The Nebraska Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against Bellevue University on Monday claiming they misled students enrolling in its nursing program. The complaint filed in the District Court of Sarpy County alleges the university deceived prospective and current nursing students regarding the accreditation status of its RN to BSN program and the "value of a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from an unaccredited nursing program."
Nursing programs are not required to be accredited to give a bachelor's degree, but the unaccredited BSN is less valuable that one from an accredited program. Peterson alleges that Bellevue University was aware of the difference before enrolling the first class of students in the program, but used deceptive advertising to confuse students about its accreditation status.
The complaint says that Bellevue University students incurred debt or lost their money as a result of the misleading information and were left with unaccredited degrees and worthless credit hours. The program taught 179 students between 2012 and March 2017.
Bellevue University responded to the suit Monday evening, saying, “Bellevue University is committed to holding ourselves to the highest standards and to ensuring that all of our students have access to high-quality educational opportunities. We take seriously the allegations outlined in the press release distributed by the Attorney General but stand firm that these specific allegations are not simply not true. We look forward to presenting our defense in court.”