Elton University School Catalog

Notices Required by Law

California law requires us to print the following statements, word for word, in this catalog.

Review before you sign. As a prospective student, you are encouraged to review this catalog prior to signing an enrollment agreement. You are also encouraged to review the School Performance Fact Sheet, which must be provided to you prior to signing an enrollment agreement.

How to file a complaint. A student or any member of the public may file a complaint about this institution with the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education by calling (888) 370-7589 or by completing a complaint form, which can be obtained on the bureau's internet website at www.bppe.ca.gov.

Student assistance and relief. The Office of Student Assistance and Relief is available to support prospective students, current students, or past students of private postsecondary educational institutions in making informed decisions, understanding their rights, and navigating available services and relief options. The office may be reached by calling (888) 370-7589, option 5, or by visiting www.osar.bppe.ca.gov.

We are a private institution. Elton University is a private institution. Approval to operate requires complying with the minimum standards set by the State of California in the Education Code and Title 5 of the California Code of Regulations. Elton is not approved yet, but complies with the minimum standards. Approval to operate does not mean the Bureau endorses Elton, and it does not mean the Bureau considers Elton to exceed those minimum state standards.

Our bankruptcy status. Elton University has never filed a petition in bankruptcy, does not have a pending bankruptcy petition, is not operating as a debtor in possession, and has not had a bankruptcy petition filed against it that resulted in reorganization under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (11 U.S.C. §1101 et seq.) at any point in the preceding five years.

About Elton University

Who We Are

We founded Elton University in 2021 to answer one question: what happens when you build a university entirely around what the evidence says works, instead of around tradition, convenience, or the preferences of tenured faculty or administrators? We started from first principles, and the university we built looks different from anything else in American higher education as a result.

We deliver every program through one-on-one, tutorial-style instruction with expert professors, following a model called "a cognitive apprenticeship" with roots in the original Oxford tutorial system and grounded in four decades of research on how people actually learn. We offer three individualized degrees — a Bachelor's in Individualized Study, a Master's in Individualized Study, and a Doctorate in Individualized Study.

Our Legal Identity

We operate as Elton University, a program of Elton College Ltd., a Delaware nonstock nonprofit corporation recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization (EIN 86-2426898). We hold no close relationship with any for-profit consulting or management company, and we hold no endowment invested as a hedge fund. We fund our work through student tuition and a small circle of donor contributions.

Our Mission

We exist to serve our students and the public by cultivating the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that support free people living in a free society. We believe a great education prepares a person for a life, not just a job — a life with purpose, fellowship, and the capacity to keep growing long after graduation.

We hold ourselves accountable to specific, measurable commitments: high student satisfaction, a strong rate of graduates who reach their next career or educational goal within six months, a high graduation rate, and a near-zero rate of students who leave unhappy. We track every one of these openly, because we believe an institution that will not measure its own success has no standing to claim it.

The Objectives of Our Programs

Every Elton program shares the same underlying objectives: we help each student master a body of knowledge relevant to their field and their goals; we develop each student's intellectual, analytical, and critical abilities through direct engagement with an expert professor; and we foster durable values — curiosity, self-direction, and a commitment to lifelong learning — that outlast any single credential.

Our Motto

Elton's motto is the Latin phrase Curiositate Humanitas, which means "Humanity through curiosity" — or more precisely, "by following our deepest curiosities and highest motivations, we become more fully human." Great universities have always expressed their commitments in their mottos. Harvard's is Veritas — truth. Yale's is Lux et Veritas — light and truth. Elton's says something different: not just what we seek, but how we seek it. And it shapes everything about how we teach.

Our Name

Elton is an Old English name meaning "from the old town." The oldest universities in the world — Plato's Academy, Aristotle's Lyceum, the original Oxford and Cambridge — grew around direct relationships between teachers and students, not around course catalogues and credits designed by committee. Somewhere along the way, higher education traded the tutorial for the lecture hall, the individual for the cohort, and the question for the credential. We built Elton to return to what a university was always supposed to be, reimagined for the world we live in today. In this sense, Elton is a new university from the old town.

Evidence-Based Education

We commit, from our founding moment forward, to using the best available evidence for what works in education. We treat this the way a good hospital treats evidence-based medicine: as a baseline expectation, not an option. When better evidence emerges, we change our practice to match it. We draw, in particular, on findings that individualized, mastery-based, one-on-one instruction produces dramatically better learning outcomes than large-group lecture instruction, and we have built our entire instructional model — the weekly tutorial, the personalized sprint, the rubric-based assessment — around that body of research.

Our Leadership

Adam Braus, PhD (ABD), MSc, MSc — President of Elton University; Dean of PhD & Master's Programs. MSc in Higher Educational Leadership, MSc in Cybersecurity, and PhD in Philosophy (Ethics) (ABD). Previously Mr. Braus built Make School, which attended Y Combinator, raised $35M, achieved accreditation through WASC, and graduated over 400 students, many of whom work in leading tech companies or run their own successful startups. He then built the Department of Applied Computer Science at Dominican University of California. He wrote the book Motivate, a work on evidence-based education, and the book The Caging of the American Mind, about the history and present-day issues with higher education, licensing, and accreditation, before founding Elton to put that research into practice at an institutional scale. His philosophical research concerns the moral importance of compassion and the minimization of suffering.

Colin Lumsden, PhD (expected 2026), MSc — Dean, College of Business. Nearly 30 years of experience across edtech and higher education, including leadership roles behind two of the four largest edtech acquisitions in history and a portfolio generating over $110 million in annual revenue across more than 25 university partners. Previously affiliated with Springboard, 2U, and Pearson.

Approval to Operate and Accreditation Status

Our Approval to Operate

Elton University will apply for approval to operate from the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education. Approval to operate means we meet the state's minimum operating standards for a private postsecondary institution. Elton already complies with these minimum standards. Approval is not an endorsement of our quality by the State of California, and it does not mean we exceed the state's minimum standards.

A Direct Word About Accreditation

We do not currently hold accreditation from any agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, and no Elton degree program is accredited. Here is what that means in practice:

Licensure. None of our current programs are designed to prepare a graduate for a state-licensed profession, so this limitation does not affect eligibility to sit for a licensing exam in any Elton program today. If we introduce a program tied to licensure in the future, we will disclose the licensure requirements for that program before any student enrolls.

Recognition by other institutions and employers. A degree program that is unaccredited, or a degree from an unaccredited institution, is not recognized for some employment positions, including, but not limited to, positions with the State of California. Whether any other school, employer, or institution recognizes an Elton credential or transfer credit is entirely up to that institution — approval to operate does not obligate anyone else to accept our credits or credentials.

Federal financial aid. A student enrolled at an unaccredited institution is not eligible for federal financial aid programs. We do not participate in Title IV federal financial aid for this and other reasons described in Part 9.

Why we have made this choice, and what it requires of us going forward. We built Elton on a conviction that our own internal, evidence-based self-study — conducted monthly and annually against a rubric of educational inputs and outcomes — holds us to a higher standard than most third-party accreditors currently apply. California law nonetheless requires any institution offering a degree program to satisfy one of two paths: hold recognized accreditation, or hold a Bureau-approved plan to achieve accreditation within five years under a provisional approval to operate (Education Code §94885(b)). Because we offer the Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctorate as formal degrees, we operate under the second path unless and until we pursue full accreditation. We treat this as a standing institutional commitment, not paperwork: our leadership tracks it the same way we track student outcomes.

If we hold a provisional approval to operate, we give every degree-program applicant the following notice, in at least 12-point type, and we ask both the applicant and an Elton representative to initial and date it before the applicant signs an enrollment agreement:

We post this same notice immediately next to the description of each degree program in this catalog, on our website, and in any degree-program brochure we publish.

How We Teach: Locations, Delivery Method, Facilities & Equipment

Where Instruction Happens

We deliver Elton's programs through distance education: real-time, one-on-one and small-group video tutorials, asynchronous coursework, and project work that our students complete from wherever they live. Our administrative office is located in San Francisco, CA.

Students in the Bachelor's in Individualized Study may also choose to study in person in San Francisco, at three partner locations: The Fold (26th Street, Mission District), Noisebridge (Capp Street, Mission District), and Frontier Tower (995 Market Street). Elton does not own or operate these spaces. In-person students use them as places to study, and tutorials with San Francisco–based faculty can happen face to face there; every other tutorial happens by video. The degree, its requirements, and its tuition are the same whether a student studies online or in person.

Because we deliver instruction this way, we screen every applicant before admission to confirm they have the equipment, connectivity, and self-direction to succeed in a distance-education tutorial, consistent with 5 CCR §71715(d)(2).

Our Facilities and Equipment

We do not own a classroom campus. The facilities and equipment we use to deliver instruction are:

• A secure, reliable video-conferencing platform for weekly one-on-one and small-group tutorials with a professor or coach.
• Slack, email, and Notion for asynchronous coaching, feedback, and project management between live sessions.
• Zoom-based workshops and lectures, recorded for any student unable to attend live.
• Each student's own personal computer and internet connection, which we require as a condition of admission.
• Access to a local coworking space for students who want one, made available through Elton's partner network, including the three San Francisco partner locations described above.

We keep this technology stack current and reliable, and we replace any tool that stops meeting the needs of our instructional model.

Our Response Time to Student Work

For every distance-education program, we return a response to a student's submitted lesson, project, or milestone within approximately five (5) business days of receiving it, consistent with our weekly tutorial cadence and 5 CCR §71715(d)(7). For the Doctorate in Individualized Study specifically, we return substantive feedback on a submitted manuscript draft within approximately fifteen (15) business days, given the depth of review a publication-track manuscript requires.

Instruction in English

We deliver every Elton program entirely in English. We do not currently offer instruction in any other language.

Library and Learning Resources

We do not maintain a physical library on a campus, because we do not maintain a physical campus. Instead, we built Elton's library and learning-resource model around the same evidence-based principle that shapes the rest of our curriculum: in a world with an enormous and growing body of freely and affordably accessible scholarship, our role is to help a student find, evaluate, and use the right resource for their specific project, not to duplicate what already exists.

We provide the following learning resources, and describe them here consistent with 5 CCR §71740:

• Curated resource lists. Each professor builds and maintains a resource list for their field, drawing on open-access journals, digital textbooks, primary sources, and platforms such as Khan Academy and MIT OpenCourseWare, refreshed as new material becomes relevant to a student's project.
• Research support from faculty. Because every Elton course is one-on-one or in a very small group, a student's professor personally guides that student's research process — identifying sources, evaluating credibility, and pointing toward primary materials — in a way a large lecture course cannot.
• External library access. We help students obtain access to public library systems, community college library privileges, and open-access research databases appropriate to their location and field of study, and our coaches assist students in setting this access up during their first weeks at Elton.
• Doctoral research support. Doctoral candidates receive dedicated support identifying, accessing, and using the peer-reviewed literature relevant to their publication track, including guidance from their advisor on database access appropriate to their field.

A student can reach their coach or professor at any time to request help locating a specific resource, and our academic team documents and fulfills these requests as part of normal weekly tutorial support.

Faculty

We choose Elton professors for a blend of real-world industry experience, theoretical depth, and a genuine passion for one-on-one instruction, and we train every professor in Elton's tutorial method before they teach independently. The roster below reflects our current core and program faculty; we update it as our faculty grows.

We also draw on a growing network of industry mentors and subject-matter experts — Elton calls this network our "Icons" — who support students on specific projects without carrying formal faculty-of-record status. We maintain complete qualification records for every instructor of record, including degree verification and, for faculty who teach applied technical subjects such as Software Engineering & AI and Cybersecurity, documentation of current industry practice.

Educational Programs

Every Elton program shares the same instructional backbone: a dedicated coach, one or more expert professors, and a personalized curriculum organized into short, goal-driven units of work — two-week "sprints" in our graduate programs and "Dashes" of one day to one month in our Bachelor's — instead of traditional courses or semesters. A student's professor and coach set explicit learning goals at the start of each unit and deliver detailed, rubric-based feedback at its close. We describe grading and mastery standards in Part 12.

Elton offers three programs: the Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctorate in Individualized Study. Below, we describe each program's content, completion requirements, format, and length. Each program's start date and outcomes methodology appear in its School Performance Fact Sheet. Only Elton grants credit for Elton coursework; the amount of credit any other institution chooses to recognize is entirely up to that institution (see Part 21).

7.1 Bachelor's in Individualized Study

We built our Bachelor's for students who want to keep learning what interests them, at their own pace. Instead of a fixed set of courses, each student designs their course of study with a dedicated advisor, a professional coach, and one or more expert professors, and earns credit through Dashes — bursts of focused study, project work, and reflection, each built around a goal the student sets with their coach. Students can study online from anywhere, or in person in San Francisco (see Part 4).

Program start: this program begins enrolling students on November 15, 2026.

Admission: see Part 8.

Completion requirements: 120 credits (one credit equals 25 hours of engagement, so about 3,000 hours in all), earned through evaluated Dashes and projects in a personalized course of study built with the student's advisor, with at least 25% of credits awarded by Elton.

Length and format: three formats — Part Time (15 hrs/week, ~4 years), Full Time (24 hrs/week, ~2.5 years), and Accelerated (32 hrs/week, ~2 years). Transfer credit can shorten any format.

Stacking credentials: a student who leaves the program early still earns an Undergraduate Certificate after completing 30 credits, and an Associate's Degree in Individualized Study after completing 60 credits.

Credential: Bachelor of Arts in Individualized Study or Bachelor of Science in Individualized Study, depending on the student's focus, as determined with their advisor.

7.2 Master's in Individualized Study

We built our Master's around a simple idea: a student's course of study should follow their own goals, not a fixed department catalog. Every candidate works one-on-one with a dedicated advisor from day one to design an entirely personalized graduate program — drawing on Elton's depth in Business Administration, Software Engineering & AI, Cybersecurity, the Humanities, and Social & Environmental Sciences, combined in whatever way fits the student's goals, or built around a field none of those labels quite capture. There is no fixed course sequence and no cohort pace; the curriculum is the student's, built with their advisor.

Admission: see Part 8 for our post-baccalaureate admission standard, including our bachelor's-degree-equivalency pathway.

Completion requirements: 36 credits (about 900 hours) in a personalized course of study built with the student's advisor; sustained one-on-one instruction with an expert professor throughout; and a final capstone — original research, a business plan, a deployed technical project, or an applied policy analysis, depending on the student's focus — evaluated by the student's advisor.

Length and format: three formats — Spare Time (10 hrs/week, ~18 months), Part Time (15 hrs/week, ~12 months), and Accelerated (25 hrs/week, ~10 months).

Stacking credential: a student who leaves the program early still earns a Graduate Certificate in their concentration after completing 12 credits (one third of the Master's).

Credential: Master of Arts in Individualized Study or Master of Science in Individualized Study, with a concentration in the student's focus, as determined with their advisor. Completion of this Master's satisfies the master's-degree requirement for direct entry into Elton's Doctorate in Individualized Study.

7.3 Doctorate in Individualized Study

Our doctorate replaces the single, all-or-nothing dissertation defense with a degree built paper by paper, on a research question the candidate — not a department — chooses. A candidate researches, writes, and submits original work to peer-reviewed journals from day one, working one-on-one with a dedicated research advisor, and those accepted papers become the dissertation.

Admission: see Part 8. A candidate who does not already hold a master's degree completes Elton's integrated Master's in Individualized Study alongside the start of their doctoral research; their first paper counts as their master's thesis, so this adds no additional time to the doctoral timeline.

Completion requirements:

• Phase 1 — Research & Publication (18–48 months): the candidate develops, conducts, and submits original research for peer review, working with their research advisor on methodology, journal strategy, and manuscript revision, until they have accumulated three papers accepted for publication in reputable, peer-reviewed journals.
• Phase 2 — Completion & Defense (6–12 months): the candidate assembles the three published papers into a thesis with an introduction and conclusion, and completes a viva voce oral defense.

Length and format: three formats — Spare Time (5–10 hrs/week, ~4 years), Part Time (10–15 hrs/week, ~3 years), and Accelerated (15–25 hrs/week, ~2 years).

Relocation: a candidate conducts nearly all research from wherever they live; some destination-university partnerships may require relocation during the final 6–12 months, which we disclose to the specific candidates it affects before that phase begins.

Stacking credential: a candidate who enters without a master's degree earns the Master's in Individualized Study along the way, once their first accepted paper is approved as their master's thesis.

Credential: Doctor of Philosophy in Individualized Study (PhD), awarded upon successful completion of the viva voce and acceptance of the final thesis.

Admissions Policies

General Admission Standards

We do not require standardized testing (SAT/ACT/GRE/GMAT) for admission to any current Elton program. We evaluate every applicant individually through our enrollment process and an admissions conversation with an Elton advisor, and we do not admit any applicant who is obviously unqualified or who does not appear to have a reasonable prospect of completing their chosen program.

Bachelor's in Individualized Study: we admit applicants who hold a high school diploma and transcripts, a GED, or a homeschool diploma and transcripts. SAT and ACT scores are optional. Advanced high school students and students under 18 may apply for dual enrollment.

Master's in Individualized Study: consistent with the requirement that a post-baccalaureate degree program admit students who hold a bachelor's degree or its documented equivalent (5 CCR §71770(a)(2)), we admit an applicant who holds a completed bachelor's degree, or who demonstrates bachelor's-degree-equivalent readiness through a combination of substantial college coursework and at least two years of directly relevant professional experience, documented and evaluated through our prior-experiential-learning equivalency process described below.

Doctorate in Individualized Study: we admit candidates who demonstrate the capacity to conduct independent, publication-quality research, evaluated through the applicant's proposed research direction, prior writing or professional work, and an admissions conversation with the doctoral faculty.

Acceptance of Credit From Other Institutions

We accept transfer credit from colleges and universities in the United States and abroad when that credit is directly relevant to a student's program of study at Elton. We place no fixed numeric cap on the transfer credit a student may submit for evaluation, but at least 25% of the credit that counts toward an Elton credential must be awarded by Elton itself. Within the specific limits set by California law, we cap transferred credit as follows: up to 75% of the credit applied toward the Bachelor's in Individualized Study may come from other accredited or Bureau-approved institutions or from challenge examinations such as CLEP; up to 20% of the semester units applied toward the Master's in Individualized Study may transfer from another qualifying institution of higher learning; and no more than 30 graduate semester credits may transfer toward the Doctorate in Individualized Study.

We evaluate CLEP and equivalent challenge-exam credit toward the Bachelor's in Individualized Study only.

Articulation and Transfer Agreements

Elton University has not entered into a formal transfer or articulation agreement with any other college or university at this time. We disclose this fact as required by law. We encourage every student to contact any institution to which they may wish to transfer, before enrolling at Elton, to confirm how that institution will treat Elton credit.

Credit for Prior Experiential Learning

We built Elton on the principle that a student's life and work experience deserve real academic recognition, so we award credit for prior experiential learning under the following policy:

• We grant credit for prior learning only when that learning is equivalent to college- or university-level learning, demonstrates a genuine balance of theory and practice, and directly relates to the student's declared program of study.
• A student documents each prior-learning experience in writing as part of enrollment and their first coaching sessions.
• A qualified faculty member evaluates each submission and prepares a written report identifying the documents relied upon, the basis for finding the experience equivalent to college-level learning, and the number of credits recommended.
• A designated academic administrator reviews faculty prior-learning determinations periodically to confirm they stay consistent and compliant with this policy.
• Appeal: a student who disagrees with a prior-learning credit determination may appeal in writing to their Dean within 30 days of the determination; the Dean issues a final decision within 15 business days.
• Charges: we do not charge a separate fee for prior-learning credit evaluation, and the amount of credit we award is never tied to any fee.
• Limits: consistent with California law, prior-experiential-learning credit may not exceed 15 semester credits within a student's first 60 undergraduate credits, or the second 60; and may not exceed 6 semester credits within a student's first 30 graduate credits, or 3 semester credits within the second 30, with no experiential-learning credit awarded after a graduate student passes 60 semester credits.

International Students

Students living anywhere in the world may enroll at Elton. Because we deliver every program through distance education, we do not require relocation to the United States for admission.

Visa sponsorship: Elton University has chosen not to register with the U.S. federal government to sponsor F-1 student visas. We disclose this clearly: an international student cannot obtain an F-1 visa on the basis of Elton enrollment, and we provide no visa services and vouch for no student's immigration status.

English proficiency: we deliver every program in English, and a rigorous, discussion-based one-on-one tutorial requires strong English fluency to succeed. An applicant whose prior education was not conducted in English demonstrates proficiency through one of the following: a minimum TOEFL iBT score of 80 (or IELTS 6.5), a degree earned in a program taught in English, or a satisfactory admissions interview conducted in English. We do not currently offer ESL instruction or English-language support services.

Ability-to-Benefit Applicants

We do not admit any student who lacks a high school diploma or its recognized equivalent (an "ability-to-benefit" student) into any Elton program, including the Bachelor's in Individualized Study, so we do not administer ability-to-benefit testing.

Tuition, Charges & Financial Aid

Schedule of Total Charges

The table below states our current program tuition. We charge no fees beyond tuition for any current Elton program — no application fee, no technology fee, and no graduation fee — and we include Elton's Activity Fund, coaching, career services, and community access in every published tuition figure below.

We offer a 10% discount on total program tuition to any student who pays in full at enrollment. Scheduled increase: tuition for the Doctorate in Individualized Study is scheduled to rise to $21,000 (and to $27,000 with the integrated Master's), effective January 1, 2027; we publish this change through a catalog supplement in advance of that date, consistent with 5 CCR §71810(a).

A student's specific enrollment agreement always states, in writing, the total charge for their current period of attendance and the total estimated charge for their entire program, consistent with Education Code §94911.

Financial Aid We Offer

We offer institutional financial aid, but Elton University does not participate in federal Title IV financial aid programs, and we do not participate in any California state financial aid program. We made this decision deliberately: registering for federal financial aid would place restrictions on our one-on-one, agile instructional model that we believe would compromise it, and we believe our tuition, combined with our own institutional aid, is already more affordable than most alternatives that rely on federal aid.

Because we do not participate in these programs, a student enrolled at Elton is not eligible for any federal or California state financial aid, including federal student loans, Pell Grants, or Cal Grants.

Our own institutional financial aid may include:

• Need- and merit-based scholarships and grants
• Income Share Agreements (ISAs), with specific percentage-of-income and duration terms disclosed in a separate written ISA agreement before a student commits to one
• Referrals to pre-approved personal loans through third-party lending partners
• Paid work opportunities within Elton (tutoring, event support, and similar roles)
• A monthly per-student Activity Fund that Elton uses to cover books, materials, and approved outside coursework

We issue every accepted student a financial aid offer alongside their offer of admission, so a student has full financial information before committing to enroll.

Your Responsibility If You Borrow

If a student takes out a loan — whether a private loan or an Income Share Agreement — to pay for an Elton program, that student remains responsible for repaying the full amount borrowed, plus any applicable interest, less the amount of any refund we owe under Part 10. Because we do not participate in federal student aid, the federal-refund provision under Education Code §94909(a)(11) does not apply to Elton, but we include this notice for clarity and completeness.

Cancellation, Withdrawal & Refund Policy

We do not participate in federal student financial aid programs, so we follow the cancellation, withdrawal, and refund requirements of Education Code §94920 and 5 CCR §71750.

How to Cancel or Withdraw

A student cancels their enrollment agreement, or withdraws from their program, by delivering written notice to their Elton coach or to admissions@elton.university. A withdrawal can also occur through a student's conduct — most commonly, extended non-attendance without notice. We treat the effective date of a cancellation or withdrawal as the date we receive that written notice, or the date we reasonably determine a student has withdrawn by conduct, whichever comes first.

Your Right to a Full Refund

A student who cancels through attendance at their first tutorial session, or by the seventh day after enrollment, whichever is later, receives a full refund of everything paid to Elton, minus a deposit or application fee of no more than $250.

We go further than the law requires. For all three of our programs, we extend this no-risk cancellation window to the student's first 30 calendar days of enrollment — not just the first session or seven days.

Refunds After the No-Risk Window

If a student withdraws after our no-risk window closes, and has completed 60% or less of their current period of attendance, we issue a pro-rata refund calculated as follows, consistent with 5 CCR §71750(c):

1. We divide the student's total institutional charge for their program by the number of days in the program to find the daily charge.
2. We multiply that daily charge by the number of days the student attended, or was scheduled to attend, before withdrawal, to find the amount the student owes.
3. We refund everything the student paid, above that owed amount.

A student who has completed more than 60% of their period of attendance is not entitled to a refund under this pro-rata formula, though a student who has reached a stacking-credential milestone still earns that credential (see Part 7), independent of any tuition refund question.

Application fee, books, and supplies. We do not charge a separate application fee. Elton does not sell required books or supplies; every resource a student needs is either freely available or covered through the Activity Fund described in Part 9, so no separate non-refundable materials charge applies.

Timing. We pay or credit every refund within 45 days of a student's cancellation or withdrawal.

STRF assessment. Any Student Tuition Recovery Fund assessment a student pays is non-refundable, except when we owe a 100% refund under this policy.

Student Tuition Recovery Fund

The State of California established the Student Tuition Recovery Fund (STRF) to relieve or mitigate economic loss suffered by a student in an educational program at a qualifying institution, who is or was a California resident while enrolled, or was enrolled in a residency program, if the student enrolled in the institution, prepaid tuition, and suffered an economic loss. Unless relieved of the obligation to do so, you must pay the state-imposed assessment for the STRF, or it must be paid on your behalf, if you are a student in an educational program, who is a California resident, or are enrolled in a residency program, and prepay all or part of your tuition.

You are not eligible for protection from the STRF and you are not required to pay the STRF assessment, if you are not a California resident, or are not enrolled in a residency program.

It is important that you keep copies of your enrollment agreement, financial aid documents, receipts, or any other information that documents the amount paid to the school. Questions regarding the STRF may be directed to the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education, 1747 North Market Blvd., Suite 225, Sacramento, California, 95834, (916) 574-8900 or (888) 370-7589.

Current assessment rate. Effective April 1, 2024, and continuing through the date of this catalog, the STRF assessment rate is $0.00 per $1,000 of institutional charges. We disclose this rate here and confirm it in each enrollment agreement, and we update this figure immediately if the Bureau changes it.

Standards for Student Achievement

We do not grade on a traditional points or percentage system, and we do not use letter grades or seat time as a measure of learning. Instead:

• Rubric-based mastery grading. Every sprint, Dash, course of study, or capstone comes with a clear, explicit rubric that a student receives before starting the work, so they know exactly what excellence looks like from the beginning. Research on rubric-based grading shows it produces more accurate, fairer evaluation and drives deeper student engagement than conventional points grading, and we built our entire assessment model around that finding.
• Growth-mindset feedback. Elton faculty deliver feedback that emphasizes effort, strategy, and demonstrated progress, not fixed ability — an approach the research shows meaningfully improves how much a student ultimately learns.
• Portfolio and demonstrated competence. A student earns credit for demonstrated mastery and completed, evaluated work — writing, code, research, financial models, or equivalent artifacts — not for hours spent in a seat.
• Explicit goals, frequent feedback. Every sprint or Dash begins with specific, written learning goals and ends with substantive written feedback, so a student always knows where they stand and what comes next.
• Continued-enrollment standard. A student must consistently produce evaluated work and grow their portfolio, knowledge, and mastery to remain in good standing and continue their enrollment (see Part 15).

Attendance Policy

An Elton student engages in approximately 5 to 32 hours of Elton work per week, depending on their program and the pace format they choose (see Part 7), most of it independent project and study time supplemented by required weekly tutorial meetings with a professor and regular check-ins with a coach. A student must:

• Attend every scheduled tutorial with their professor and coach, prepared and with assigned work completed.
• Notify their coach in advance of any missed or rescheduled session.
• Access recorded workshops and lectures they are unable to attend live, and remain current on the material covered.

We consider a pattern of missed sessions or unprepared attendance a sign a student may need additional support, additional structure, or — if the pattern continues — academic probation under Part 15.

Leave of Absence Policy

We run Elton year-round and take only standard holidays off, plus a shared two-week break over the winter holidays. A student may take personal vacation time at their own discretion by giving their coach advance notice; we do not reimburse tuition for time taken this way, and we recommend a student not exceed roughly eight weeks off in any twelve-month period, or three consecutive weeks at one time, without formally requesting a leave of absence.

A student planning to be away from their studies for more than one month should request a formal leave of absence in writing to their coach at least two weeks in advance. A leave of absence suspends the student's tuition payment obligation for its duration, pauses the student's program timeline, and does not count toward the student's total allotted program length. A student returns from an approved leave of absence by notifying their coach at least one week before their intended return date.

Academic Probation and Dismissal

We hold every Elton student to high standards of preparation, engagement, and demonstrated progress, consistent with our tutorial model.

Academic probation. We place a student on academic probation when that student repeatedly arrives at tutorials unprepared, fails to complete assigned work, or otherwise fails to demonstrate the ongoing growth in portfolio, knowledge, and mastery that continued enrollment requires. We notify the student in writing, explain the specific concern, and set a clear, written plan and timeline — typically 30 days — for the student to return to good standing, developed together with the student's coach.

Dismissal. We dismiss a student from their program if they fail to meet the terms of an academic probation plan, or if their conduct otherwise violates Elton's academic integrity or community standards. We notify a dismissed student in writing of the reason for dismissal and their right to appeal.

Appeal. A dismissed student may appeal in writing to their program's Dean within 15 business days of the dismissal notice. The Dean reviews the appeal and issues a final written decision within 15 business days of receiving it.

Effect on tuition. Dismissal triggers the same cancellation and refund policy described in Part 10, calculated from the effective date of dismissal.

Student Records

We maintain complete records for every enrolled student, including the signed enrollment agreement, financial and payment records, academic and portfolio records, and all correspondence required under Education Code §94900 and 5 CCR §71920.

• We retain full student academic records, including transcripts, permanently.
• We retain all other required student records for at least five years following a student's completion of, or withdrawal from, their program.
• We store all student records securely, in facilities located in California, and we make a student's own records available to that student upon request.
• If Elton were ever to close, we would follow a formal records-transfer plan to ensure every student and graduate can still obtain their transcript and records afterward.

Student Rights and Grievance Procedure

Every Elton student has the right to fair treatment, transparent policies, and a real path to raise a concern.

1. Talk to your coach. Most concerns get resolved quickly through a direct conversation with your Elton coach, whose job includes advocating for you inside the institution.
2. Submit a written grievance. If a concern is not resolved informally, a student may submit a written grievance to their program's Dean, describing the issue and the resolution they are seeking. The Dean acknowledges the grievance within 5 business days and issues a written decision within 30 days.
3. Appeal to the President. A student who disagrees with the Dean's decision may appeal in writing to Elton's President within 15 business days of that decision. The President issues a final written decision within 30 days.
4. Contact the Bureau. At any point, a student or any member of the public may file a complaint about Elton directly with the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education by calling (888) 370-7589 or completing a complaint form at www.bppe.ca.gov. Submitting an internal grievance is never a precondition to contacting the Bureau.

We do not retaliate, in any form, against a student for raising a grievance in good faith or for contacting the Bureau.

Student Services

Every enrolled Elton student receives:

• Unlimited coaching. A dedicated professional coach who meets with the student at least twice monthly, serving as the student's advocate, accountability partner, and guide through educational, personal, and professional goal-setting.
• Direct professor access. Weekly one-on-one or small-group tutorials with an expert professor in the student's field.
• Career discovery and integration. Career exploration woven into coursework from day one, not offered as a separate, disconnected service.
• Mentors and Industry Contacts ("Icons"). Access to Elton's growing network of industry mentors for guidance, introductions, and support.
• Community access. Access to Elton's online student and alumni community, including workshops, lectures, unconferences, and social events.
• The Activity Fund. A monthly stipend Elton provides to cover books, materials, and approved outside courses relevant to a student's learning plan.
• Alumni network access, for life, following graduation or program completion.

Career and Placement Services

We integrate career support into every Elton program from the first week — this is not an optional add-on. Our career support includes career exploration and goal-setting with a student's coach, resume and cover letter development, technical- and behavioral-interview preparation, salary negotiation coaching, and warm introductions through our Icons mentor network to internship and employment opportunities.

We do not guarantee employment or promise any specific job outcome to any student, and we do not overstate the availability of jobs after graduation. Program-specific outcome data — including completion rates, placement rates, and salary information calculated under California law — appears in each program's separate School Performance Fact Sheet, which we provide to every prospective student before they sign an enrollment agreement.

Housing

Elton University maintains no dormitory or other housing facility under its control. We deliver every program through distance education, so a student may live anywhere they choose while enrolled, including Bachelor's students who choose to study in person in San Francisco. Elton University has no responsibility to find or assist a student in finding housing of any kind.

Transferability of Credits and Credentials

NOTICE CONCERNING TRANSFERABILITY OF CREDITS AND CREDENTIALS EARNED AT OUR INSTITUTION

The transferability of credits you earn at Elton University is at the complete discretion of an institution to which you may seek to transfer. Acceptance of the degree, diploma, or certificate you earn in an Elton educational program is also at the complete discretion of the institution to which you may seek to transfer. If the credits or degree, diploma, or certificate that you earn at this institution are not accepted at the institution to which you seek to transfer, you may be required to repeat some or all of your coursework at that institution. For this reason you should make certain that your attendance at this institution will meet your educational goals. This may include contacting an institution to which you may seek to transfer after attending Elton University to determine if your credits or degree, diploma, or certificate will transfer.

Job Classifications for Our Programs

We identify below the job classification each program prepares its graduates for, using the U.S. Department of Labor's Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system at the six-digit Detailed Occupation level, consistent with 5 CCR §74112(d)(3).

Because a Bachelor's, Master's, or Doctorate in Individualized Study can lead toward any of the focus areas above — or a combination a student designs with their advisor — we classify each student under the code that matches their declared focus at admission. These classifications match each program's School Performance Fact Sheet, and we confirm and, where needed, refine them with the Bureau before publication.

Nondiscrimination

We admit students of any race, color, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, religion, disability, or veteran status to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities Elton generally makes available to students. We do not discriminate on any of these bases in the administration of our admissions policies, financial aid programs, or any other Elton program.

How to Reach Us

This catalog is effective September 1, 2026 through August 31, 2027, and supersedes all prior Elton University catalogs. We publish updates and corrections as supplements to this edition until our next annual catalog.