Complaint Review: Walden University

 A Walden representative visited my workplace and told me about two discounts. One discount was about a 25% discount for being the 2nd person in a household to enter the same program. The other was a 10% discount for being a member of the NEA. I was contacted by an enrolment advisor and was told, via email, that if my wife and I both entered walden University, one of us would get the 10% tuition discount and the other of us would get the 25%. I asked for further confirmation because I was considering other options and this was significant. The response by the enrolment advisor, in my personal email and in no uncertain terms stated that she had double checked and cofirmed that one of us would get the 25% and the other would get the 10%.

Over a month later we were official PhD students. It was at that time that I received an email in my new Walden account that while I would receive the 25% tuition discount for being a second student of household, my wife would not receive the 10% or any other discount.

It was too late for us to reconsider because of new Georgia policy regarding teacher certification requiring us to be in a program and taking classes by a specified date. I filed a petition, with my communications attached, thinking that as soon as they see that they had promised the discount, they would correct the problem. The petition was denied.  The statement on the denial letter was that they informed us of the "miscommunication" in a "timely manner". I filed another petition containing the information regarding Georgia policy which forced us to make a decision fast in order to be part of a grandfathering-in clause. I was rejected again with little explanation.

My wife then filed her own petition. She stated that Walden's denial of my petition was not factual because they never informed her that she would not get the 10% discount. They only informed me through my Walden email account. They denied her petition stating that they told me, not her, that she would be getting the discount and therefore they didn't have to contact her. This ignores the fact that when I asked for confirmation I specified that I was asking on behalf of many that wanted to know this answer.

I find this to be dishonest. We made a decision based on what we were promised in my personal email. We had a limited time to make a decision due to newly implemented Georgia certification rules. It's a long process to get into a PhD program and we did not have time to start over once we were told we would not get both discounts as promised.

I do not have complaints regarding the quality of my professors. However, these degrees are very expensive as more than $60K each. I have three degrees of which I see and I have a sense of self-efficacy and pride. When I look at my walden degree, I will remember first that I was deceived. I am robbed of the enjoyment and satisfaction that should come with the completion of my PhD. My wife feels the same way. We are halfway finished and have 4.0GPA's. We work very hard. The pride and satisfaction that has been removed due being victemized by a deceptive business practice, in my opinion, should result in a full refund of what we have currently paid and continuation of the program free of charge.

This really should not be acceptable business practice.