Southern New Hampshire University

SNHU is running a grift on its students. Note that it gives you 3 credits for 8 weeks of work, instead of the normal 16 at a real college, but you pay as if you're at University of X or X State University. This system is in place so SNHU can suck down massive amounts of federal aid, not because it is the best way of providing quality education. SNHU exists to make money for SNHU ... tho' it is a not-for-profit unlike Phoenix and the other thieving dens. Regardless of the on-line schools' for-profit or not-for-profit status, at the end of the program, you get lots of debt. Now if you want to just fill a block, enroll here, but you should know that in the real world, people will in fact look down upon you for having a SNHU degree. SNHU is rotten to the core: they get only crappy professors (a great number of them educated only in on-line settings, which is why this is more a Ponzi scheme than a college) who make only $2200 a course (what's their motivation to go above and beyond for you when the prof is getting $110 on average for each student? ... that's $13.75 per week per student ... how many hours of the prof's attention each week do you think $13.75 buys you? -- about 15 minutes if your lucky); the work that students get away with performing is a pathetic (20 pages of reading a week in a class, for example) but the grades are inflated through the ceiling; and the staff designing the curricula have joke degrees (why do their deans, for example, have only MA degrees, and then from 5th-rate schools?). If you want a real educational experience, enroll at your local community college, earn your intro credits there, then go do the hard work and make the sacrifices at a brick and mortar school to get a real degree.

Transferring to another school. SNHU online has competitive tuition, that's it. Save a few $$ to buy a diploma that's already considered a joke? No thank you. Some of the teachers don't know their stuff or can't teach. Others don't care. Advisors are a mixed bag, financial aid run by children. Expensive advertisements try to save the day. Dishonest people.

The school is interested in MONEY from their online students. They make little or no attempt to assess students prior to assigning them to an adviser; mine was inept and the fact that she was a new employee was apparent. Her communication with me was so poor that I requested she send all communication in WRITING as she denied things she'd said in a call. By my 3rd 8-week session, I got the feeling that they had a certain amount of money they had to make off me and they did all in their power to hit that mark! Things like, telling me about the ability to CLEP (prior learning) after it was too late to do so; failing to give me proper credit for units transferred from a California State University. My issues were evolving WEEKLY! I'm not an unreasonable person but I expect professional, honest communication and I got the exact opposite here! If you are planning to attend SNHU, good luck!

After completing an MRP (concentration - rural development policy) at UMass-Amherst, I enrolled in SNHU's M.S. in Community Economic Development as I thought it would broaden my thinking and expand my "tool kit." Though pre-online (15 years ago), it was nontraditional, meeting face-to-face for 3 days (over a weekend), for 21 months. We had nationally-known faculty, and I felt it was a worthwhile effort. As importantly, it opened doors in my (so-called;) career, including the opportunity to work at Cornell University. As an alum I get a fair amount of info, and am sure that there are some issues related to the rapid growth in online programs, but I am certain they value students and suspect they are TQMing like the dickens to address those issues. It is still a fairly small institution, but with some serious aspirations. It might be worth checking out what others are saying, and since we can't post URLs here, so I will offer these three word clusters you can use with your search engine to bring up some articles, and you can make up your own mind as to whether it is an institution worth considering. Here we go... (Fast Company Most Innovative SNHU) (Lumina Foundation Focus SNHU nimbleness) (Christian Science Monitor LeBlanc SNHU)

Wow, where do I start! My experience with this school has been absolutely disappointing and disheartening. The staff are extremely rude, nasty, uncooperative, and unhelpful; as well as lack the ability to effectively communicate with students. I experienced a problem and ended up involving the highest ranking staff members, from the president to the provost, to the dean of students; and was met with prejudice and racism like you've never seen. The school is located in New Hampshire, enough said. In one course, there was a group assignment, and all of the minority students were placed in the same group! The professor claimed that he had no control over the assigning of groups and that the school actually had done so. Before deciding to enroll in this school, do yourself a favor and check out other online universities whose reputation is rock solid. SNHU does not cater to the needs of its students.