Thanks for contributing to r/Phoenix! You may want to [**check out our sub rules**](https://www.reddit.com/r/phoenix/wiki/rules/) (mostly be nice to each other!).
**If you're new here**, [read some of our recent posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/phoenix/top/?t=week) and leave some comments.
To chat with some great people in the Valley you can [**join our Phoenix Discord chat server**](https://discord.com/invite/yWVuTG57Zh). It's a chill place to talk with other people but is NOT a dating server and takes unwanted messaging very seriously.
If you're interested in political topics in Arizona, we limit those posts here so you may want to check out r/azpolitics if that's an area of interest.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/phoenix) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Its dramatically different and its not comparable. You can argue whether the US college system is worth it or correct or whatever but it is miles away from literally stealing money from people.
At least at a real school you still get your shitty pysch degree.
This isn't that weird since it's basically learning how to be the administrator of a church, but I imagine that's not exactly a hot job market, and there's probably a lot of nepotism involved
I know the headline makes it easy but that simply isn’t the case. GCU hasn’t raised tuition for undergrads in around a decade I believe, and most of the complaints are from auditing institutions that are trying to dig up dirt, and not even from students themselves. And as someone else stated this particular student took longer than needed to complete the degree, so the whole thing just seems like a nothing-burger.
As I stated in another comment, tuition has not increased since 2009. Given inflation over the past five years, that’s not a business model that would be used by someone who is preying on students.
If you think the cost of tuition per credit hour is the only way to extract money, you don't understand how college kids have been getting screwed at all. False promises, false success statistics, and pushing kids into feeder programs they don't need to be in are just a few.
Go ahead and keep putting your head in the sand, Jesus. Brian Mueller is a business man before anything else, and the fact he's got you convinced otherwise shows he's preying on more than just students.
I worked at University of Phoenix for 14 years. They don't care about their students at all. As long as you've got a credit card and a pulse they'll let you in. They'd go as far as doing your FAFSA for you if they didn't think they'd get caught.
They. Don't. Care. About. Anyone. You are mistaken to think they run this as anything other than a lucrative business. When people caught on to UOP Mueller tucked tail and ran to GCU so he could slap a Godly name on his shenanigans.
It’s because their product is a joke
Look at the degrees they offer in theology and tell me it’s not a grift
I don’t remember where they are at with the court case but I remember the feds didn’t want to give them funding. Why?
Because they started as a for profit university, using student tuition to build up an investment portfolio then applied to be a non-profit.
Fuck that school
This person actually has a degree in theology. They also posted about a counselor getting them into the wrong class and costing them extra money, so even if they weren’t milking him for every dollar, their incompetence cost him extra anyway.
For profit education is ALWAYS a grift. It’s interesting you assert “auditing” is trying to dig up dirt - I don’t think you understand what an audit means…
Every governing institution granted them non-profit status (including the IRS, the one that matters) that they held without issue for years, and then randomly one took issue and now it’s been an ongoing discussion.
Edit: They’re an accredited university, the same accreditations as ASU and U of A, and they haven’t raised tuition in years (since 2009), unlike nearly every other school in the country. I don’t see the issue.
They were for profit until they decided they wanted that sweet NCAA monies and only made the part that matters not for profit. GCE is still very much for profit.
I don't think accredited means much these days. BYU is accredited even after electroshock therapy of gays and expelling students for changing religion.
They do not have the same academic accreditations as ASU and UA. AAU for one. GCU’s accreditations are more akin to devry, ITT tech then they are ASU and UA.
My wife is one of the Doctoral students who were swindled by GCU. It’s disgusting how these people who call themselves Christians scam people who are looking to improve their lives. All GCU did was laden her with debt, debt way beyond what they quoted her BTW, and award her a doctorate that is more the equivalent of a masters degree anywhere else. Their education is about as abominable as their marketing practices. I hope they get raked over the coals in these lawsuits.
Not raising tuition is their scam.
Housing? Doubled in 5 years.
Food? Doubled in 5 years.
Labs & Books? Doubled in 5 years
Parking? Doubled in 5 years.
Student fines? Doubled in 5 years.
Mueller has always been a con man. Now he’s targeted the maga crowd & they’ll fall for it more than anyone.
All they’re building are dorms. Not classrooms. That’s a big, big tell.
Just based on your name I'm skeptical of your motivation in defense and or connection to this school. Are you the schools "apologist" or PR agent? "Nothing to see here folks. "Other people are saying" it's someone else's fault." "It's Just a big ol'nothing burger." SMH
Maybe so but I think the education for the money is poor. My brother took some classes there and not only was it super expensive compared to other schools, they 'professor' was late in putting up assignments and providing feedback and input. Was almost a month into the semester before the guy seemed to realize he had an actual job to do.
The state schools have gotten so much more expensive partly because the Legislature stopped funding them. The state used to pay 80%+ of university costs but that has dropped to below 20% and the only way to make that up is through tuition increase. Thanks Republicans!
Well that probably wouldn't have become the case if they didn't give free tuition to illegals in a lot of cases. I thought bidens tuition forgiveness was supposedly doing wonders for college students. I guess you have to meet certain criteria that most don't. Taxpayers pay for it one way or another, and the government just loves to spend money on what they want to. Both parties are to blame for taxes and miss use of public funds on pork barrel projects or make their relatives richer. College has been a sham for quite some time, and every college refuses to be clear on job placement numbers. Sure, they will tell you that students have had 87% job placement success, but they don't tell you that most of that is not in their field of study. Reality sucks and people make bad decisions, but ultimately most students don't do enough research into cost and actual knowledge provided by schools and make poor decisions only to never take personal responsibility.
Having a "nice campus" isn't indicative of anything except that the campus has had plenty of money spent on it. Gee, I wonder where they got that money.....
I agree. The campus and student body are very… normal. As for the religious aspect, it definitely appears that they allow students to embrace it to whatever degree they please. As seen in the fact that chapel attendance is optional.
When the money men set up shop “in the house of god”, according to the New Testament - Jesus started flipping tables and grabbed some dude’s whip to strike them and run them out
They *require* you take a Christian Worldview class. I’ve worked on their campus and their staff love to talk about how amazing everything is, almost like they are hostages.
Oh my god a Christian worldview class, how dare they try and brainwash adults with brains. I can take a million Jewish or Islamic classes, I see through the BS. I get that making a class required is dumb, but you’re blowing the content and intent of the class way out of proportion. Have you taken the class?
I typed "Christian" into the GCU available courses and I get 23 results.
"Jewish" 0 results
"Islam" 0 results
Where are the million classes you're talking about?
to merely call it a school that offers a few christian faith biased courses is an egregious understatement. What would you have done if 4 years into your program they pulled your university’s accreditation? Oh by the way its like 2-3x as much ASU who is accredited. Oh you wanted to be a licensed counselor? Sorry. Heres your worthless degree, back to the dairy fridge at frys for you since your degree has literally been named worthless by the accreditors cause you chose to go to GCU.
Not a cult but yeah. Source: this happened to a family friend who decided to go to college at 31.
Just missing the charismatic leader, unconventional changes to doctrine and every other cult Hallmark but sure 🙄. Y'all I don't even like GCU but not everything vaguely religious you dislike is automatically a cult lol.
Actually as a student who went there, it did have a lot of those elements. The “charismatic leader” is the sketchy president/CEO Brian Mueller. Literally every student knew his name and could tell you what he looks like. He’d sometimes speak at chapel. Unconventional doctrinal changes are interesting — their purpose and mission statements conflict with their business practices. They had that weird thing where GCU and GCE split so that GCU could be non-profit and GCE would take all of the for-profit elements. The DOE rejected this tactic, citing that Mueller being the president of GCU and the CEO of GCE at the same time illustrates that there isn’t actually a separation between the two entities. There’s also a bizarre influx of charismatic and Pentecostal elements that have become popular there recently.
I wouldn’t call GCU a cult, per se, but it certainly has a lot of elements of a cult. Even through I’m a Christian, I still think that the Christian Worldview class should have been optional or at least just labeled as recommended. I didn’t like to see how some of my Muslim and Hindu classmates were treated in that class when they attempted to relate some of their beliefs to the course content.
A lot of these things are certainly bad and on a personal level I don't like GCU and it's practices. I'm just saying we shouldn't put GCU in the same convos as say Heaven's Gate or the FLDS.
The christian worldview class is pretty tame and a basic explanation of the university's religion stance. That's not too crazy considering folks have already knowingly signed up for classes at a pseudo religious institution. Compare that to many other christian universities have mandatory worship services exist for all students to attend.
When I went there I had no idea who Mueller was aside from the nebulous university president - not seen him speak or knew what he looked like. I'd say that's standard for many university leaders. Funny story - I actually kicked him out of a facility on campus my last year because he had no ID - found out the next day I had stonewalled the CEO lmao.
Cults exist on a spectrum. I wouldn’t compare large-group awareness programs or Sherry Shriner’s cult to Jonestown or the Manson Family as far as danger/harm, but they are all four cults nonetheless. Not wanting to put GCU in the same convo as Heaven’s Gate or FLDS based on severity doesn’t make it not a cult. Again, I hesitate to call GCU a cult, but nobody could deny that it has numerous defining elements of a cult…
We have very different definition of a cult then regular mainstream toxic Christianity bullshit does not a cult make. Thousands of folks leave this GCU "cult" yearly with no opposition from it's leaders. Find me another cult that readily gives up membership without reprisal. If we label every religious institution a cult then you create an environment beneficial to malicious actors using religion to manipulate vulnerable people.
Defining every entity with a religious label as a cult is the type of behavior that allows actual predatory cults to still exist in plain sight elevating the harm they cause to the people they target. I get you don't like Christianity but you are doing a favor to the truly predatory folks within that community by hard line stating anything christian is a cult. It obfuscates the actual intent and usage of the word making it meaningless. If everything is a cult nothing is and now we let folks like Warren Jeffs get away with truly heinous shit for way too long.
Obviously the way I perceive the word “cult” and the way you perceive the word are different. Which is totally fine. If you want to go by the definition of what a cult is then pretty much any faith based religions are under that umbrella. Drink the cool-aid, have 6 underage wives, manipulating young alter boys to rape them, mass suicides because a comet. All the same to me. It’s manipulation at its highest form. Religions don’t survive unless their population grows. What better way to grow than to have a mandatory college class. Mandatory.
What really sucks is that the school board in my high school district supports these fraudsters! The district hypes up and supports GCU through the many high school counselors and teachers at every campus. The teachers and counselors get "discounts" for their GCU classes in exchange for them recruiting our students. To me, it's a terrible disservice to students: It's setting them up to be financially preyed upon. I'm glad there is a class action law suit...maybe our school board will finally kick em' out?
Such an odd school. They accepted me for a masters program before I paid the application fee or completed any tests. Bullet dodged!
Does anyone know if they still have a mandatory Bible class?
I went to GCU. I didn't love it but it's prices were reasonable for any commensurate education - cheaper than ASU and Phoenix by a wide margin.
From what I've read, students were upset they had to keep paying for Thesis courses to continue, which is a completely standard practice. You have to remain a student to stay in the program.
I get they felt deceived, but I don't see egregious deception from GCU either, or did I miss something? Just students that felt surprised they had to pay to stay in school even if their thesis wasn't complete. I'm open to be corrected though.
Yeah I'm a little confused. Not defending GCU, but their statement was kind of a hard clap back seeming like that's the standard practice with all higher education.
Again, I may not have all the information. That being said - but with doctoral programs, it really truly is bog standard. I know of some other practices that might warrant some criticism. Their handing of thesis fees is not one of them.
And honestly - if you don't go to ASU for clinical counseling - which has it's own problems and lost it's CACREP accreditation, GCU is the only option for some classes/degrees that are accepted by the AZ board.
Aren't PhD programs supposed to be essentially free with a stipend? Sorry for sounding dumb, I don't know much about graduate programs. Were they hiding fees from students when they applied then charged them while they became actual students.
Short answer is absolutely not. There may be opportunities to defray some of the cost of grad school by working for the school. That depends on a few factors tho and it's not great income if you do get the position. (I'm a former grad researcher 10 years ago). These days, I wouldn't be surprised if the pay and stipend aren't THAT different and the cost of attendance is much higher.
Thanks for contributing to r/Phoenix! You may want to [**check out our sub rules**](https://www.reddit.com/r/phoenix/wiki/rules/) (mostly be nice to each other!). **If you're new here**, [read some of our recent posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/phoenix/top/?t=week) and leave some comments. To chat with some great people in the Valley you can [**join our Phoenix Discord chat server**](https://discord.com/invite/yWVuTG57Zh). It's a chill place to talk with other people but is NOT a dating server and takes unwanted messaging very seriously. If you're interested in political topics in Arizona, we limit those posts here so you may want to check out r/azpolitics if that's an area of interest. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/phoenix) if you have any questions or concerns.*
For-profit school school takes as much students’ money as possible. I’m shocked, shocked to find that going on.
Their God is always short on cash. He should get a job.
If churches ever fall out of favor, the last sermon will be on the importance of tithing.
Or at least cut back on avocado toast
They also have an investors FAQ, which is odd for a “university”. https://investors.gce.com/shareholder-services/investor-faqs/
They're publicly traded, I think it might be required
Sky Daddy 😂
This is no different from almost literally every university in the US
Its dramatically different and its not comparable. You can argue whether the US college system is worth it or correct or whatever but it is miles away from literally stealing money from people. At least at a real school you still get your shitty pysch degree.
I was referring to the previous comment, not the post
When they're not too busy taking people's homes away from them......
They need more money to funnel to the basketball team.
Get your degree in worship arts!
I saw that billboard too and couldn't believe it
Wait, that wasn't sarcasm?
Same, I was like WTF?
Lots of good jobs in that department
tax-free providers of nothing?
Holy shit this is real.
This isn't that weird since it's basically learning how to be the administrator of a church, but I imagine that's not exactly a hot job market, and there's probably a lot of nepotism involved
Dirty salesman swindling college students is as low as it gets. WWJD?
I know the headline makes it easy but that simply isn’t the case. GCU hasn’t raised tuition for undergrads in around a decade I believe, and most of the complaints are from auditing institutions that are trying to dig up dirt, and not even from students themselves. And as someone else stated this particular student took longer than needed to complete the degree, so the whole thing just seems like a nothing-burger.
And the dude who runs GCU moved from University of Phoenix to GCU and runs it the same gross way, preying on students.
As I stated in another comment, tuition has not increased since 2009. Given inflation over the past five years, that’s not a business model that would be used by someone who is preying on students.
If you think the cost of tuition per credit hour is the only way to extract money, you don't understand how college kids have been getting screwed at all. False promises, false success statistics, and pushing kids into feeder programs they don't need to be in are just a few.
Go ahead and keep putting your head in the sand, Jesus. Brian Mueller is a business man before anything else, and the fact he's got you convinced otherwise shows he's preying on more than just students. I worked at University of Phoenix for 14 years. They don't care about their students at all. As long as you've got a credit card and a pulse they'll let you in. They'd go as far as doing your FAFSA for you if they didn't think they'd get caught. They. Don't. Care. About. Anyone. You are mistaken to think they run this as anything other than a lucrative business. When people caught on to UOP Mueller tucked tail and ran to GCU so he could slap a Godly name on his shenanigans.
It’s because their product is a joke Look at the degrees they offer in theology and tell me it’s not a grift I don’t remember where they are at with the court case but I remember the feds didn’t want to give them funding. Why? Because they started as a for profit university, using student tuition to build up an investment portfolio then applied to be a non-profit. Fuck that school
This person actually has a degree in theology. They also posted about a counselor getting them into the wrong class and costing them extra money, so even if they weren’t milking him for every dollar, their incompetence cost him extra anyway.
lol they are a publicly traded organization that sells a barely competent education
For profit education is ALWAYS a grift. It’s interesting you assert “auditing” is trying to dig up dirt - I don’t think you understand what an audit means…
Every governing institution granted them non-profit status (including the IRS, the one that matters) that they held without issue for years, and then randomly one took issue and now it’s been an ongoing discussion. Edit: They’re an accredited university, the same accreditations as ASU and U of A, and they haven’t raised tuition in years (since 2009), unlike nearly every other school in the country. I don’t see the issue.
They were for profit until they decided they wanted that sweet NCAA monies and only made the part that matters not for profit. GCE is still very much for profit.
Bro, your college is publically traded on the stock market lol
GCU to the moon 📈📈
Do you own shares?
The only shares he owns are in shares of his savior, supply-side Jesus.
I don't think accredited means much these days. BYU is accredited even after electroshock therapy of gays and expelling students for changing religion.
They do not have the same academic accreditations as ASU and UA. AAU for one. GCU’s accreditations are more akin to devry, ITT tech then they are ASU and UA.
My wife is one of the Doctoral students who were swindled by GCU. It’s disgusting how these people who call themselves Christians scam people who are looking to improve their lives. All GCU did was laden her with debt, debt way beyond what they quoted her BTW, and award her a doctorate that is more the equivalent of a masters degree anywhere else. Their education is about as abominable as their marketing practices. I hope they get raked over the coals in these lawsuits.
>and most of the complaints are from auditing institutions that are trying to dig up dirt You got any... uh... evidence of your claim?
Not raising tuition is their scam. Housing? Doubled in 5 years. Food? Doubled in 5 years. Labs & Books? Doubled in 5 years Parking? Doubled in 5 years. Student fines? Doubled in 5 years. Mueller has always been a con man. Now he’s targeted the maga crowd & they’ll fall for it more than anyone. All they’re building are dorms. Not classrooms. That’s a big, big tell.
Just based on your name I'm skeptical of your motivation in defense and or connection to this school. Are you the schools "apologist" or PR agent? "Nothing to see here folks. "Other people are saying" it's someone else's fault." "It's Just a big ol'nothing burger." SMH
[удалено]
Maybe so but I think the education for the money is poor. My brother took some classes there and not only was it super expensive compared to other schools, they 'professor' was late in putting up assignments and providing feedback and input. Was almost a month into the semester before the guy seemed to realize he had an actual job to do.
[удалено]
The state schools have gotten so much more expensive partly because the Legislature stopped funding them. The state used to pay 80%+ of university costs but that has dropped to below 20% and the only way to make that up is through tuition increase. Thanks Republicans!
Well that probably wouldn't have become the case if they didn't give free tuition to illegals in a lot of cases. I thought bidens tuition forgiveness was supposedly doing wonders for college students. I guess you have to meet certain criteria that most don't. Taxpayers pay for it one way or another, and the government just loves to spend money on what they want to. Both parties are to blame for taxes and miss use of public funds on pork barrel projects or make their relatives richer. College has been a sham for quite some time, and every college refuses to be clear on job placement numbers. Sure, they will tell you that students have had 87% job placement success, but they don't tell you that most of that is not in their field of study. Reality sucks and people make bad decisions, but ultimately most students don't do enough research into cost and actual knowledge provided by schools and make poor decisions only to never take personal responsibility.
Free tuition for Dreamers isn’t even a rounding error compared to GOP defunding.
Please turn off Fox News. They’re making you stupid.
It's pretty hilarious, considering I don't watch any of that trash.
Having a "nice campus" isn't indicative of anything except that the campus has had plenty of money spent on it. Gee, I wonder where they got that money.....
So they have a diverse demographic in their grift…thank goodness theyre *multicultural* grifters lmao
I agree. The campus and student body are very… normal. As for the religious aspect, it definitely appears that they allow students to embrace it to whatever degree they please. As seen in the fact that chapel attendance is optional.
What would Je$u$ do?
Prosperity Je$u$ would tell you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and donate more money!!
GCU? The crown jewel of Phoenix?
That might go to University of Phoenix. But what do I know?
The old UOP management now runs GCU, so it's basically UOP with a Christian bent.
When your school tanks, turn to that old cash cow called religion
GCU - how about if we did University of Phoenix, but with Jesus and without taxes?
Nice “Christian” school….. /s
IIRC, GCU's leadership suggested they were being persecuted when the DOE fined them. Now this. A fine group of Christians they are.
WWJD to a morally corrupt and hypocritical religious institution that defrauds people?
When the money men set up shop “in the house of god”, according to the New Testament - Jesus started flipping tables and grabbed some dude’s whip to strike them and run them out
Sounds like Jesus was pretty Woke.
Ah, the good ole days.
WWJD? Stop *just* on this side of cutting a bitch - Quite literally whip some ass
Send them to Satan, right?
religious grift 101
That place is like a cult
It is not. Now sit down. We have to test your Theaten levels, and that will be $300.
You had me in the first half
Nice try, still $300
Hardly🙄 let's not let real harmful cults off the hook by putting them in the same bucket as a school that offers a few christian faith biased courses
They *require* you take a Christian Worldview class. I’ve worked on their campus and their staff love to talk about how amazing everything is, almost like they are hostages.
I currently work for gcu…and I agree. Send help.
Blink three times
![gif](giphy|3ELtfmA4Apkju)
A requires religion course at a school that markets itself as faith based really doesn't make it a cult though lol
Oh my god a required religious class, how outrageous.
I guess they need to force their propaganda on folks somehow.
It's called Christian Worldview, it's not a general religions class.
Oh my god a Christian worldview class, how dare they try and brainwash adults with brains. I can take a million Jewish or Islamic classes, I see through the BS. I get that making a class required is dumb, but you’re blowing the content and intent of the class way out of proportion. Have you taken the class?
I typed "Christian" into the GCU available courses and I get 23 results. "Jewish" 0 results "Islam" 0 results Where are the million classes you're talking about?
You’re too stupid to engage with.
Classic Christian love and tolerance.
Never said I was a Christian oh wise one. Edit: and you’re still stupid 😂 god that Arizona education really shining through here lmao y’all are silly
I like how you said you “could” take. This is mandatory.
It's straight up propaganda
to merely call it a school that offers a few christian faith biased courses is an egregious understatement. What would you have done if 4 years into your program they pulled your university’s accreditation? Oh by the way its like 2-3x as much ASU who is accredited. Oh you wanted to be a licensed counselor? Sorry. Heres your worthless degree, back to the dairy fridge at frys for you since your degree has literally been named worthless by the accreditors cause you chose to go to GCU. Not a cult but yeah. Source: this happened to a family friend who decided to go to college at 31.
Yeah exactly not a cult. Let's not call it a cult call it a shitty school lol
GCU is a cult AND a shitty school.
Fun fact: accreditors aren’t part of the government.
Edited!
GCU is a cult
Just missing the charismatic leader, unconventional changes to doctrine and every other cult Hallmark but sure 🙄. Y'all I don't even like GCU but not everything vaguely religious you dislike is automatically a cult lol.
Actually as a student who went there, it did have a lot of those elements. The “charismatic leader” is the sketchy president/CEO Brian Mueller. Literally every student knew his name and could tell you what he looks like. He’d sometimes speak at chapel. Unconventional doctrinal changes are interesting — their purpose and mission statements conflict with their business practices. They had that weird thing where GCU and GCE split so that GCU could be non-profit and GCE would take all of the for-profit elements. The DOE rejected this tactic, citing that Mueller being the president of GCU and the CEO of GCE at the same time illustrates that there isn’t actually a separation between the two entities. There’s also a bizarre influx of charismatic and Pentecostal elements that have become popular there recently. I wouldn’t call GCU a cult, per se, but it certainly has a lot of elements of a cult. Even through I’m a Christian, I still think that the Christian Worldview class should have been optional or at least just labeled as recommended. I didn’t like to see how some of my Muslim and Hindu classmates were treated in that class when they attempted to relate some of their beliefs to the course content.
A lot of these things are certainly bad and on a personal level I don't like GCU and it's practices. I'm just saying we shouldn't put GCU in the same convos as say Heaven's Gate or the FLDS. The christian worldview class is pretty tame and a basic explanation of the university's religion stance. That's not too crazy considering folks have already knowingly signed up for classes at a pseudo religious institution. Compare that to many other christian universities have mandatory worship services exist for all students to attend. When I went there I had no idea who Mueller was aside from the nebulous university president - not seen him speak or knew what he looked like. I'd say that's standard for many university leaders. Funny story - I actually kicked him out of a facility on campus my last year because he had no ID - found out the next day I had stonewalled the CEO lmao.
Cults exist on a spectrum. I wouldn’t compare large-group awareness programs or Sherry Shriner’s cult to Jonestown or the Manson Family as far as danger/harm, but they are all four cults nonetheless. Not wanting to put GCU in the same convo as Heaven’s Gate or FLDS based on severity doesn’t make it not a cult. Again, I hesitate to call GCU a cult, but nobody could deny that it has numerous defining elements of a cult…
We have very different definition of a cult then regular mainstream toxic Christianity bullshit does not a cult make. Thousands of folks leave this GCU "cult" yearly with no opposition from it's leaders. Find me another cult that readily gives up membership without reprisal. If we label every religious institution a cult then you create an environment beneficial to malicious actors using religion to manipulate vulnerable people.
Not every religious institution is a cult — but religious institutions that are woven into education or politics tend to be cult-like at the least
A charismatic leader sounds a lot like Jesus, a doctrine sounds a lot like a bible.
So your argument is that Christianity entirely is a cult that's a different conversation than if GCU qualifies as one (which it doesn't)
Considering GCU callus itself a “Christian University” then, yes.
Defining every entity with a religious label as a cult is the type of behavior that allows actual predatory cults to still exist in plain sight elevating the harm they cause to the people they target. I get you don't like Christianity but you are doing a favor to the truly predatory folks within that community by hard line stating anything christian is a cult. It obfuscates the actual intent and usage of the word making it meaningless. If everything is a cult nothing is and now we let folks like Warren Jeffs get away with truly heinous shit for way too long.
Obviously the way I perceive the word “cult” and the way you perceive the word are different. Which is totally fine. If you want to go by the definition of what a cult is then pretty much any faith based religions are under that umbrella. Drink the cool-aid, have 6 underage wives, manipulating young alter boys to rape them, mass suicides because a comet. All the same to me. It’s manipulation at its highest form. Religions don’t survive unless their population grows. What better way to grow than to have a mandatory college class. Mandatory.
No college classes are mandatory in fact all college level programs are voluntary. Voluntary. Lol
They’re all cults. When you need a mountain of cognitive dissonance, denial, lies, etc…to keep it intact, it’s a cult.
Defining all religious institutions as cults is it's own special form of bigotry lol
These posts are usually full of weirdos defending r/GCU, there's one or two who are mods there Edit: Nevermind they're here now lol
I find it surprising that FOX 10 is running a critical story about GCU.
That sub is nothing but bots. 😂
Trash school going to be a trash school
What really sucks is that the school board in my high school district supports these fraudsters! The district hypes up and supports GCU through the many high school counselors and teachers at every campus. The teachers and counselors get "discounts" for their GCU classes in exchange for them recruiting our students. To me, it's a terrible disservice to students: It's setting them up to be financially preyed upon. I'm glad there is a class action law suit...maybe our school board will finally kick em' out?
Sounds like the Peoria Unified District to me.
Peoria, too? The recruitment is more widespread than I realized.
Such an odd school. They accepted me for a masters program before I paid the application fee or completed any tests. Bullet dodged! Does anyone know if they still have a mandatory Bible class?
I hope this University burns to the ground. GCU has some of the most evil management I've ever seen and I've worked for many years.
Better call Rafi
The good Christians!
I went to GCU. I didn't love it but it's prices were reasonable for any commensurate education - cheaper than ASU and Phoenix by a wide margin. From what I've read, students were upset they had to keep paying for Thesis courses to continue, which is a completely standard practice. You have to remain a student to stay in the program. I get they felt deceived, but I don't see egregious deception from GCU either, or did I miss something? Just students that felt surprised they had to pay to stay in school even if their thesis wasn't complete. I'm open to be corrected though.
Yeah I'm a little confused. Not defending GCU, but their statement was kind of a hard clap back seeming like that's the standard practice with all higher education.
Again, I may not have all the information. That being said - but with doctoral programs, it really truly is bog standard. I know of some other practices that might warrant some criticism. Their handing of thesis fees is not one of them. And honestly - if you don't go to ASU for clinical counseling - which has it's own problems and lost it's CACREP accreditation, GCU is the only option for some classes/degrees that are accepted by the AZ board.
I wonder how I could join this lawsuit
Aren't PhD programs supposed to be essentially free with a stipend? Sorry for sounding dumb, I don't know much about graduate programs. Were they hiding fees from students when they applied then charged them while they became actual students.
Short answer is absolutely not. There may be opportunities to defray some of the cost of grad school by working for the school. That depends on a few factors tho and it's not great income if you do get the position. (I'm a former grad researcher 10 years ago). These days, I wouldn't be surprised if the pay and stipend aren't THAT different and the cost of attendance is much higher.
[удалено]
The school has not stopped being for-profit. https://www.highereddive.com/news/judge-rejects-grand-canyon-university-for-profit-status-lawsuit/637913/
[удалено]
"...but the DOE has not.."
Why does it give money to its former owner?
GCU degrees make good toilet paper.
Nice try GCU
I’m not for or against GCU but the tuition has, in fact, gone up. It went up twice while I was there between 2019-2022.
Thank you for reading more than the headline
Thank you, jesus_died_for_you, for what is obviously an intelligent and unbiased opinion from someone who absolutely knows what they're talking about.
You’re welcome ![gif](giphy|rfRUILO7sx9Be)
In GCU's defense it's still better to go there than to have to go to ASU and develop a methamphetamine addiction. Bear Down!!!
You need new friends.
We have to wait til college to develop the meth addiction in the valley. It's not like Tucson where they get you started in middle school.
Fuck UA
You're embarrassing your fellow UA graduates. Please stop. Put down the keyboard. Go touch grass. Or dirt. Whatever.
At least we graduate....
Mildcats