Ashford University

This is my third year attending the online degree program through Ashford. The concept behind the unique education process really turned me on to the school. I was in the Armed Forces (journalist in the Army) and wanted to make the most of my education from the military. Maintaining a full time job and family is hard enough, so an online focused curriculum was essential for me. From the beginning I had issues with their finance department (i.e losing paperwork, holding excess funds for more than 14 days (which is against the law), and a poorly organized staff). Despite the flaws with their finance department I was committed to getting my degree. Over the 3 years I have had 4 student advisors. I was forced to request student loans from my first advisor and when I told her she was wrong she threatened to kick me out of school. So, like anyone in my position would do, I requested to speak with her supervisor. She then stopped returning my calls, hung up on me and refused to give me any information about who he was (seriously!). That didn't stop me, about 5 weeks after I finally spoke with him after emailing him several times and leaving multiple messages. He changed my advisor and my experience started to look up again. Until my advisor changed again without my knowledge and they started double charging me for classes. Their financial department is a mess. Their advisors are uninformed and it seems as though they read a script when speaking with you. Most of your classes are pre-chosen. Although I got a random email yesterday saying I needed to pick 8 credit hours of electives so I could finish up my degree. All the classes I chose, were unavailable. All their material is online and written by a professor through the University. The professors seem to have a respectable education background, but most of them honestly don't care. My current instructor can't even spell my name right, and it is right in front of her when she is grading my work. You are basically paying for a degree and it is a very self motivated program. Some of my fellow classmates should not be passing classes. I have provided an excerpt from a discussion post as an example, "I believe for the benefit of the people, the citizens should have the only right to make the decisions concerning certain decisions. Remember, this would be the President that would make decisions for the benefit of the people". The assigned discussion was "explain the Electoral College, discuss pros and cons of the system and explain how you believe this affects contemporary America." She had no in-text citations, her APA formatting was not used and she ended the discussion with essentially, a signature. The following quote is the response from our instructor, "I enjoyed reading your discussion about the electoral college. Your discussion is also well written and well organized. You also have a good discussion about why the electoral college is needed and how it works." Seriously? Well organized? Her post was 4 sentences of something that makes no sense, nor does it meet the expectations of the instructions. If you want to pay for a degree, this is the program for you, but if you want to be challenged and earn your education, you should not waste your time.

I don't understand why there are such ridiculous negative reviews. College is what you make of it and no matter what college you go to, you will only be as successful as you want to be. It took me 2 years to get my Bachelors through Ashford and you need to have alot of self-discipline. I think that the negative reviews come from students who lack self-discipline. The courses are condensed, which may be a bit more difficult that a 16 week course, but if you are serious about graduating in a timely manner, it is worth it! Some classes are harder than others, but that's how it is when you are in a regular university, as well! My first academic advisor as so hard to get ahold of, she was a nightmare. I am assuming she was fired because I was assigned a new advisor the following year and she was amazing and even called to check up on me every couple of weeks! This is an awesome college and I would highly recommend it.

It took two years but I got my degree from Ashford. I transferred in the max 99 credits from USF. It was a fast pace degree program. Most of the learning is self-directed,which is not a bad thing. Yes you can almost sleep through parts of the program and pass by the skins of your teeth. To really take advantage of this program you have to want to learn. I keep hearing the saying, "you get what you put into it", and it is really true. Expect to spend a lot more time sitting in front of a computer than if you were in a classroom. If you love to write then USE THIS PROGRAM! You will do well. If you 100% hate writing then avoid this school because every assignment is 6-8 pages long and at the end of every class you produce a 12-15 page research paper. I wish I would have known that because writing was not my forte. I started out as a very bad writer, but through some amazing professors I was able to improve, dramatically so! Over-all, good school in my book. Just don't let the administration get you down. Would I go there again, Yes, but I would pay more attention to my finances and communicate with my advisers every 2.5 weeks.

Ashford is awesome and I love going to school online and this school is great if you are a serious student and want to take classes you can take and use in the real world. I have had great teachers and there is a mix of people who are into school and there are others who are just floating through. I think some of the people who complained about Ashford in their posts did not make the most of their time here. I love going to school here and once I finished my Communications program I want to continue my studies and get a second degree. I am not ready to commit to a masters but this is a great school for people who are intellectual. You have five weeks to get through one class that would take longer at other schools. What else can I say but Ashford has given me the edge that will help me out in the real world. I have made friends in class that I will keep in touch with after I graduate. How cool is it to get references from teachers that you had your third class with? Bye Sue

I just graduated with my BA in communications. I have a 4.0 GPA and just enrolled in their MA program for Organizational management global specialization. I could not have been happier with this school. I'm a writer so the papers were a breeze. I enjoyed 8/10 teachers, and transferred over 90 credits. I graduated within one year, and without a single math credit on my list. I highly Recommend this school, and the online program. For a really wonderful advisor, ask for Mike Van Orden. He's a comic con Marvel comic artist!

Yes, Ashford is being investigated by the Dept. of Education. No, the charges do not amount to scamming the students!!! Ashford is a fine University here in my hometown. They just received an IACBE accreditation in the same month that they were investigated. Why would the IACBE give accreditation if there were serious charges to be levied against the institution? My fellow students and I have had zero problems. I wish all of the students who don't have complaints would get on these blogs so the sour-grapes crowd would realize that they are in a serious minority.

At first I was very excited to being my adult education at Ashford. Now, I am kicking myself wishing I had researched a bit more. I knew about the sales pressure. I knew about the financial complications. I knew about the technical fee. I thought to myself, "I know it is more money, I know I may not get my funds on time, but I will be able to have a full time job, and graduate in a shorter time." So, I went for it. What a joke. I am not learning anything. All of the material I am reading has been written by the Ashford faculty. I have checked out the books for the next classes and the same applies to all materials. Some of these so called teachers are very young, and have no teaching degree. In one of the books it has a word in bold, and then it gives a definition for it. Words like, "Profession, Craft, and Fictional writing." This is sad. If you don't know simple words such as these you shouldn't begin college, you should be in pre-course classes to help you prepare for regular college courses. I tested a theory. I have been skimming for the last three weeks, and completing my writing discussions in less than five minutes. My grade did not change, it remained at one-hundred percent. I'm not learning anything. The books are also filled with page fillers. Material we have covered already, and have to re-read for a second, third, and sometimes fourth time. I am so sick of repeats. If I stay at Ashford there is no way I will be able to use this information in a career field, because I will have learned nothing. Oh, and I was right about not receiving funds on time. I am still waiting... A single class costs over one thousand dollars. These are five week classes, you do the math! A course at a city college? The average runs a little under three thousand per semester. Do yourself a favor, get a part time job go to a regular school and live off grants and loans. I am convinced through my research that there is no safe, and sane online college. I'm transferring, wish me luck. I know there will be complications.

I have been attending Ashford University for over a year now and cannot really complain about the quality of the courses. No financial worries either since my GI Bill covers the cost and then some. I did have a slight communication problem with one of my previous advisors but she was either transferred or otherwise left before I could complain and my current advisor has so far been very attentive to my concerns. Before Ashford I had studied at a few traditional brick and mortar colleges (Santa Monica College, San Francisco City College, Wright State University) and the actual coursework (readings, papers, etc) is pretty much on the same level, the only thing different being the "classroom" experience. I actually get more out of the online format than I did in the classroom but that is probably because I don't participate much in live classrooms anyway, preferring instead to just get on with it and do the readings and assignments. The same is true for my time at Ashford in that while they do require a certain amount of discussion posts, the assignments are really what matters so it pretty much works out for me. What I'm worried about is how credible the degree will be considered. I have read and researched much that states that online degress from Ashford, Phoenix, Kaplan, are not even looked at twice by potential employers. However, given my choice of degree - Communications Studies - in relation to my current occupation and work situation, I think I should be ok. Since I work for the government and Ashford is accredited, the degree will help to supplement my existing experience and skills with further advancement in my civil service career. However I would worry if I was expecting to get a position in a more technical or scientific field such as Information Systems based on an online degree since I think most of those fields often require some sort of practical application in addition to the book learning. With that being said, I think that an online degree such as the ones being offered through Ashford are more applicable to someone who already has viable work experience. Whereas employers may shy away from an applicant with only an online degree, they may be more open minded to those who they may see as having attended college later in life wanting to improve on their already existing skills.