Donald Trump's lawyers say many students have given the program a thumbs up.
A US federal judge on Thursday held a pre-trial hearing in a class-action lawsuit linked to President-elect Donald Trump's now-defunct Trump University.
US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who was accused of bias by Trump during the campaign because of his Mexican heritage, heard arguments on what evidence to allow at the fraud trial set to begin November 28 and for which Trump has been called as a witness.
The hearing also focused on jury instructions.
Attorneys for Trump have sought to exclude from the trial any comments their client made during the presidential campaign on grounds it could prejudice the jury.
Trump repeatedly hit out against the Indiana-born Curiel during his run for the White House. He called him a Mexican and asserted that his ethnic background made him unfit to try the case given Trump's controversial stand on illegal immigration and his vow to build a wall along the US-Mexico border.
The six-year-old lawsuit alleges that Trump University fleeced students by tricking them with aggressive marketing that amounted to fraud.
The suit says students paid as much as $35,000 to enroll, believing they would make it big in real estate and would be taught by experts hand-picked by Trump.
Trump's lawyers say many students have given the program a thumbs up and those who failed to succeed had only themselves to blame.