, thousands, thousands of documents and finally centered on “I think they misunderstood doctoral students and misunderstood them to get a degree.” ”
Mueller argued that there was nothing evil or misleading surrounding the doctoral program, and that GCU refused to pay the fine.
“Obviously we’re not going to accept that,” he said. “They not only said we misled them, they also fined US$37 million, the largest fine in the Department of Education history. We said we were not in the mood to negotiate that penny.”
Mueller continued. “We don’t even pay the amount because it’s not only not true, but the opposite is true.”
A fresh look
He said the Trump administration “deemed the fines and the incident “fresh,” while the Department of Education believes “there is absolutely no substantial evidence that GCU misinterpreted the students.”
“They reversed the decision, and it was clearly a big victory for us,” Mueller said. “We’re not surprised by that. We thought it was going to happen, but we’re grateful that it happened.”
After that victory, Mueller said the IRS conducted an additional audit of GCU’s nonprofit status, finding everything was orderly, marking another “big victory” for the school.
When asked if he believed that the massive fine he was in the distance was motivated by anti-religious or political bias, Mueller replied that he “absolutely” believes it.
“There’s no other big reason for the incredible attacks they imposed,” he said.
Anyway, Mueller believes that the GCU serves God and supports the progress of truth. And he looks forward to a future in which the school can help serve God and his kingdom.
“We know that God is doing real things here to promote his kingdom, and we didn’t allow anyone to get in the way,” he said. “We are used by God to promote His purpose.”
Ministry of Education’s response
Ellen Keist, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education, confirmed that the fines have been withdrawn in a statement to CBN News and that he has pledged to stop the department’s suspected practice of targeting religious schools.
“Unlike previous administrations, we will not persecute or prosecute universities or universities based on their religious affiliation,” Keyst said. “The Trump administration continues to ensure that all institutions of higher education are factually responsible, but enforcement of the (educational) department is not about political bias, but rather about serving students.”
This is a spectacular reversal from actions and comments that came from the same division during the Biden era. As CBN News previously reported, former Education Secretary Miguel Cardona reportedly sworn GCU to Shutter.
Cardona commented at a House Approximately Expenditure Committee hearing on April 10, 2024 that the Biden administration “not only shutting down them, but also sending a message to not prey on students.”
The GCU, in a statement delivered to CBN News at the time, called Cardona’s statement “intrusive and slanderous.”
More on the roots of the battle
The university created headlines on the conflict in the fall of 2023. The Department of Education has fined the school a historic $37.7 million for the aforementioned claims in which students were misunderstood about the costs of their doctoral studies.
Despite the GCU denying these claims, the verdict accuses the decision of its pledge to not pay refusally. He said the fine was “the biggest in history for a school that lied about the cost and ended schools from Title IV.”
A press release from the Ministry of Education in October 2023 provided details on these claims.
The U.S. Department of Education (Department) Federal Student Aid Agency (FSA) today announced a $37.7 million fine against Grand Canyon University (GCU). A FSA investigation has revealed that over several years, GCU has lied to more than 7,500 former and current students about the cost of a doctoral program. GCU mistakenly touted the lower costs than what 98% of students ended up paying to complete a particular doctoral program.
See previous interviews where Mueller tackled these issues further.
GCU’s past struggles before they find success
Mueller shares how some of the past issues at GCU led to a slightly roller coaster before landing on the school’s current success.
“This all started 14 years ago… (when) the Grand Canyon was in a very difficult place,” he said. The school building is aging and the facility is in debt in millions of dollars, he said. “We switched from a nonprofit to for-profit status and went to the open market to access capital.”
Mueller continues, “We wanted civilian Christian higher education to be affordable for Americans of all socioeconomic classes, and this plan worked better than we thought.”
Just 10 years later, GCU is now in a “very good place” and said the campus is “growing like crazy.”
With previous issues being improved, GCU wanted to return to non-profit status.
“We thought it would be best for (we) doing it for the heritage of the facility,” he said. “We’ve been going through the process and the IRS has the authority to do the job and they do that and say, “The operations you set up are qualified as nonprofits and legally empowered to operate as nonprofits.” And Arizona strengthened it. ”
However, Mueller said the GCU has discovered that the Department of Education does not intend to recognize the restored non-commercial disease status. After being reported to have tried to work with the government for four years, he said the GCU has not made any progress. That’s when GCU filed a complaint.
Refusing to recognize GCU’s non-commercial status
One of the Ministry of Education’s reported obsession points was a university that was sold to a for-profit organization called Grand Canyon Education (GCE) during early trouble.
The school’s board reportedly created a new entity, “New GCU,” to lead the process of buying back the university and running it again as a nonprofit.
The lasting agreement between New GCU and Grand GCE appears to have caused some kind of surprise as the continuing agreement between the for-profit organization GCE is going to GCE for marketing, accounting and other necessary services.
Education officials say the contract works in for-profit capacity, but school officials said this type of arrangement is common in the education sector.
There’s yet another twist. As Forbes reported, the Department of Education’s refusal to grant GCU’s nonprofit status, although now improved, was under the term of former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who served under the first Trump administration.
In a 2019 letter, the government wrote that the authorities believe that the main purpose of the status conversion is to “achieve shareholder value in GCE, and that GCU is potentially permanent as a prisoner’s client.”
In the end, the problem was resolved. For more information about past history, please see here.
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