American Principle’s Project: Letter

May 6, 2024

To Republican Members and Senators,

As you know, the Biden Administration has spent more than three years weaponizing the United States government against the American people. Much of its overreach has targeted parents – who could forget the Department of Justice harassing parents for attending school board meetings, or the Department of Health and Human Services finalizing a rule to remove children from foster families that refuse to promote transgender ideology?

But now Biden’s administrative state has decided to wage holy war against Christian colleges. This crusade has a dual purpose: to protect the higher education cartel against competition, and to persecute any Christian institution that dares to stand for biblical teaching and against cultural marxism. Through his cronies at the Department of Education (USED), President Biden is sending a message: resistance to the regime’s woke orthodoxy, even when it is protected by our right to religious freedom, is completely unacceptable and will no longer be tolerated.

We cannot stress enough the importance of protecting these valuable institutions. Christian colleges serve not only as educational bodies but also as communities where biblical values are upheld and explored in depth. They also serve as a bulwark against increasing anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-semitic sentiment within the culture – we’re certainly not seeing Hamas terrorism apologists intimidating their fellow students at these schools! There’s a reason why woke ideologues at USED have made Christian colleges a target. They understand that schools like Ashland University, Grand Canyon University, and Liberty University are critical to our defense of constitutional principles and the American way of life.

Furthermore, the conventional model of higher education in the U.S. is failing. The average sticker price at four-year colleges and universities has increased nearly 130 percent since 1990. Almost half of college graduates within five years of graduation are underemployed and working jobs that don’t require a college degree, and 94 percent of business leaders say they try to avoid hiring recent graduates. It’s no wonder that most Americans do not believe a college degree is worth the cost, or that enrollment numbers at conventional four-year colleges are at their lowest levels in a decade while enrollment at Christian schools like Grand Canyon University continues to increase.

On behalf of the undersigned pro-family, pro-faith, and pro-life organizations and leaders, we write to encourage you to use all power at your disposal to fight back against this egregious and unfair attack against Christian institutions of higher learning.

To date, the Biden Administration has engaged in three obviously politically motivated attacks against Christian colleges (that we are aware of):

● In 2021, USED decided to conduct a surprise audit of Ashland University’s financial aid program, the first in nearly 40 years. Ashland, which is the country’s longest-serving provider of corrections education, was accused by USED of using an incorrect formula for determining the amount of the Pell Grants that Ashland’s incarcerated students were entitled to receive. USED alleges that resulted in an overpayment of more than $6 million, and has assessed Ashland a fine to recoup that amount. Ashland asserts that its educational programs for incarcerated students (referred to as Second Chance Pell or SCP students) are fully compliant with federal standards and identical in content and structure to programs offered to non-incarcerated students. In its lawsuit against USED, Ashland argues that the Department “manipulated the university’s curriculum by redefining the programs offered by the plaintiff in an effort to satisfy the defendant’s interpretation of an “eligible program” under Title IV of the Higher Education Act. Ashland is also asking the court for declaratory judgment finding that USED’s actions were “arbitrary, capricious [and] an abuse of discretion.”

● In October 2023, USED slapped Grand Canyon University (GCU) with a record $37.7 million fine for allegedly engaging in false advertising and misrepresenting the cost of earning a doctoral degree. GCU happens to be the country’s largest Christian school with more than 100,000 students enrolled each year. But USED’s claims don’t seem to hold much water. A federal court already dismissed similar claims in a private lawsuit brought against the school. And as the Wall Street Journal noted, the allegations “appear to be false… doctoral students comprise fewer than 5 percent of GCU’s enrollment.”