Complaint Review: Western Governors University

 I feel your pain, MANY people are struggling with WGU's concept. This school is the modern day cheap version of University of Phoenix. No joke. Slimy snake salesman and all. Their own employees say the university is numbers focused these days and are overwhelmed with the student intake. They are not neccessarily a diploma mill, but their diplomas are not worth much, nor are their credits! That is something I wish I knew before enrolling...it is difficult to transfer your credits anywhere! You have no GPA! Only 2 schools I could find with an extensive search will take them. You can love this school all you want, but the value is not there. You get what you pay for. It is also a "booming" online school without a physical campus. Many employers do not respect highly publicized online universities, especially ones without a physical school.

A good rule of thumb, never go with a university that has commercials and google ad clutter. Almost all brick and mortar universities have online programs now, which is amazing...and your diploma is the same as if youd been in person. As for class action lawsuit, one may be on its way! WGU is being investigated currently for a large violation when it comes to financial aid. One of the requirements for a school to accept financial aid is to offer regular student teacher interaction. It is a well known fact mentors are not teachers and course mentor interaction is optional and brief at best. So, if they fail this audit...which I am sure they will unless they revise their format some, financial aid will be pulled and there will be a LOT of pissed off students. I too learned a 6000$ lesson, thank God it wasnt more, however I will never again in life trust an "online" university like this. Here is the article about WGU's audit... https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/15/education-departments-inspector-generals-high-stakes-audit-western-governors-u

I earned my Bachelor's and MBA from WGU and my experience was excellent.

I never felt pressured by anyone at any time to enroll. Everyone I spoke to was very helpful and explained the application process, applying for financial aid and what to expect in my degree program. (side note- WGU is a non-profit school...just a FYI for anyone who may not be familiar with the school)

If you need help with a class you are taking, there is help available. Every student has a student mentor and every class has course mentors available. You can call or email mentors for help and the will get back to you. There are also "communities" which is basically forums for classes where students can post questions and get feedback from other students (course mentors also post there, too). Course mentors also provide videos, host webinars/cohorts and post helpful links in the communties to help students. Every student gets these resources in addition to the reading material needed (ebooks- I believe all courses use e-books, not 100%. If not all then most) and access to an online library. If it seemed there was a lack of help, I would assume it was because available resources were not utilized.

If you do not pass a class they do require that you take it again. I believe you can re-take a class 3 times. If you take an objective assessment (what they call an exam) and you fail, they will not tell you the question you missed or the answer. However, with the objective assessments or preassessments there is always a coaching report available after you take the test. The coaching report will show how you did in each areas/topic of the test. This is a tool available to help students improve those areas so the can pass the test. The reason a mentor will not provide a question/answer that is missed is because they don't want you to just memorize the information long enough to pass, they want you to really know and understand it. Their whole platform is competency based education. I also want to mention that as far as grading goes, it is either pass or fail. Passing an assessment is equivalent to a B (this is found in the Satisfactory Academic Policy on their webiste) and earning your degree from WGU means you scored no less than a B - on anything. If you need a GPA for an application for an internship or job, they will always tell you it is 3.0 since they don't grade traditionally.

I loved my time as a student and I am proud to be an alumni. My dad recommended WGU to me (I actually enrolled for my bachelor's the same day he received his Master's, then I graduated with my Master's on his birthday!) and recommended the school to my fiance' and to my best friend; both of whom are now students and love WGU as much as I do.

This school isn't for everyone and that's fine. However, it is unfair to refer to them as "modern day snake oil salesmen" because of their alleged "lack of true help" and because they wouldn't tell you exactly what question you missed. In all honesty, it seems like the bulk of your issue with WGU has to do with you not getting your way. When you were told to study the material again and "greater emphasis" was placed on some areas more than others, this was them pointing you in the direction to go. It seems they helped, just not in the way you wanted. As for the "class action" mention, they school didn't rip you off or con so I don't know what the point of mentioning that was.