The Office of the California Attorney General announced Monday that Ashford University is being penalized for a deceptive admissions scheme that left students in debt and without degrees.
Ashford and its parent company Zovio Incorporated (formerly Bridgepoint Education) must pay $22.37 million to settle the long-standing lawsuit, which was first filed in 2017. San Diego Superior Court Judge Eddie Sturgeon ruled that the former for-profit school violated the state’s laws against unfair competition and false advertising.
In his written ruling, Sturgeon said that students were given “false or misleading information about career outcomes, cost and financial aid, pace of degree programs, and transfer credits, in order to entice them to enroll at Ashford.”
“Ashford made false promises to students about the value of an Ashford degree,” wrote Attorney General Rob Bonta. “We’ve won this battle, but the broader fight continues. The court’s findings provide a strong basis for the Department of Education to provide Ashford students with relief from their federal student loans,” he argued.
University of Arizona Involvement
However, circumstances have changed since the lawsuit was first filed. Ashford was acquired by the University of Arizona (UA) in 2020 to start a global campus – a move that raised concerns among the college’s faculty.
Some have requested the discontinuation of the acquisition due to Ashford’s controversial past, but UA President Robert Robbins said that doing so could cost the school $1 billion in liability.
“The UA Foundation signed the temporary program participation agreement. We then indemnified the UA Foundation as the university, so if we just walked away from it and let it go then we would be on the hook for all of the money,” Robbins said.
Despite mistrust and hesitation, Robbins continues to encourage support for the merger.
“The way I think we build the trust back is to engage and ask you to work with us on these issues. It won’t be overnight, but we’ll have to agree to work together to try to implement serving these students,” he said.