Grand Canyon University

I've participated in 2 other on-line graduate programs as well as attended graduate courses in person at the University of Denver. Due to the birth of my daughter while my husband worked full-time and attended law school at night, I needed to find an online program to continue my Master's. A friend had completed theirs through GCU, the cost was good, so I decided to go ahead. Problems have abounded from the start:

1. Academic Advising Office - depending on who you talk to you will get wildly different answers to your questions. They cannot answer your questions based on any known school policies or guidelines. They tell you what they would do if they were in your shoes... not based on any GCU policy. They seem to be current students who are poorly trained to answer the phone.

2. The course facilitators have rarely provided any of their own credentials and educational background. I had one facilitator who was teaching a special education course who, by her own bio, had no special education experience.

3. Course facilitators do not add the conversation, make corrections to student comments (when they state things that are incorrect), nor add any insight whatsoever. They are not necessarily bad people, but they obviously only facilitate courses for the money.

4. I've been enrolled continuously for a year. A paper a week... and not one time have I received feedback on the content or quality of my paper. The only comments that facilitators make is on the APA format, and if was done correctly. I should add, so that people don't assume I'm just vengeful about poor grades or something, that I've received 100% on every assignment for the past year. I've not ended a course with anything less than 100%. However, I've never, prior to GCU, NOT received feedback from a teacher on the content and quality of my work - either in my undergrad courses or other graduate level courses. This has shown me that the online facilitators simply do this as a way to earn extra money.

5. Online facilitators have thrown out (deleted) student work first, THEN told students it was due to a policy that was never given to the students (had to do with submitting work early). After days & hours on the phone (and calling the Education Dept and being told by the woman that answered the phone that she was the only one who worked there and couldn't help me???) I finally spoke to the Dean of the College of Education and she agreed that the policy the students had been held accountable to was nowhere to be found in the student manual, course syllabi, course expectations, etc., and that "while it is a policy of GCU, we do need to communicate it to students." You think??? When the result is a teacher throwing out several students' work, I'd say you might want to communicate to students that responding before the due date will land them in hot water!

6. Oh, and that continuous enrollment? That's only if people in the Academic Advising office communicate with each other. I get no responses back to emails I've sent (haven't in months) and when I call to confirm my next class, they tell me (every time) that couldn't enroll me because I never called to express my preference of disability area (I'm in the special ed program). When I explain EVERY TIME that I've called now 4 separate times and given them that information they cannot explain to me why they don't have it.

7. The special education master's program has been a poor review of my undergrad program. There is nothing new, the textbooks are out of date (for those that don't know, special education law underwent major revision in 2004 - MANY things changed that anyone involved in the education of these kids needs to know - none of my GCU courses has touched on the major initiatives of the new laws & regulations, nor do the texts... because they are out of date). Overall, if you just want to pay to get your master's over with in a mindless fashion, then this is the program for you. If you'd like to learn something from experts in your field, this is most definitely NOT the program for you.