Grand Canyon University

You will never get into any graduate school in any sort of a traditional degree like English, Sociology, History, or Anthropology because you don’t learn the same things at GCU that the students are apparently studying at the regular schools. So your only option is to get your Master’s degree from GCU too or go to University Of Phoenix or Walden or one of the online schools to get one of their degrees and then hope you can get a job teaching at one of the online schools because regular colleges are never going to hire you to teach at a regular college with a degree from GCU or University Of Phoenix. So just hope that University Of Phoenix and GCU floods the market with so many graduates that finally someone will let you into graduate school. Even if the other schools would let you in they would probably realize you don’t know anything pretty quickly then kick you out. The employees constantly change at GCU and the “professors” are not permanent and you end up dealing with a bunch of GCU graduates as your teachers and they work for GCU too, so that is how you get your degree. Forget going to conferences and stuff like that – it isn’t happening. It is basically like a giant University Of Phoenix thing with Christianity and cheerleaders mixed in so that it appeals to parents and kids who have tens of thousands of dollars to throw away on a sort of fake degree.

GCU does a lousy job of providing academic and financial aid advising. They get you roped in and then hook you for government student loans. They eliminated the military veteran scholarship right in the middle of my classes and my academic advisor was never available to talk to me. They kept reassigning me to different financial aid advisors who did little to explain things or help me out. I would NOT recommend Grand Canyon to anyone!

I've been attending GCU for two years and with the exception of two teachers, my experience has been great. I have learned so much. the instructors have all been very knowledgeable and very responsive. With the exception of the library which I just can't figure out at all, the technology is very user friendly. The enrollment, academic and financial aid counselors have made the process easy. Yes, it's expensive but I feel that the knowledge that I have gained is valuable. I can't compare it to other universities but I do feel that I am much closer to achieving my goals in life. Online education has made education a possibility for me. I have only three more classes left before graduating and I feel that I made a good educational choice for me.

I was excited to start college and GCU seemed like the perfect fit. However it has become increasingly clear after 8 classes, that GCU accepts anyone that can pay into their school. Being online, written communication is critical to a class trying to duplicate face-to-face interaction like a ground class. Since our "class" exists in the form of Q&A forums answering and responding to "DQ's" (discussion questions), it is imperative that students have a least a basic understanding of how to express themselves in written form. In nearly all of my classes I beat my head against a wall dealing with classmates that cannot spell, cannot form a intelligent sentence and post lame answers like 'I agree with you.' or 'Nice post!' Then the "teachers" rarely TEACH -- its more like they are just facilitators that follow a pre-set lesson plan and post DQ's...its frustrating. The worst part of all? They are literally stuck in the last century when it comes to processing our financial aid. And speaking of costs. I did a rough estimate: $1,800 per class x 48,000 online students x 6 classes per year = roughly $516,000,000.00 -- that's 516 MILLION dollars per year in online tuition -- that being the case you'd think they could hire professors with DOCTORATES to TEACH ....oh well.

I have been a student since August 2009. I am a transfer student. Materials: The books chosen are good text books and many are used at other popular universities. The library is ok, but sometimes I find it better to do outside research, too. The articles and links they give you are pretty good and are sufficient enough to aid in completing good assignments. Teachers: All of my teachers have been great. Only one has been too uninvolved and seemed to be way too busy to be an online instructor. Sometimes the feedback that they give seems to be generic, copy/pasted (example: Good work. You demonstrated knowledge of the material. You covered all required points. Keep up the good work). A couple of times, I turned in what I knew was rushed, sub-par work that didn't quite meet the word requirements (by 200 words), and I still got a 100 percent. Support: My counserlors have changed 3 times. One time, I got a new set of counselors, then a week later they were changed again. I don't get that part. The financial aid department is so-so. Many times I've had to bug the hell out of my fin. aid conselor to get what my paperwork processed. It took from May-Aug of ths year to get my verification process completed and they kept asking for the SAME forms over and over, like they were losing some of it. I currently have a 3.9 (yup, I'm bragging), and I'm not sure if the work is or is not challenging enough because ONE) I can't speak for the classes I haven't taken or won't ever take and TWO) college has always been easy to me (yup, bragging again), but I do not think it is any less challenging than my last school.

I pursued my degree at GCU entirely online. I really enjoyed my classes. There was always lots of discussion, and the professors were attentive and well-rounded. The frustrating bit about Grand Canyon is their lack of support when you have an issue. My academic advisor was never available via telephone, and took over a week on average to return e-mails. Their phone system says they are closed, and to call back during business hours, even when you call during business hours! It's quite frustrating, and I wish they were better-equipped to deal with the demands of the online student community. It's a shame.