[6][7] Initial plans for the school were made in 1977 and realized in January 1979 by the nonprofit Midwestern Psychology Development Foundation.

[6] The school announced a formal affiliation with the California Graduate Institute and its campuses in Westwood and Irvine in the fall of 2008,[8] although the L.A. location did not receive accreditation until a full decade later in 2018.

[9] In 2012, a group of 40 students who had enrolled in the inaugural 2008 clinical psychology doctoral cohort at the Los Angeles campus sued the school alleging that they were misled and deceived by the school into attending a doctoral program that was not accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA).

In September 2016, the court found that students were not properly apprised as to the accreditation differences between the Chicago and the Los Angeles campus programs.

[13] The Los Angeles campus Clinical Psychology PsyD program obtained APA accreditation in 2018, two years after the fraud payout.

The Chicago School at Xavier University of Louisiana has been granted initial Accreditation on Contingency status through 2024 by the American Psychological Association (APA).