[4][5][6] Seeing a need for higher education in Clinton County, Iowa, and the surrounding area, the Sisters of Saint Francis founded Mount St. Clare College in 1918.

[citation needed] For the 1979–1980 school year, the college received approval for its first four-year degree, a bachelor's program in business administration.

[9] University of Arizona Global Campus claims a history dating back to 1918, the founding year of Mount St. Clare College.

TeleUniversity was renamed Charter Learning with a focus on helping working adults complete their bachelor's degree while attending their community college.

Charter Learning provided American Council on Education credit-recommended upper division curriculum in Organizational Management, the Maricopa Community College system provided the lower division coursework and instruction, and Charter Oak State College granted the degree.

In 2003, Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm, invested in Charter Learning and the name changed to Bridgepoint Education.

[14] Charter Learning acquired the financially failing Catholic college to gain regional accreditation and access to federal funds.

[18] Following WASC's denial of accreditation for being, according to Insider Higher Ed, "lacking in several areas, including low numbers of full-time faculty, high student dropout rates and questions about academic rigor," WASC demanded additional information from Ashford prior to an October site visit.

[21] At its meeting June 26–28, 2019, the WASC Senior College and University Commission acted to reaffirm Ashford's accreditation through Spring 2025.

[citation needed] In 2017, Ashford University school faced the potential loss of GI Bill funding [27][28] as enrollment decreased more than 50 percent from its peak in 2011.

[33] In 2019, Bridgepoint bought Fullstack Academy,[34] and moved its personnel to Chandler, Arizona, boasting that its facility would feature an open working environment, with a café, gym, and on-site health clinic.

[36] On April 14, 2019, Ashford University was featured in an NBC News investigation of for-profit colleges that were targeting military veterans.

[39] Zovio faces shareholder lawsuits related to factual misstatements and an informal inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

[50] Zovio continued to lose more money as enrollment at the newly branded University of Arizona Global Campus declined.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, "recent disclosures by Zovio also suggest enrollment struggles lie ahead for America's newest mega-university, at least in the short term".

[61] On August 30, 2023, the Biden administration canceled $72 million of federal student loan debt for more than 2,300 borrowers who were enrolled at Ashford University in California between March 1, 2009, and April 30, 2020.

[64] In 2024, the US Department of Education discussed a claw back of funds related to borrower defense to repayment fraud claims against the school.

[82] According to U.S. Senate testimony by Arlie Willems, retired reviewer for the Iowa Department of Education, the Iowa Department of Education denied Ashford University's request in 2006 to offer an online Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) on the grounds that the program "was more a collection of discrete courses than a cohesive program, was understaffed for appropriate interaction with students and supervision of both courses and clinical experiences, including student teaching.

The OIG audit reached the following conclusions: The stock of Ashford's parent company, Bridgepoint Education, fell the most in almost five months when the misuse of federal student aid was first publicly disclosed in 2009.

[84] When the official results were released in 2011, Senator Tom Harkin said this audit "reveals the same troubling pattern of for-profit colleges' taking advantage of students and taxpayers."

[86] A Bloomberg News report revealed that Ashford was recruiting disabled soldiers at the Wounded Warrior Battalion at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, including a Marine with a traumatic brain injury.

[87] According to a February 15, 2011, filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ashford University and its parent company, Bridgepoint Education, received a letter from the Iowa Attorney General's office on February 9, 2011, requesting "documents and detailed information" from January 1, 2008, to the present to determine if Ashford's business practices possibly violated the state's Consumer Fraud Act.

[88] On March 10, 2011, Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) chaired a hearing of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that examined a case study of Ashford's parent company, which had experienced near-exponential profit growth in the last few years despite low graduation rates.

According to information provided by Harkin in the committee hearing, 63% of students who enrolled at Ashford University during the 2008–2009 school year withdrew before completion of their prospective program.

[93] On December 3, 2014, a suit was filed in Arizona federal court charging that Bridgepoint Education was violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by robocalling sales prospects.

"'[95] In 2016, Bridgepoint Education received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission related to the potential joint resolution of investigations by the California Attorney General and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

[96] In 2016, a former senior vice president at Ashford University alleged that Bridgepoint falsified its financial reports by inaccurately projecting the student retention rate.

The article included information about Bridgepoint's political moves with Arizona politicians in order to maintain GI Bill funding.

[102] In November 2017, the California Attorney General brought a lawsuit against Ashford and its parent company Bridgepoint for engaging in "unlawful marketing, sales and debt collection practices".

In March 2022, San Diego Superior Court issued that the parent company Zovio and its current rebranded online campus must pay $22 million in penalties for violating the laws by misleading students about career outcomes, college tuitions, financial aids, and degree programs.