Grand Canyon University's First Quarter Profits Rise

Published: Tuesday, May 10, 2016 - 7:28am
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(Photo by Al Macias - KJZZ)
Grand Canyon University.
(Photo by Matthew Casey - KJZZ)
GCU President and CEO Brian Mueller

Profits at Grand Canyon University were up almost 28 percent in the first quarter of this year.

The private school’s net income for January through the end of March was about $44 million compared to about $34 million from the same time period in 2015.

GCU President and CEO Brian Mueller shared these numbers with investors during a conference call Monday. Increasing student services while freezing tuition is evidence that GCU is changing the face of higher education, he said.

“We think it's very important in the future, universities are evaluated based on the results they are producing with their students, and not on completely unrelated items like tax status,” Mueller said.
 
But Mueller also said the school’s property tax bill could eventually force it to raise tuition for on-campus students, something that hasn’t happened in nearly a decade.
 
GCU’s property tax rate will remain at about 18 percent after efforts to slash it failed in the legislature for the third year in a row. The private school is on track to pay about $3.4 million this year and $4.4 million in 2017.

If GCU’s property taxes stay the same, and property values continue to rise, Mueller said it will have to do one of two things: “Either raise tuition, which we don’t want to do,” Mueller said. “We want to continue to return dollars to investors through their value increase of the company without raising tuition.”
 
The second possibility would be to open a satellite campus in the next couple years. GCU announced plans for a Mesa location in 2013, but pulled out last year.

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