Amid the many things that have changed during Grand Canyon University’s (GCU) remarkable transformation of the past decade, one thing has not: the cost of tuition.

For the 13th year in a row, the private Christian in west Phoenix is freezing tuition. Meanwhile, student enrollment numbers are clocking in at the highest ever in its 71-year history. 

Competitive pricing and a large bucket of scholarship dollars are largely responsible, university officials said.  

In turn, the affordability factor is driving diversity higher on campus, said the university’s visionary leader, Brian Mueller. 

“We have a number of different initiatives that address diversity both on our campus and in our community, but the single biggest differentiator has been our ability to make private Christian education affordable to all socioeconomic classes of Americans,” said Mueller, president and CEO. 

Today, 46 percent of enrollment are students of color, including 28 percent Latino and 6 percent Black. 

Private college education at public university prices 

While tuition will remain at $16,500 for the 2021-22 academic year, more than 90 percent of GCU students qualified for institutional scholarships, thereby cutting that figure by almost half. 

Nearly $160 million in scholarships were awarded this year. That pushed the average cost of tuition to approximately $8,900, school officials said.  

Meanwhile, the average cost for tuition and fees at four-year private institutions has risen 32 percent to $37,650 since 2008-09, according to the College Board’s The average cost for four-year public colleges rose 40 percent during that time to $10,560. 

GCU also is competitive when it comes to room and board. The average cost of room and board at a four-year public college rose to $11,620 in 2020-21 and to $13,120 at a four-year private institution.

GCU’s average room and board cost is just $8,128 with nearly all of the residence halls built in the past 10 years. Roughly half offer single-occupancy, apartment-style living.

Grads walking away with less debt 

As a result of the tuition freezes and scholarships, grads are also incurring less debt — an average of $20,168, according to 2016-18 data from the U.S. Department of Education’s .  

The national average at public and private nonprofit colleges is $28,950, according to 2019 data from the nonprofit .

Success tied to rising enrollment, spin-off businesses 

The university’s success and ability to keep tuition stable year after year has paid off. 

In 2008-09, on-campus enrollment was about 1,000 students. Today, GCU is a hybrid campus with 23,000 ground campus students and more than 90,000 online students, school officials said. This year brought the largest freshman class ever with about 8,200 students. Online enrollment grew 7.5 percent.

University coffers also are benefiting from 10 spin-off businesses the school has developed on and near campus including the GCU Hotel, golf course, restaurants and Canyon Promotions. 

Huge investment in technology and infrastructure 

Luck has played a part in the school’s success as well. Prior to the pandemic, the university had invested $250 million in technology during the past decade. While other schools struggled to adapt, GCU’s transition to online learning was fairly seamless, school officials said. 

The university has also invested in new residence halls, campus buildings, and other infrastructure. Private development surrounding the campus has also flourished.

“We feel very blessed that we have been able to invest nearly $1.5 billion into our campus infrastructure in the last 12 years to keep up with the growth of the university,” President and CEO Mueller said. “We have been able to do that by using our cash reserves without passing those costs on to students through increases in tuition.”

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Bob and Renee Parsons have donated a $500,000, five-year grant to Grand Canyon University (GCU) for scholarships for nearby inner city high school seniors who have high GPAs and high aspirations. 

The grant will fund full-tuition scholarships for “Parsons Scholars,” high school seniors who maintain a minimum 3.5 grade point average and demonstrate financial need. The grant from the Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation is the largest single gift in the history of the Students Inspiring Students (SIS) scholarship program, school officials said. 

Bob Parsons, best known as the software technology wizard who founded GoDaddy, said he’s proud to support youth of limited means who “are willing to put in the hard work and earn a college degree.”

His partner in giving and life, Renee, said the scholarships will provide motivated students in underserved communities near the campus with tools they need not only to get a college degree but to excel in life.

“These programs are bringing hope and empowering students to follow their dreams,” she said. 

Students Inspiring Students targets nearby neighborhoods 

The $500,000, five-year grant from the will provide scholarships for high-performing but underserved students in the neighborhoods surrounding the university at 33rd Avenue and Camelback Road in the heart of west-central Phoenix.  

More than 90 percent of the SIS recipients are students of color, reflecting the demographics of the nearby communities. 

As part of the program, scholarship recipients must complete 100 or more hours of tasks  including college prep activities and tutoring other local K-12 students one-on-one in GCU’s Learning Lounge. The Learning Lounge provides free tutoring to any student who requests it. 

In the last six years, more than 4,500 students from 150 neighboring schools have taken advantage of this service, making nearly 60,000 visits to the Learning Lounge for 140,000 extra hours of study. 

Public-private partnership lifting up education in central-west Phoenix 

The annual SIS scholarship program is a public-private partnership in which the university, local businesses, donors, K-12 schools, and the scholarship program work to impact education in GCU’s diverse inner-city community. 

Bob and Renee Parsons’ involvement allows the university to get closer to the goal of having 800 students from the neighborhood involved in the SIS Scholarship Program every year, said University President Brian Mueller.

“That full-tuition scholarship allows high-achieving students an opportunity for a college education regardless of their socioeconomic status, changing the trajectory of their family for generations to come,” Mueller said.

Helping most needy regardless of who they are

The Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation was started by the couple in 2012 to offer support to nonprofit organizations successfully working to empower, educate, nurture and provide life-changing assistance to vulnerable populations and communities.

The Foundation’s giving is driven by the core belief that all people – regardless of race, religion, roots, economic status, sexual orientation or gender identity – deserve access to quality healthcare, education and a safe place to call home. 

To read more about the foundation and its work, visit:

About Grand Canyon University:

, is a private Christian university founded in 1949, that is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and offers more than 270 academic programs, emphases and certificates for both traditional undergraduate students and working professionals. The University’s curriculum emphasizes interaction with classmates, both in-person and online, and individual attention from instructors while fusing academic rigor with Christian values to help students find their purpose and become skilled, caring professionals.

For more information, visit .

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In its latest move to make college more accessible for Valley students, Grand Canyon University surprised local high school students Wednesday with scholarships to cover the full cost of their tuition.

The private Christian university also announced recently it would be yet again freezing the cost of tuition to reduce the impact of student loan debt.

The Students Inspiring Students (SIS) scholarship, which is in its fifth year, was created in collaboration among GCU, local high schools and philanthropic business leaders to bring better education access to the community.

GCU held a surprise event Wednesday night at the GCU Student Union to award 16 high school students with full-tuition scholarships.

Each year, the university awards full-tuition scholarships to students from inner-city high schools who meet academic criteria, have financial need and received 100 or more hours of academic assistance at GCU’s Learning Lounge, a free after-school tutoring and mentoring program designed to improve skills and confidence among K-12 students, ultimately boosting achievement.

“This scholarship program is in its fifth year at the university and it works,” said Dr. Joe Veres, vice president of student success at GCU, in . “It is rewarding to see these students spend time at the Learning Lounge, get awarded the scholarship and thrive on campus. They are bright, remarkable young men and women who just need a financial boost in order to go to college.”

More than 200 West Phoenix students have received the SIS scholarship so far, and the program hopes to “continuously transform K-12 education and offer 800 full-tuition scholarships,” according to GCU’s .

SIS scholarship winners will pay forward their award by providing 100 hours per year of mentoring and academic support at a Learning Lounge site to assist high school students who also want a chance to attend college.

Future plans for SIS include:

• Expanding the scholarship program,
• establishing more K-12 Learning Lounge locations,
• promoting SIS as a model on a national level and
• graduating ambitious students who are ready to join the workforce as leaders.

Earlier this month, GCU announced it would be freezing tuition costs for the 12^th consecutive year.

The average annual cost to attend a four-year public college rose 2.3 percent to $10,440 in the 2019-2020 academic year, and tuition and fees at four-year private institutions increased by 3.4 percent to $36,880 in the same time period, according to College Board’s “Trends in College Pricing” report.

GCU said it would cap on-campus tuition at $16,500 for the 2020-2021 school year.

But GCU is a scholarship powerhouse — more than 90 percent of its students receive institutional scholarships — bringing the average tuition cost down to $8,700. That’s similar to public universities and less than many private universities, according to GCU.

“GCU’s goal is to make college education affordable to all socioeconomic classes of Americans, and we have taken a very innovative approach to make that happen,” said GCU President Brian Mueller.

The university’s dedication to providing affordable higher education means GCU students acquire less debt than students who graduate with student loans from public, private-nonprofit and for-profit colleges; those students leave college with an average of $26,900, $31,450 and $39,900, respectively, in student loan debt, according to a by the Institute for College Access and Success.

Mueller said tuition freezes have resulted in a high-quality, diverse student body, with 47 percent of students identifying as people of color.

GCU also announced that over the past 10 years it has invested more than $1 billion into new academic programs, technologies, classrooms, laboratories, research spaces, residence halls and other student amenities. Mueller said the school plans to spend an additional $500 million over the next five years.

Investments at GCU include:

• 22 suite- and apartment-style residence halls;
• more than 1 million square feet of classroom, laboratory, library and office space;
• a new 136,000-square-foot Canyon Activity Center;
• an innovation center with workspace for startups, an incubator, co-working space and more, which currently houses 27 companies;
• the launch of 10 new business enterprises that employ more than 400 people; and
• the approval of 42 new academic programs in the past year, bringing the total to more than 270 academic degrees, emphases and certificates offered in nine different colleges.

Header photo courtesy of Grand Canyon University.

***An earlier version of this story, as well as the description in the Dry Heat email, incorrectly stated the scholarship event took place at GCU Ballpark, and that 25 students received full-tuition scholarships; those details have been corrected in the current version.

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