[6] Walden was established in 1970 by two New York teachers, Bernie and Rita Turner, who created a program for working adults/teachers to pursue doctoral degrees.

In 1979, the Minnesota Higher Education Coordinating Board licensed Walden to grant PhDs and EdDs in the state and in 1982 the school moved its headquarters to Minneapolis.

[12] On April 8, 2016, the Minnesota Office of Higher Education (MOHE) notified Walden University that its renewal application to participate in the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (SARA) was rejected because Walden University did not have an institutional federal financial composite score computed by the US Department of Education (DOE).

[13] In October 2016, NBC News reported that the Minnesota Office of Higher Education was investigating a spike in student complaints.

[14] NBC News further reported that former students had filed a class action suit against the school for prolonging their enrollments for years, "until they were left hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and still short of a degree.

[16] According to Higher Education Dive "Two investment firms, Engine Capital and Hawk Ridge Partners, wrote in an open letter...that they were "severely disappointed" with the board's decision to purchase Walden, calling the college a 'substantially inferior asset.

In January, 2022, the civil rights law firm Relman Colfax and the National Student Legal Defense Network filed a class-action lawsuit against Walden University that alleges that Walden engages in “reverse redlining” by targeting its advertisements to Black and female students while misrepresenting the costs and credit hours required for its doctoral degrees.

As of 2016, it received more than 75% of its income from the US government, including more than $750 million a year for graduate student loans, the largest amount for any US college.