[3][4][5][6] Quackwatch, a group against health fraud, put Bastyr University on its list of "questionable organizations" as a school which is "accredited but not recommended".

[15] Four co-founders, Sheila Quinn, Joseph Pizzorno, Les Griffith, and Bill Mitchell, named the institution after John Bastyr, a teacher and advocate of naturopathy in the Seattle area.

[18] Average first-year cost (tuition, fees, and books) not including room and board for undergraduate programs is $26,523,[23] and for the doctorate in naturopathic medicine is $39,589.

The Bastyr curriculum has been criticized for teaching pseudoscience and quackery, as its courses in homeopathy, herbalism, acupuncture, and ayurvedic methods lack a compelling evidence basis.

[35][36] Clinical training in the naturopathic medicine program was revealed to be significantly fewer hours than what Bastyr claims to provide its students, focusing on dubious diagnostics to prescribe experimental and pseudoscientific treatments that do not adhere to medical standards of care.

[37] Research conducted at Bastyr has been criticized as being a waste of taxpayer dollars by studying implausible treatments inconsistent with the best understandings of science and medicine.

[5][39] Pizzorno co-authored the Textbook of Natural Medicine, which includes recommendations to treat diseases ranging from acne to AIDS using combinations of vitamins, minerals, and herbs at doses that would cause toxicity.

[46] In 1998, Bastyr offered an elective course in iridology, a debunked system of diagnosing medical conditions by looking for irregularities in the pigmentation of the iris.

[56] Dave Matthews used it to record the orchestral track for one of his albums;[56] his wife, Ashley Harper, is a naturopathic doctor who received her degree from Bastyr.

[57][58] Seattle chef Jim Watkins became director of food services in 2011 and introduced meat dishes to the previously strictly vegetarian menu.

[61] In September 2012, Bastyr University California opened in a two-story commercial building in San Diego with a small teaching clinic on the ground floor.

[4][38] A paranormal study funded by NCCAM and conducted at Bastyr investigated extrasensory perception and "distance healing" of HIV/AIDS patients by psychic methods.

[4] These topics are disproved by numerous rigorous investigations that preceded the studies conducted at Bastyr and have been criticized as serving only to justify NCCAM's continued existence.