Grand Canyon University recently failed to take itself off the market.
The country’s best-known Christian for-profit college, Grand Canyon University (GCU), has announced that it will open an independent, non-denominational, for-profit theological seminary this fall.
The announcement came just before the Department of Education reported last month that the number of for-profit colleges fell 5 percent and enrollment dropped about 10 percent in just a year.
Those declines, from the fall of 2014 to the fall of 2015, are partially due to an improving economy, as students choose to work instead of attend school, as well as the Obama administration’s regulation of for-profit education, Inside Higher Ed explained.
Trace Urdan, an analyst at Credit Suisse who focuses on the education industry, told CT that a theological seminary might make investors nervous, as theological degrees might not lead to jobs the way degrees in nursing and education do. The federal government now requires colleges to track the “gainful employment” of graduates.
But GCU’s chief rival in online degrees among Christian colleges, Liberty University, confers many theological degrees. “The (theological) graduates from Liberty seem to be repaying loans at a higher rate” than other degree programs, Urdan said.
GCU recently failed to transfer back to a nonprofit institution.
The school began as a nonprofit, founded by Arizona Southern Baptists in 1949. In late 2003, GCU found itself teetering under the weight of $40 million in debt, facing 22 lawsuits, and losing $12 million a year. With no money to fix outdated buildings and forced to cut faculty and staff pay for the third year in a row, the school was preparing to close.
Private investors bought the school and hired Brian Mueller from the University …
