Grand Canyon University (GCU), America’s largest Christian college, has secured a major win against what school officials describe as a prolonged campaign of government harassment. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) unanimously voted to dismiss its lawsuit against the university’s service provider, Grand Canyon Education, Inc., and its president and CEO, Brian Mueller, on August 15, 2025. This decision fully exonerates GCU after nearly two years of litigation stemming from allegations of deceptive advertising and illegal telemarketing practices.
The lawsuit, filed in December 2023 under the Biden administration, accused GCU and its affiliates of misleading prospective doctoral students about program completion times and costs, falsely marketing the school as a nonprofit, and making unauthorized calls to individuals who had opted out of contact. These claims echoed similar actions by other federal agencies, including the Department of Education (DOE), which had initially denied GCU’s nonprofit status despite approvals from the IRS, the Arizona Board for Private Postsecondary Education, and other bodies.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson explained the dismissal in a statement: “This case, which we inherited from the previous administration, was filed nearly two years ago and has suffered losses in two motions to dismiss. These losses are compounded by recent events: Grand Canyon secured a victory over the Department of Education in a related matter before the Ninth Circuit; the Department of Education rescinded a massive fine levied on related grounds; and the Internal Revenue Service confirmed that Grand Canyon University is properly claiming 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation designation.”
Mueller, who leads both GCU and Grand Canyon Education, framed the outcome as the end of a targeted assault on the institution’s Christian identity.
“This was not about protecting students and went well beyond normal regulatory activity,” he said. “The language used by these officials, the record fines they sought, and the baseless accusations they made all point to a broader ideological agenda.” He added that the FTC’s action concludes “years of coordinated lawfare by government officials under the Biden Administration against the largest Christian university in the country.”
The timing of these events aligns with a series of setbacks for the original claims. In November 2024, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the DOE had unlawfully rejected GCU’s nonprofit status, remanding the case for reevaluation under the correct legal standard. Following this, the IRS reaffirmed GCU’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, underscoring the university’s legitimate charitable operations. In March 2025, a U.S. District Court in Arizona dismissed the FTC’s suit against GCU itself on jurisdictional grounds, noting that the agency lacks authority over true nonprofits.
Perhaps most telling was the DOE’s decision in May 2025 to rescind a record $37.7 million fine it had imposed on GCU for alleged deceptive practices related to doctoral program costs. The dismissal came with prejudice, meaning no findings of wrongdoing and no penalties whatsoever. Mueller responded to that development by stating: “The facts clearly support our contention that we were wrongly accused of misleading our Doctoral students and we appreciate the recognition that those accusations were without merit. GCU is a leader in innovation, transparency and best practices in higher education and we look forward to working cooperatively with the Department in the future – just as we have with all regulatory agencies.”
GCU’s resilience amid these challenges highlights broader concerns for conservative institutions facing federal scrutiny. Founded in 1949 as a Baptist college, GCU now serves over 100,000 students, many drawn to its affordable, faith-based education model. The university reverted to nonprofit status in 2018 after a brief for-profit period, a move that drew ire from progressive regulators who viewed it as a loophole for profit-driven entities. Yet, as Mueller emphasized, “As we have stated from the beginning, not only were these accusations false, but the opposite is true. We go above and beyond what is required in our disclosures and are recognized as a leader in this area.”
He further reflected on the ordeal: “They threw everything they had at us for four years, and yet, despite every unjust accusation leveled against us, we have not only survived but have continued to thrive as a university. That is a testament, first and foremost, to the strength and dedication of our faculty, staff, students and their families. Above all, it speaks to our unwavering belief that the truth would ultimately prevail.”
Looking ahead, Mueller expressed optimism: “We support common sense government oversight but we vehemently reject ideologically driven, weaponized government actions that are not applied equally and equitably to all institutions. As an institution that has a strong record of cooperation and great relationships with 26 different regulatory and accrediting bodies, we are doing an exemplary job of addressing the many challenges that are plaguing higher education while also living out our Christian mission both on our campus and in the surrounding community. That is reflected in the growing demand from students and families who are seeking a higher education option at GCU that is affordable and taught from a Christian worldview perspective. That mission, not politics, is our motivation and we look forward to putting our full attention to those efforts in the future.”
This resolution not only vindicates GCU but also serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of bureaucratic overreach targeting faith-based organizations. As federal agencies under new leadership step back from these pursuits, it reinforces the importance of protecting religious freedoms in education.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
