Grand Canyon University

To obtain a college degree, any college degree, you have to want it. You have to be willing to put in the time and the effort to attain the level of knowledge that is associated with a college degree. The level of instructors is no better or worse here than at ASU, UCLA, or USC where I have obtained other degrees. That isn't the problem that I have with GCU. My issue lies in the competency of other students with whom I must converse via the online classroom. There are some students who are barely literate, let alone the caliber of student that should be required prior to admittance to a university. While my success or failure does not depend upon my fellow students on a routine basis, there are occasions when we must enter the Collaborative Learning environment. What a JOKE! On all but one occasion, I have written the majority, once the entirety, of the project while my team mates accepted the "A" grade. In one instance, four team members had worked fairly successfully together for the week. On the last day, the fifth team member took the finished product and submitted it as his own. I filed a complaint with the instructor, but I never got resolution on the matter. This is my biggest challenge with the university. I believe it is unnecessary to require people who have never seen each other, who are often employed full-time and have vastly different schedules and availability, to work together to create a cohesive, truly collaborative end product. GCU is no better or worse than any other institution with regard to finances and response from representatives. College is expensive. College should be challenging and the level of literacy and intelligence should rise accordingly. Students who can't form a complete sentence should not be enrolled in a university. They should attend a community college where they can get remedial help before moving on to attain a college degree. In closing, GCU is a good school with excellent programs and adequate instruction. Entrance exams should be mandatory however.

I started taking the online classes for accounting. I was very excited and ready to learn. As I started my classes things fell apart. The teacher were never there to help! I thought maybe it was just the one teacher so I stayed. Well, NO! It was all the teachers the online program is a joke. My husband also started here and had the same problems as me. We both told student loans out to get us through school. Little did we know they were taking as much as they could. We think it was pell that was sending us refund checks. Now, we are thousands on dollars in debt and don't have the 400 to 500 dollars a month to pay it back. If you want to go back to college don't do it here! Most of your locate colleges/tech school have online programs for a 1/3 of the cost and you have all the support locate that you need. I hope this helps something one out because I wish I would have known this before I started!

I attended Grand Canyon University for two years. I completed my AA at a community college, as it was a cheaper and more convenient route. I enjoyed my time at GCU, I thought the instructors were very thorough. All assignments were useful. One should understand, the purpose of an assignment is to provide practice to a student, so they can use that practice in the workforce. Quizzes and exams were based off of classroom readings, and there were many critical thinking questions that were thrown out at you, weekly, in order to ensure you comprehend the material. Like any university, whether it is not-for-profit, or for-profit, it is up to a student to complete the work and learn the material. I currently attend USC, a very well-known research institution, so I understand what good education is about. Although GCU is no USC, the instructors at GCU provided a great amount of information that has helped me succeed at USC.

I spent last year completing my B.S. of Accounting and graduated with a 3.64 GPA. Classes were straight at you, as far as what was required, so no sudden surprises. Roughly 10-15% of the course grade was based on message board posts, another 10-20% on a group assignment or 2, with the rest focusing on individual assignments. Now the downside to this was honestly the group assignments, where half the time someone was either nonexistent in the group or didn't carry their load. So basically, 20% of your grade requires you to rely on other people, which can easily make a difference in your final grade. While improvements were made from the start of the year to the end, it appears GCU took shortcuts with its implementation of its academic system. I noticed more problems with their system, ANGEL, as time went on, to include slow loading of timed tests, which caused you to lose a minute due to their system delay. (Note, my computer or internet speed had nothing to do with this!) Also, while they now offer free ebooks, I had an issue where the book was not correctly uploaded into their system, causing a few days lost. This can be a big deal, since courses are only 8 weeks long, and can cause you issues if you have to carefully manage your time with work/family obligations. Customer service was the tipping point for me, as far as financial aid and academic counselors are concerned. I had a new counselor all of a sudden each semester, without any notification, and only found out when I finally reached someone on the phone (be prepared for long hold times). I constantly had to make calls regarding my financial aid, with GCU finally admitting error in my last semester, where I received my disbursement check over a month after they were to be sent out. For those that are fully focused on education full time and rely on federal aid, I would be very cautious about enrolling here. All in all, the education is not bad, but comparable to how most online colleges are set up. But based upon your needs, both class layout wise and financially, you might want to take a second look at other online schools before choosing GCU. I would consider GCU average at best, and not as great as it apparently once was.

I have attended what I consider a real university..brick and mortal, well-established university, University of Missouri. There International business program is ranked number 4 in the country. NO doubt a well established university. I graduated with honors just a few short years ago. I don't know if that is enough to establish that I am among the many intelligent individuals who attended GCU, but I do know this, attending this school for a graduate business school, is akin to attending Mickey Mouse university. There is just no real substance to it. The tuition is cheap, but the academia was not even as challenging as my undergraduate degree. I agree with the comments earlier that the professor gives you bogus feedback. I notice this early on, when I read the feedback and it seemed to consist of jumbled sentences that didn't make sense, like the professor was cutting and pasting comments. Next no one other than the enrollment counselors will answer their phone, and you have to leave three or four times, before you can get someone to return your call. Once you are in,the finance counselors, do not contact you. In addition, if I had not worked in student finance at my present job, I would've been totally screwed when it came to my financial aid. I had to navigate the financial aid process as my counselor did not know what to do, no could he remember from one phone call to the next what my issues where. I constantly had to tell him what was going on, and also he would say he would look into that. A week later, I would start my series of calls again, and after the fourth message, he would finally call me back..and be totally oblivious as to where! I would have to explain all over again! This really makes me feel like you are working on it. I could go on and on with the problems with this university. I was looking for challenging coursework that would prepare me for my CPA exam, all I got was fluff! Moving on...I would rather take the GMAT and get quality.

GCU is a decent place to earn your degree. I would not recommend signing up unless you plan to devote your life to the schoolwork. In order to maximize profit, courses are 8 weeks long with heavy reading assignments and a weekly assignment. The material is thrown at the student so quickly that there is little time for questions or to re-read or review. You spend your time reading and then flipping through what you've read for the answer to the questions. Some of the Professors take their job way too seriously, in an introductory religions class you are expected to submit a weekly paper in a very stringent APA publication format (even though there is no chance your paper will get published anywhere). This is also a strongly Christian university, if they tell you that religion will play no part in your education, you are being misled.