The link should show the GCU students whooping up the Trump victory. The only time I visited GCU was before the expansion. The last I heard, the total number of students was 118,000.
I was on the phone with one of their techies, dealing with the complications of various computer "features." She was shocked by my ancient history, going back to 2006, when I began teaching online at the school. I said, "I don't want to ask you how old you were in 2006."
We are a trifecta:
- One is a student finishing his undergraduate degree at GCU.
- Another earned his MDiv.
- I am busy teaching in theology, an area where they gaining in the midst of U.S. seminary meltdowns.
"By the early 2000s, GCU struggled with maintaining its operations in light of dwindling financial support. The university faced a critical juncture in September 2003, teetering on the verge of insolvency and facing the prospect of bankruptcy. A small group of investors acquired the university and refocused on online education for working adults. With an improving financial structure, the university recruited a new leadership team in 2008 to envision a future that centered around a hybrid campus strategy—combining traditional students with non-traditional students (primarily working adults studying at the graduate level). The university completed an initial public offering in 2008 to generate the capital necessary to improve its online infrastructure and expand its campus.
Between 2009 and June 2022, the university had invested over $1.7 billion dollars — and today, continues to invest in full-time faculty, improved technology infrastructure, new facilities and programmatic expansion in areas such as engineering, computer science and IT. The university has been able to self-fund these investments with only nominal increases in tuition for non-traditional students, while not increasing campus tuition in 15 years."
