Education Management Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Education Management as a contractor

Pros – I was hired for a contract position after a brief interview and offered a decent hourly rate. Position was vaguely described but sounded good. Hiring process took about 2 weeks but seemed ok. Start date was delayed so they can get all the logins, etc. setup. This was a "professional" position, not call center or admin.

Cons – On first day, I was greeted by a peer who had a completely different idea about the scope of my work, and since the manager was located elsewhere I was to report to co-workers. Nothing was set up as far as log-ins, phone, there was endless red tape in trying to get this done. I was told the phone setup would take 5 business days. Co-workers micro-managed and began "training" me as if I just fell off the turnip truck and assigned me to do their grunt work. By the second day, they were openly hostile and did not answer any work-related questions or provide information I needed to do my work. I actually overheard them conspiring when they didn't know I was nearby. After the third day, I did not come back, and emailed the manager to let him know and give him my hours for the 3 days. The paycheck took 10 days, and they deducted 2 hours! really. well good luck ya'll.

Advice to Senior Management – Make sure you long-term employees are providing accurate information and not just yessing you on the phone, it seemed the manager had no idea of what the situation in the office was. Its convenient to assume everything is fine, but clearly it is not if you have an experienced contractor walking out after three days. Don't you wonder why? And deducting pay is illegal last time I checked.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Education Management full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Benefits are great, but that's it.
Students are amazing and talented!

Cons – No management support.
No incentives.
Do not care about students!!
Micromanagers abound.
Too many admissions staff.
Treat admissions staff poorly, while maintaining upper management for high dollars.
Re-hiring male staff that has been previously dismissed for improper conduct

Advice to Senior Management – Stop opening new schools! The ones you have are suffering!

– I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Education Management full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Some nice co-workers, that all quit about the same time I did. Those employees that tried to actually help the students were told not to be of any assistance.

Cons – They are corrupt, unethical, immoral, no concern for students' welfare. Their main concern was always the stock price. Upper management was give shares of stock during the IPO at $18 per share value, which has now fallen to $3.

Advice to Senior Management – How do you look in the mirror each day? Oh yea, it's your paychecks. Too bad you can't say the same for your stock price.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Education Management full-time for less than a year

Pros – Great pay, great benefit with free degree for employees. If you're someone who is good at sales at any cost this may be a good fit for you.

Cons – High pressure sales environment with strict metrics that forces expensive colleges upon people better suited for community college or other more budget friendly options.

Advice to Senior Management – Back of the high pressure sales idea and run as a smaller firm to help soften some the the harsh stigma of for profit schools

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Education Management full-time for more than a year

Pros – Benefits, nice AR's, experience that helped me transtion to another University, nice opportunity for someone right out of college. Other than that you can forget about stability

Cons – Management uses scare tactics, they have a tiering system (top, middle, bottom) If your on bottom tier it is almost impossible to get out. You will be making 300+ dials a day, harassing students 3 times a day, chasing them to get into school, using tactics such as "Oh I thought you didn't want to stay at McDonalds the rest of your life" Hours are the worst. The employee morale is down especially at South, it is like a black hole. 95% of employees are unhappy

Advice to Senior Management – Get rid of upper management. I literally could not stand working there because of the way they ran the business. You get held accountable if a student doesn't want to go to class. Upper management needs to be held accountable for high turnover!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Education Management full-time for less than a year

Pros – Decent coworkers. Salary is okay for pix area.

Cons – Full of backstabbers who would do anything to get ahead.

Advice to Senior Management – Document and standardize environment.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Education Management full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Full time benefits, educated co-workers, flexible schedule for faculty

Cons – Recruitment practices that accept un prepared students. Constant changes in policies and procedures that become confusing. Low office morale steeped by lay-offs and lack of transparency. Lack of leadership. Industry instability with gainful employment. Centralization practices that thwart decision making at the local level. Emphasis on profit not education.

Advice to Senior Management – Hire competent leaders not "yes" men and women. Place accountability on leaders in the organization. Place accountability on ethical practices within the company. Be more interested in education than profit. Actions speak louder than words.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Education Management full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – The money, because I got in before they got rid of the matrix. What they pay now is not worth it unless you are DESPERATE!

Cons – Where to begin? The management team has 2 plans for success, potlucks or layoffs. I have been here 4 years and have seen about an equal number of both. Not surprisingly, neither are effective against a imploding for-profit education market. Goals are unrealistic and unattainable ( I say this having hit the goals before through little more than sheer luck and circumstance) the punishments far out weigh the rewards. Did I mention they cut rasies for 2 years and the stock is below 4$ as of this posting? Not exatly what i had imagined during my 4 years of business school.

Advice to Senior Management – Find a cliff....then jump off it.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Education Management full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Sadly, Not much good these days.

Cons – Way too expensive. Not good value education for your dollar. CEO gets huge million dollar salary while laying off 800 employees. Too corporate. Most faculty don't have highly credentialed professional track records. The company is not interested in delivering quality education but profits for its share holders on the backs of the poorly paid faculty (work 75% more than a regular professor at a "real" college), tax payers educational loans and students expensive tuition.

Advice to Senior Management – Sell these schools back to owners that are passionate about education and care about the students and staff.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Education Management full-time for more than a year

Pros – free education if you have time

Cons – Reviews (called Success factors) are given every quarter. If you do not meet the high application or student start rate imposed by corp., you receive a negative rating. You do have the chance (if only) to redeem yourself with an "exceeds expectation" rating on a series of other factors such as professionalism but have been told by management that these are next to impossible to achieve. Goals are changed mid quarters by corp. and DOA's dangle good reviews over your head like carrots. If you receive two unfavorable reviews you are fired. Success factors AKA failure factors (as coined but one of the DOA’s) is a way of weeding people out of admissions.
 If you make your phone time you are told you don't have enough dials and vise versa. There is always something to find wrong. Nothing is ever good enough. At time of application you are told to have the students write the essays (which are only 150 words long). Most of the students that apply have no grammar or spelling skills so hoping that they can write an essay worthy of a "real" acceptance in thirty minutes is ridiculous, yet upper management wants it this way so they don't look bad during corp. meetings. Never mind that the student will be rejected or fail his way into student debt.
If you don't take at least one application a week you are sent to the president's office, which feels like being sent to the principals office for punishment. DOA's do not help the ADA's with improvement and spend much of their time gossiping about their team members or divulging confidential information to ADAs about other ADAs. Applications that are received online are handed out to those favored by management like treats or rewards.
There are so many blackout dates that it is next to impossible to take PTO. When you do take PTO you are still responsible for not having applications or phone time and you can get so far behind in your numbers it’s not worth taking the time off anyway. Open Houses are held almost every other weekend where prospective students are herded into the student union after a tour and pressured to apply.
There is a horrible disconnect between management, senior management and employees. Employees are lied to; rules and procedures are changed from one week to the next. It is a truly toxic, unhealthy and unethical environment.
The ADA’s have been told that they do not sell the school to the students; they sell themselves instead. Sorry but I don’t make enough money to have to bare that kind of responsibility.
If we need more students to make a class start we are told to enroll ourselves in school or our dependants even if we are not comfortable with the idea.
The list goes on….

Advice to Senior Management – Nothing that will be heard. Employee 2% cost of living increase was frozen nationwide so the CEO could collect his millions in bonus money. What advise would you give?

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company