Recently, the White House administration, led by President Joe Biden, has slapped an extraordinary fine on Grand Canyon University (GCU). GCU is one of the nation’s major Christian universities.

The Biden administration has accused the private college of misrepresenting university prices. Further resulting in an imposed $37.7 million punishment.

GCU has long touted itself as one of the largest private Christian colleges in the United States. Furthermore, the university has also maintained its goal of providing reasonable tuition to students. This goal has mostly been kept.

Despite a tremendous increase in enrollment, with a student body currently nearing 10,000, Grand Canyon University made sure to keep tuition affordable for all students.

According to the Biden administration, Grand Canyon University has allegedly misrepresented its efforts to keep tuition fees low. It further claims that the college has not fairly communicated what exactly it provides. It also failed to let students know what they can expect in terms of tuition costs.

The result of the alleged misrepresentation was a $37.7 million charge on the school. This was imposed on the school by the Biden administration and the Department of Education.

The Department of Education has revealed that GCU marketed a certain tuition amount for PhD candidates who enrolled at the university.

However, this marketing was proved to be false,. The government discovered that most doctoral students who graduated from GCU between 2017 and 2022 paid much more tuition. In most situations, these students paid between $10,000 and $12,000 more than GCU originally advertised.

Also, GCU misrepresented the tuition costs for PhD candidates. After they began their studies at GCU, students soon realized that they would have to pay additional fees for “continuation courses”. This resulted in higher overall costs.

These doctoral students were unable to complete their dissertation requirements without taking these additional courses.

According to Richard Cordray, the Chief Operating Officer of the Federal Student Aid Office, GCU’s dishonesty has negatively impacted the students.

According to him, GCU falsified material in order to attract more doctoral students to their programs.

GCU has refuted all of the allegations and plans to appeal the government penalties.

In an email sent to CNN, GCU stated, “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.

GCU has also stated that they are “unjustly” targeted by the federal government. According to them, the government’s actions are retaliatory in response to a recent lawsuit brought by GCU against it.

This lawsuit came to be because the government designated the university as a for-profit college rather than a charity. GCU then sued the government over this categorization. Shortly after that, the current fine was imposed.

The government authorities have denied GCU’s allegations. Nonetheless, many critics of the Biden administration have relied on this story.

Because of this, there has been heightened discussion in conservative circles regarding the Biden administration’s imposition of a fine on GCU. Some see it as evidence that the administration is unfairly targeting the college.

Some people believe that the Biden administration is targeting GCU because it is a successful private Christian college.

They claim that the government disagrees with the college’s operations and would rather that it fit more closely with what they believe to be the practices of “liberal universities.”

They also say that GCU is being unfairly singled out, especially when compared to other universities accused of failing to safeguard students.

For example, Penn State University was penalized merely $2.4 million for neglecting to report the crimes of coach Jerry Sandusky.

Penn State isn’t the only example one could use, however. A similar comparison could be made between GCU’s fine and Michigan State University’s fine.

They pointed out that Michigan State University was fined only $4.5 million for failing to investigate complaints against team doctor Larry Nassar. This amount is much less than GCU’s penalties of $37.7 million. This further raises concerns about unequal treatment by the authorities.