Class Action Alleges Walden University Targets Black, Female Students with ‘Predatory’ Doctor of Business Admin. Program

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

A proposed class action alleges Walden University has exploited and discriminated against Black and female students by overcharging them by millions for its Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) program. 

The 66-page case, filed on January 7, 2022 in Maryland federal court, alleges Walden has fraudulently and deceptively hidden the true cost of its DBA program by “knowingly misrepresenting and understating” how many “capstone” credits are required to complete the program and obtain a degree. 

The suit alleges that after “luring” students into its DBA program with “the false promise that they could swiftly earn a graduate degree,” Walden keeps students “trapped” in the capstone phase—wherein a student completes a research and writing project instead of a typical dissertation—by arbitrarily requiring them to finish additional credits at a cost of nearly $1,000 each. As the lawsuit tells it, the online, for-profit school is aware that students in the capstone phase were “a captive source of tuition revenue” given they were unlikely to leave since they had invested so much time and money in the program. 

“Through this scheme, which Walden targeted at Black and female prospective students, Walden has overcharged members of the proposed classes more than $28.5 million,” the complaint alleges, claiming Walden targets in addition to Black and female prospective students “nontraditional” doctoral students, including those who are employed, parents and individuals over 30. 

According to the lawsuit, Walden’s doctoral student population is 41 percent Black, which is reportedly more than seven times the percentage of doctoral recipients nationwide who are Black. Across all programs, Walden’s doctoral student population is 77 percent female, reportedly 1.7 times higher than the percentage of doctoral recipients nationwide who are female, the filing states. The lawsuit alleges Walden has explicitly targeted Black and female prospective students, including by directing the bulk of its local advertising budget to markets with higher-than-average Black populations. 

The complaint charges that since at least the Fall 2008 semester, and continuing through at least January 2018, Walden engaged in a “consistent and longstanding pattern” of fraudulently misrepresenting the requirements of a DBA degree, including the required number of credits, length of time for completion and, most importantly, the cost of the degree. The lawsuit alleges that throughout the same time frame and to this day, Walden has purposely prolonged the capstone phase of the DBA program, thereby requiring Black and female students to pay for additional credits to finish their degrees. 

The case says that although Walden has represented to the public that a student needs to earn 60 credit hours to graduate, which typically spans about three and a half years and costs between $43,000 and $60,000, the average DBA student had, by the time they graduated, been required to finish “far more” than 60 credits and pay tuition “significantly exceeding the stated amount,” sometimes by as much as “a factor of three and on average an additional $34,300 per graduate.” 

“In fact, Walden designed and operated its program so that the vast majority of students would be required to pay far more than the stated price,” the case alleges. “On average, those who successfully completed a Walden DBA degree between 2008 and 2017 were required to complete more than one and a half times the stated credit requirement—ninety-four credits, instead of the stated sixty credit requirements.” 

Further compounding matters, according to the suit, is that Walden knew that students routinely completed the coursework phase of the DBA program on time and that the school’s “duplicity” would be hidden until they had reached the capstone phase. Per the complaint, Walden falsely represented that the capstone portion of the DBA program would require 19 or 20 credits to complete. On average, the lawsuit says, Walden did not allow students to receive a DBA degree between 2008 and 2017 without completing 54 capstone credit hours. 

The lawsuit looks to represent all Black and female students who enrolled in and/or began classes for Walden’s DBA program between August 1, 2008 and January 31, 2018 and were charged for and successfully completed more than the number of capstone-level credits that the university stated were required at the time they enrolled.

The suit also looks to represent Black and female Walden DBA students who enrolled in classes for the program between August 1, 2008 and January 31, 2018 and were charged for and successfully completed more than the number of capstone-level credits that Walden stated were required at the time they enrolled, and applied for and/or received student loans to pay for some or all of their Walden education. 

Get class action lawsuit news sent to your inbox – sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here.