Colorado Technical University Employee Reviews about "high turnover"

Pros

The platform is easy to use.

Cons

The school has gone down hill since 2020. They are allowing students to not participate in the course yet receive full credit. The students who are actively participating stop caring and complain. The management expects adjuncts to grade late discussion boards and papers within 24 hours which puts an adjunct working 7 days a week. Students are no longer given a late penalty which means they turn every single assignment in 5 minutes before the class ends and get an A. It is no longer the CTU I went to work for a few years ago. Which is sad. Management was good but high turnover has led to inept leads. Adjuncts have no ability to edit the course content. Most content should be updated by people with real world experience. Not the leads they have now.

Pros

Excellent faculty but not enough full time

Cons

Top management instability. Toxic corporate culture. Excessive turnover of key campus executive positions.

Pros

Locally started and active in the community.

Cons

Unethical, unstable, and high turnover.

Pros

Competitive salary Bonus eligible positions for many employees Good benefits, but the quality of these benefits have been on the decline.

Cons

High employee turnover at all levels, including senior management. Internal conflict between departments Student recruitment practices are questionable, at best.

Pros

The only pro is that the pay is decent.

Cons

Poor management, and high turnover rate.

Pros

Many hard working and talented individuals.

Cons

There is little to no continuity between what the company says it is about and what it says it wants to do for its students and its employees. In my time at CTU there was a great deal of turnover due to poor systems, training, and behavioral management. This resulted in people spending much of their time fearing for their jobs rather than focusing on doing what is best of the prospective student.

Pros

The faculty and staff are friendly. Clean facilities and the IT is easy to access. Most of the faculty cares about the students.

Cons

CTU doesn't have many full-time faculty, and they treat their adjunct with contempt, they don't value them. In three years, we've only received one raise for 20 cents an hour. Lots of unethical practices. They want to make money and they don't care about the students....from the top down. The faculty cares...at least most of them do. I do. CTU executives (and board?) are constantly making decisions that aren't in the best interests of the faculty. For example, they cut hours, cut classes, and created policies recently and haven't officially told the faculty. It's the 'trickle down' affect. This is very unprofessional. Working there wasn't so bad until this last term, when they decided on policies that hurt adjunct and don't value them. 70 to 80% of their workforce are adjunct! This means, as they create policies where they don't care about adjunct, it effects the overall atmosphere of the workplace. VERY high turnover...for faculty, staff, and students.

Pros

- remote - equipment provided (computer, monitor, headphones, keyboard, mouse) - comprehensive onboarding - tuition remission (can get a degree for free) Day in and day out, you know what’s expected of you, which is nice. The onboarding process was great and there was a good amount of effort done to ensure you know what your job was. In fact, I’d say the onboarding was the best part of the entire job.

Cons

- micromanagement to some of the worst levels possible - near impossible expectations and workload - all calls will be recorded (when I left, only some calls were recorded), which leads to further micromanagement and unnecessary pressure - coached and graded on calls - hourly, not salary - clocking in 2 minutes late or more leads to reprimands (if you don’t have a reason for clocking in late, you WILL be docked on your paycheck) - constant turnover which led to more pressure being put on current employees - daily schedule isn’t consistent (you’ll work 8-5, 9-6, or 10-7 CST; you get your schedule after training and it will be different daily) - must work at LEAST one Saturday a month (you get a day off during the week when this happens) - predatory practice towards students (enrolling students at any cost, regardless of mental well-being or socioeconomic status) - benefits and PTO are mediocre (PTO, sick is all combined, medical and dental were expensive out of pocket, retirement match is not good) This is essentially a call center position. You’re expected to make 65+ outbound contacts per day, in addition to doing an hour or two hours of “dialers” and working the “queue.” Working the dialer (automatic outbound calls made for you depending on the target population; can be anywhere from 10 calls to 30 calls) DO NOT count towards those outbound contacts. In summary, you may have only 6 hours a day to make those 65+ outbound contacts, in addition to replying to emails, meetings, and handling any incoming calls or two-ways (essentially text messages on CTUs system). Having worked in higher ed previously, it was absolutely RIDICULOUS to be treated like I didn’t know how to work or interact with students. As I mentioned, your calls are recorded, and you will be graded on your calls by your manager and the QA team. There is a scorecard dedicated to this and the level of detail and scrutiny you’ll face from this is demoralizing to say the least. During my few months there, at least 7 people left the role, including a few from my team. With that turnover, nothing is done to address it; instead it’s business as usual and you’re expected to take on the additional workload without hesitation. I believe they will hire any warm body to do the job since it requires little skill. Some students have your number blocked because we contact them too much. Some students will hang up on you as soon as you say hello, or while you’re talking. Students may yell at you for saying you’re harassing them. I honestly heard it all. Students will also tell you they are enrolled only to get their stipend/refund check. In short, NONE of this should be happening in a “higher ed” setting. Unless you are completely desperate for a WFH job, I would not recommend this. Despite WFH jobs being marketed as flexible, this is anything but. If you are wanting to work in a traditional higher ed setting, I’m honestly unsure if this job will ultimately help you get there.

Pros

The people.... I worked at the downers grove office and my fellow co workers there were great. Very upbeat helpful and fun to work with

Cons

Where does one start with cons... Turnover... I should have followed my instincts when in the interview I was told they were happy to be down to a 75 percent turnover rate.... That's right only 25 out of every 100 people stays with the company... and they were happy about that since it was down from a close to 100 percent turnover rate. The reason for the high turnover is what the job entails.... You're title is Admissions Advisor... what you are is a telemarketer... Your job is to get EVERYONE who gets passed to you via call screener to enroll. The only people that they will not accept (as long as they have the $50 admissions fee) is if you do not have your high school diploma or ged.... You have the fee and the GED you get in. This does not sound bad, however we were told even IF the potential student could not benefit from what we offered (i.e. the wanted to be a hair dresser) we were to get them to apply. We were scolded if we told someone that we could not be of benefit to them. All that mattered was the sale. I had a collegue who asked a potential student which was more important getting his child a christmas gift or spending that 50 on getting into school...... Another aspect is how they get their potential students. They use VERY deceptive advertising. Did you ever see the 'Obama wants to pay you to go back to school' adds... if you are silly enough to answer them.. you would get a call back within 5 minutes from our screeners. Even if you told them you did not want to talk to someone, as long as you answered 3 questions you were passed through. Many times I would get a call from the screener passing someone who was screeming in the background not to pass him over. Now unless you told me to take you off our list, even if you said no, hung up, called me names... you would keep getting calls from us. I guess I saw admissions rep as something differennt from what they did. They saw it striclty as a numbers game... I saw it as a job to get qualified eager students to enroll....

Pros

Wonderful students to work with, a feeling of helping individuals find and enroll or re-enroll into their degrees, in most cases a life event has happen and you as the advisor are helping them return to the university to finish their degree. There is a large amount of satisfaction in seeing and helping good students graduate. Over all the pay is ok, and so are the benefits. The company does pay holiday pay. Over time is often offered based on the advisors performance. Co-workers are great people who are always willing to help. The online format is impressive for students with not only the virtual campus but the mobile app.

Cons

The company over all has a huge turnover rate as a direct result of poor upper management. Competition is egged on by the management team and the leadership team tends to turn a blind eye to management bulling advisors and singling out those that do not fit into the “good old boys club”. The chance of advancement is based on how much management 'likes' you vrs how well you complete your job duties. Management shows a significant lacks of training and support as well as direction. Overall the hostile work environment on top of the “good old boys club” within management (all the way up from the Campus Director of Admissions, Student Manager Specialist, to the VP's) are not conductive to increased productivity on the floor. Scare tactics are used on a daily basis to hit or over achieve your monthly budget of students to enroll. If you are unable to hit the required budget of students that need to be enrolled and started in classes and you score poorly (under a specific %) on your score card you are in fear of being fired. Management holds these 'set numbers' over advisors heads and remind them on a daily basis about the personal performance plan (PIP) that they will be placed on to show improvement within 30-60-90 days. However, when working with individuals there is no “guarantee” that the students that are enrolled by the advisor will be able to start classes. Admissions advisors are not in control of student’s financial aid, or if the timing is off and they are not able to start classes due to emergencies or life events. Regardless of why the student decides to withdraw or cancel their enrollment, the advisor is still held responsible for the overall number (required budget) of students who need to start classes. When an advisor takes a vacation they are still required to maintain the same budget of student’s to enroll and start in classes. This can also lower the number of students enrolled which could lead to the advisor being placed on a “PIP” or “fired for lack of productivity”. Advisors are required to use a script when talking with students and can be fired if they say too much or too little. Each call is recorded and the management team reviews each call looking for ways to either assist the advisor in talking with students or in some scary cases to single out advisors that are not in the “good old boys club” to find any reason (breaking the rules of the road – which includes bonding too much with a student) to fire them Truly if it was not for upper management this would be a GREAT place to work. The satisfaction is helping the students reach their goals and dreams.