PHOENIX (CN) — Grand Canyon University defended itself Tuesday in a class action claiming it deceives students into enrolling in useless degree programs that don’t meet common accreditation and licensure requirements.
Katie Ogdon, a resident of Fresno, California, says she enrolled in Phoenix-based GCU’s Master of Science in Psychology degree program with the intention of becoming a mental health therapist in California. Two years and more than $20,000 in student loans later, Ogdon learned the degree program GCU counselors encouraged her to pursue is not accredited in California and does not qualify her to be a licensed therapist in the state.
Ogdon says GCU uses deceptive and misleading statements about its degree programs to register as many students as it can and collect federal funding without telling students that the programs may not be useful in their desired field of work, amounting to RICO activities and unjust enrichment. She says counselors are trained to omit relevant accreditation information and have misled thousands of students into registering for unaccredited masters programs at GCU…