Grand Canyon Education accused of racketeering scheme in new class action

Higher Ed Dive

Ben Unglesbee

June 13, 2024

Dive Brief:

• A company that provides educational and marketing services to Grand Canyon University was hit with a class action lawsuit Wednesday alleging that it orchestrated a racketeering scheme pushing students to enroll in Ph.D. programs at the large Christian institution by lying about the costs of a degree.

• The plaintiffs, a current Ph.D. student and a former one, said they paid thousands of dollars beyond those advertised in Grand Canyon University’s marketing materials and communications.

• A spokesperson for the company, Grand Canyon Education, or GCE, forwarded a request for comment to Grand Canyon University. In a written statement, the university, which is not named as a defendant, called the lawsuit’s allegations “completely without merit” and “focused on practices that are prevalent in higher education.”

Dive Insight:

At the heart of the lawsuit, filed by law firm DiCello Levitt and the group National Student Legal Defense Network on behalf of the plaintiffs, is the allegation that “GCE lied about doctoral program costs — repeatedly and persistently — to students.”

The plaintiffs allege that company executives were aware of “artificial bottlenecks” in the dissertation process that meant students had to take more credits than the 60 that were frequently advertised as needed to graduate. Those include what the complaint describes as “Byzantine review procedures that prevent doctoral students from communicating directly with key dissertation reviewers.”

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