Brian Mueller is the President of Grand Canyon University.
He tells AFN his team has now invested almost two billion dollars into the campus to make it bigger and better than ever, all the way up to ranking No. 25 out of 1,500 in terms of classrooms, labs, residence halls, restaurants and other infrastructure.
He said one of the big problems in higher education today is that tuitions keep going up. That’s not happening at Grand Canyon.
“Debt levels keep going up, and universities don't have money to invest in new facilities, new faculty, new programs. It’s been just the opposite here."
Data from the college board’s "Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid Report" is not yet available for the past year, but information from the prior year's report shows the average cost for in-state tuition and fees at four-year public colleges had risen 71% to $11,260 since 2008-09 when GCU began its tuition freeze, while it had risen 65% to $41,540 at four-year private institutions.
GCU's housing costs are also well below the national average. The average cost for room and board in 2023-24 was $12,770 at a four-year public college and $14,650 at a four-year private institution, according to the College Board. GCU's average room and board cost is just $10,540 even though nearly all of the modern residence halls have been built in the past 13 years and roughly 66% of the university's accomodations are single-occupancy, apartment-style living. GCU's residence halls are rated No. 4 out of 1,353 colleges in America by niche.com.
Mueller explained Grand Canyon University started out with 900 students on campus, and now they're up to 25,000 on campus with 95,000 students studying online.
"We have a hybrid program now, we're building campuses, many campuses throughout the country, and we've got 6000 students in those programs."
A campus free speech rarity
He added that another attractive feature for Grand Canyon University is that since it is not a state or government-run institution, they don't have to push agendas.
"We don't have what many people would refer to as indoctrination of a certain ideology going on here. There's freedom of speech, and that's also very attractive to families."
Mueller said Grand Canyon University's average student now takes out less money than the average state university student.
" So, for the first time, a private university is as affordable as a state university, in many cases more affordable, and we don't rely on the tax subsidies. We’ve become a very attractive place as a result of that."
