CTU ONLINE Or Colorado Technical University Online Education Current Student Soon to Be Former, This is not a University its a Money Mill Colorado Springs Colorado

i 100% agree . And i share the same frustration and anger . wtf is going on !

I am a current student who has wasted 2 years with this school.  I am withdrawing at the end of this “session” because the school has gone continually downhill since I began in 2011.  I would like to point out that the majority of the “I’m content/happy with the school” reports are from years ago.  I wish a few of those who were happy with the school had a chance to go back now and see what has been done because I am confident that they would change their opinions.

Instructors: although there have been a few I really enjoyed the majority seem to either be disgruntled employees or just plain hate students.  I think someone has already mentioned this but there are also a large number of instructors who can barely speak English.  I, myself, have had more than a few instructors who I absolutely could not listen to their lectures live.  I had to listen to the recorded version because I would have to listen to sections over and over to try and figure out what is being said.  I thought, “Maybe it’s just me?” at first and had a few coworkers and friends listen as well and none of them could understand the first go-round.  They all had to listen at least twice through sections to understand a portion of what was being said.  Sometimes they want you to be verbose and sometimes they don’t but you don’t know that until they grade you down for it or point out that you could have included more information regardless of the word count.

Assignments: You have 2 discussion board postings due the first Wednesday of each term for each class (no matter if you are in one class or two, and classes start on Sunday).  Monday is when the first “Individual Paper” is due and is almost always supposed to be between 400 – 600 words (but see my comment above about grading and the word counts).  Live chats are usually twice per week (one to cover the discussion board posting and one to cover the individual post), but there have been some classes where the information to be covered in our “Individual Paper’s” isn’t covered until the day the posting is due.  Example:  It is Monday at 2 p.m. and the instructor holds the live chat for that day but is covering the topics due that very evening (11:59 p.m. Eastern) so you have 10 hours to do the work as long as you have nothing on your plate but school.  Add in kids, a spouse, a job and you’re pretty much not going to get the paper done on time (and if you do manage it is going to be of a very poor quality).  They stress APA formatting and even seem to cram it down your throat at the beginning but if you pay any attention at all you will see that there are more students who do not follow the formatting than who do (even in higher level classes) and they are still getting decent grades on these assignments.  I have only had one teacher (and that is this session) who is stressing the APA format or get a bad grade.

Financial Aid: ha, I don’t know who they are “aiding” because it certainly isn’t the student.  They used to be open about disbursement times.  You got a statement letter in your documents that showed you the dates of disbursement for the entire year.  Now, there is just a total of what you are receiving in financial aid and total of what your tuition for the year is going to cost.  They used to say, “We are allowed 14 days from the disbursement date to apply the loans/grants and if there is a leftover amount, disburse the stipend to you.”  Now, since they don’t seem to even go by the disbursement date on the FAFSA website you don’t have a clue as to when they are going to disburse everything and don’t even think about calling or emailing financial aid to ask because you will either get (a) the complete runaround or (b) a nasty and rude employee who doesn’t seem to want to lift a finger to even look anything up.  This isn’t even an isolated incident with just me.  There is a post on “Get Satisfaction” (their official “support site” now) dedicated to the frustrations many, many of the students (all CTUO) are experiencing with financial aid right now (and have been experiencing for months now).  One student was told his stipend would be allotted in April and is now being told the end of June before his loans are applied. 

Tuition: the amount they charge has increased significantly in just the 2 years I have been there.  Many students I have had a chance to “talk” to have commented that they are horrified at the increase in tuition rates. 

Overall Impression: CTUO is too worried about making a buck and not worried enough about the student body.  Their motto, “Students First” should be changed to “Stockholders First, Students Somewhere Down at the Bottom!”

You can get a doctor's note if you can't read the book online. The school will then mail you a book.

I erroneously wrote "Works of Wonder", within my post, when I intended to write "Words of Wisdom, LLC".

Your experience with Colorado Technical University-Online is unfortunate and I wish you well in resolving any issues you may have with them.  I'd like to share some of my insight, with regards to the school, that I have gained as a current student.

I have been attending CTUO for a little over a year where I have been enrolled in a Bachelor of Science program, with a concentration in Finance.  Does the school have faults or deficiencies?  Of course it does.  Although, my experience has differed from what you have experienced, I dont believe that every school will be a good-fit for everyone.

**Likes: I like that the school offers 5-week long courses, making it feasible to achieve a degree program in an accelerated fashion. That can mean a lot of work in a short span of time. Some friends and coworkers state that they need to be in a classroom environment or they might be easily distracted by family, friends, television or other activities. To them, I would not recommend CTU Online or any online college, for that matter. Online courses requires a student to have a lot of discipline and self-motivation in order to complete the courses. The important key, however, is a desire to learn. If an individual has little to no desire to learn, then he/she will gain little, no matter what the environment.

**Don't Like: One aspect of which I am not fond is the feedback assignments required of each student to provide to his classmates. We submit our assignments, read those of our classmates and respond to two of them, weekly. The logic behind this requirement is that we do not have the face-to-face interaction with our classmates by virtue of the technology. As such, this is one way to have the students interact with one another.  Personally, even when I attend brick-n-mortar schools, I do not necessarily interact with my classmates.  Not because I am antisocial (though there may be truth in that) but because my viewpoint is that I attend these classes to learn and garner an education, not to make additional friends. Another aspect I do not like is that, no matter how many courses one takes each quarter, the assignments are due on the same day. This means that if you take two classes per quarter, you'll have two assignments due, at the same time (usually on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday) and part of which includes responding to two classmates per class. In a brick-n-mortar environment, classes may be scheduled on differing days allowing for assignments to be staggered rather than simultaneously due.

**Instructors: As in any school, some instructors are better than others. I found most instructors to be knowledgeable and enthused about their field of study. However, some were not very good at conveying the information (you'll find this in any school). In these cases, it was up to me to learn on my own. A nice feature offered by CTUO are the resources made available to assist. You have access to online research libraries, tutorial services and a Learning Center where you might find similar chats covering the desired topic. Using such venues may allow you to find another source or individual from whom you can better understand the subject matter.

**Books and Material: I do not like having to access my books electronically. Call me old-fashioned but I prefer to have an actual book in my hands when reading or referencing material. CTUO seems to have gone to a standard where the books are published by Works of Wonder meaning that you cannot readily find other resources for the material such as on eBay, Amazon, etc. I would rather pay a few bucks to have the hard copy version of the text but that doesn't seem to be always feasible with CTUO. Like many things in life, I dont like it but I can adjust.

**Information Technology: I found IT support to be very helpful, at least with the minor issues I encountered.  It was great that the school provided MS Office 2010, at no additional cost to the student, as well as MS Project (for my Project Management class), and a pc video cam (for use with my Career Planning and Mgt class). I was also provided with actual books and a DVD for use with my Literature class.

**Transfer from CTUO: The caveat, with attending this school, is that the credits may not be fully transferable to a school that does not offer Quarter Semester Hours. Transferring to a local 4-yr state college, many of the credits have been accepted (not much of a need for Accounting or Financial Statement Analysis if going into Psychology). However, I was not granted full credits. For instance, although my Literature course was accepted, I was only credited with 2.67 Semester Hours instead of the 4.00 identified by CTU. Nevertheless, my credits were accepted confirming, in my mind, that the school is accredited. Otherwise, I would assume none would be accepted.

**Costs: As a military member, I pay $210 per credit hour as compared to $250 per credit hour at my local college.  A main difference, between the two, is that while a member of my state militia, I can attend a local school for very little to no money, out-of-pocket. Again, my reasoning for having attended CTU Online was the accelerated courses and my circumstances that dictated I obtain my degree as quickly as possible; circumstance that have since changed.

**Job Placement: I cannot speak to anything with respect to this as I have not been in need, of these services, at the moment.

**OVERALL:  I have enjoyed my experience at CTU.  My reason for leaving is that I am changing my major, from Finance to clinical Psychology, which is not offered there. If not for that, I probably would stay as it offers the benefits, services, and features that I desire.

Best of luck, to you, in finding the resolution that you seek.

--Pete

Your experience with Colorado Technical University-Online is unfortunate and I wish you well in resolving any issues you may have with them.  I'd like to share some of my insight, with regards to the school, that I have gained as a current student.

I have been attending CTUO for a little over a year where I have been enrolled in a Bachelor of Science program, with a concentration in Finance.  Does the school have faults or deficiencies?  Of course it does.  Although, my experience has differed from what you have experienced, I dont believe that every school will be a good-fit for everyone.

**Likes: I like that the school offers 5-week long courses, making it feasible to achieve a degree program in an accelerated fashion. That can mean a lot of work in a short span of time. Some friends and coworkers state that they need to be in a classroom environment or they might be easily distracted by family, friends, television or other activities. To them, I would not recommend CTU Online or any online college, for that matter. Online courses requires a student to have a lot of discipline and self-motivation in order to complete the courses. The important key, however, is a desire to learn. If an individual has little to no desire to learn, then he/she will gain little, no matter what the environment.

**Don't Like: One aspect of which I am not fond is the feedback assignments required of each student to provide to his classmates. We submit our assignments, read those of our classmates and respond to two of them, weekly. The logic behind this requirement is that we do not have the face-to-face interaction with our classmates by virtue of the technology. As such, this is one way to have the students interact with one another.  Personally, even when I attend brick-n-mortar schools, I do not necessarily interact with my classmates.  Not because I am antisocial (though there may be truth in that) but because my viewpoint is that I attend these classes to learn and garner an education, not to make additional friends. Another aspect I do not like is that, no matter how many courses one takes each quarter, the assignments are due on the same day. This means that if you take two classes per quarter, you'll have two assignments due, at the same time (usually on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday) and part of which includes responding to two classmates per class. In a brick-n-mortar environment, classes may be scheduled on differing days allowing for assignments to be staggered rather than simultaneously due.

**Instructors: As in any school, some instructors are better than others. I found most instructors to be knowledgeable and enthused about their field of study. However, some were not very good at conveying the information (you'll find this in any school). In these cases, it was up to me to learn on my own. A nice feature offered by CTUO are the resources made available to assist. You have access to online research libraries, tutorial services and a Learning Center where you might find similar chats covering the desired topic. Using such venues may allow you to find another source or individual from whom you can better understand the subject matter.

**Books and Material: I do not like having to access my books electronically. Call me old-fashioned but I prefer to have an actual book in my hands when reading or referencing material. CTUO seems to have gone to a standard where the books are published by Works of Wonder meaning that you cannot readily find other resources for the material such as on eBay, Amazon, etc. I would rather pay a few bucks to have the hard copy version of the text but that doesn't seem to be always feasible with CTUO. Like many things in life, I dont like it but I can adjust.

**Information Technology: I found IT support to be very helpful, at least with the minor issues I encountered.  It was great that the school provided MS Office 2010, at no additional cost to the student, as well as MS Project (for my Project Management class), and a pc video cam (for use with my Career Planning and Mgt class). I was also provided with actual books and a DVD for use with my Literature class.

**Transfer from CTUO: The caveat, with attending this school, is that the credits may not be fully transferable to a school that does not offer Quarter Semester Hours. Transferring to a local 4-yr state college, many of the credits have been accepted (not much of a need for Accounting or Financial Statement Analysis if going into Psychology). However, I was not granted full credits. For instance, although my Literature course was accepted, I was only credited with 2.67 Semester Hours instead of the 4.00 identified by CTU. Nevertheless, my credits were accepted confirming, in my mind, that the school is accredited. Otherwise, I would assume none would be accepted.

**Costs: As a military member, I pay $210 per credit hour as compared to $250 per credit hour at my local college.  A main difference, between the two, is that while a member of my state militia, I can attend a local school for very little to no money, out-of-pocket. Again, my reasoning for having attended CTU Online was the accelerated courses and my circumstances that dictated I obtain my degree as quickly as possible; circumstance that have since changed.

**OVERALL:  I have enjoyed my experience at CTU.  My reason for leaving is that I am changing my major, from Finance to clinical Psychology, which is not offered there. If not for that, I probably would stay as it offers the benefits, services, and features that I desire.

Best of luck, to you, in finding the resolution that you seek.

--Pete

Colorado Technical University Online (CTUO) is not a school

for everyone.  The courses used to vary

from 11 weeks to 5 weeks but I guess they decided that they were not pumping

enough students through the system.  All

courses are now 5 weeks long.  There are

some good instructors, that is, instructors that want to help you learn but for

the most part instructors are low quality and do not help at all.  I have had some instructors that barely speak

English.  The books are mostly e-books

that you cannot take with you when you leave. 

You cannot download them, save them or put them to disk, but you can

print them, one chapter at a time.  What

complicates learning is that most of the time the e-books have little or

nothing to do with the course being taught. 

In this school you get out of the school what you put into it.  They might as well call this the self-taught

school because that is what it is.  You

do have grades handed out by the instructor who may dock you points for no

other reason than he/she can.  I once ran

into an instructor who told me that students attending online classes did not

deserve a 100% because they did not learn as much as a brick and mortar classroom

student did.  I believe him now.  After two years my money and time have been

wasted.  I have had employers laugh at me

when produce my degree from CTUO.



Financial aid is another joke.  I do not think even they know what stipends

or disbursements you are going to get.  I

even think that they get points for getting you off the phone by telling you

that your money will be in tomorrow.  The

whole financial aid department is incompetent with exception of one person I

talked to a year in a half ago.  Speaking

of incompetent so is CTUO entire IT department. 

CTUO has discussion boards and back in 2010 they worked great then they

had the 2011 spring update.  Discussion

board was unable to carry the original format. 

In other words I spent hours working on a paper making it neat and tidy

with 0.5 borders, APA format, double space, and indent first line of

paragraph.  When I posted to the discussion

board it came out with no boarders, single spaced and random enters sometimes

five words then enter, and sometimes 10 words then enter.  IT said it wasnt their problem must be my

computer. So I spent days figuring out it was not my problem even worked with Microsoft.  IT said not their problem discussion boards

worked fine.  SIX months later they

admitted it was a problem in the meantime all the students were getting docked

10 points per assignment for not submitting in APA format.  I would go and spend an hour reworking my assignment

on the discussion board so that it looked like I had originally written it.



CTUO is a horrible place to get your degree from.  It takes hours of research to research the

subject matter and even longer to put it in a cohesive document.  Be prepared to be congratulated on one hand

for going above the required word count and punished with a low grade on the

other for exceeding the expectations of the assignment.

I'm currently a student a CTU and I'll be graduating this summer. I made sure that CTU was accredited before I registered. My last school was not regionally so it was difficult to transfer the credits. Thank God I finally found a place I could use those credits and have so much flexibility.

It's important to understand what your end goal is so you can decide whether CTU is for you. As for me, my end goal is to obtain a license to practice law. It doesn't matter if I study in a classroom or online, as long as the school is accredited, I will be able to sit for the bar exam. This is my end goal and CTU meets that purpose. After law school, I'll be in debt over $100,000; but if I am successful in obtaining my law license, it will be all well worth it. If not, life is going to be a pile of crap. I'll probably leave America altogether and live somewhere where there is no debt. I just don't understand how a country so rich can have it's people come out of school in heavy debt. Meanwhile, America gives money to countries that use our money to give their people free medical care and free schooling.

So, hell, if I don't succeed, I'm splitting and I don't give a d**n about any debt because I'm not going to live a life of suffering because this country f..ks over its own people. Why should I feel so bad, people in other countries taking our money don't so why should I. Hopefully I will succeed. Thank God for American companies shipping jobs overseas, I'll just go work for one of them and dump this stupid debt.

Hello to all readers. I just wanted to add some information about Colorado Technical University's brick and mortar campus and CTU Online. CTU and CTU Online is a fully accredited university.They are accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and the Higher Learning Commisson. To find out if a university is accredited just check out the Council for Higher Education Accreditation website at CHEA.org. Here you will find what colleges and universties are degree mills and which ones are regionally accredited. Im a federal employee and I work with other people who take classes online with other major universities and pretty much all online education seems to be very similar based on what I seen from other online programs. CHEA.org will tell you all the degree mills that have junk degrees to give out and believe me CTU is not one of them. They are fully accredited and also approved by the Department of Education. Their diplomas and transcripts do not even state the method of course delivery, which is common among many accredited brick and mortar Universities that offer online education. The Colorado Springs Campus has been around since 1965. I am a student with CTU Online and it has been quite pleasant. There will always be some unhappy people that will say bad things but the bottom line is they are a real university and they are accredited. Just check out Chea.org. Frankie, check out Chea.org.

I submitted an update to the accreditation of CTU Online on June 22, 2007 and it was not published due to technical errors. The school is accredited and a branch off of Colorado Technical University (Brick and Mortar) school.

If anyone wants to review the accreditation of CTU-Online go to this website: http://www.ncahlc.org/index.php?option=com_directory&Itemid=192&Action=s****.> I have decided to continue my education at CTU Online based on the results of my investigation. I am still an active student of CTU Online.

I apologize Peter of Stamford, Connecticut U.S.A.; I had already clarified your points regarding CTU online in my June 22nd update which was never published. I thank you for your testimonial to the school; it just further satisfies my quest for positive feedback regarding CTU online.

Sincerely,

I attended CTU Online and received my Bachelor of Science in Business Administration / Management in June of 2006. My overall experience with the institution was actually quite positive.

First, CTU Online is indeed a regionally accredited university, and the first website you mentioned (ed.gov/admins/finaid/accred/accreditation_pg4.html#Nationally%20Recognized) shows them as accredited (you have to search on the phrase "Colorado Technical University" and not "CTU Online").

You can also directly search the database of the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (the regional accrediting body for Colorado), and find the detailed accreditation record here:

ncahlc.org/index.php?option=com_directory&Itemid=192&Action=s****.> Note that this accreditation covers both their "brick and mortar" campuses and their online offerings, and they're broken out in a reasonable amount of detail on the above page so you can see it for yourself.

When I enrolled, I was 45 years old. While I had no prior college credit I was extensively self-taught and had ascended to positions of responsibility beyond what would normally be expected of someone with only a GED. Instead of transferring credit from prior courses, I took a series of College Level Examination Program ("CLEP") exams in basic subject areas, including Analysis & Interpretation of Literature, College Math, College French, Science, American Government, Principles of Management and so forth (in all I took and passed about a dozen standardized CLEP tests). These are not insignificant exams; they are produced by the same testing company that produces the SAT. Between the CLEPs and an extensive work experience portfolio (100+ pages with numerous exhibits) I accounted for all Freshman and Sophomore level classes and entered as a Junior. I then completed all Junior and Senior level classes in fifteen months and graduated summa c*m laude.

As to the issue of employability, I can't really comment because I own my own business, so I'm not looking for a job. I CAN say, however, that having my CTU degree on my personal CV has been helpful in competing for projects in my industry, which is quite competitive. I have yet to encounter a Fortune 500 company executive who has reacted in any way other than a positive one. Is a CTU degree equivalent in "name recognition value" to one from Harvard, Yale or Princeton? Of course not. But that wasn't what I was looking for: I was looking for a way to obtain a four-year degree while continuing to work and travel; and CTU's online system with its asynchronous approach was ideal.

You'll find a bit more information by examining the alumnus profile at:

ctuonline.edu/alumni/newsletters/July_2006.pdf

I hope this was helpful.

I spoke with someone yesterday to continue my probing of the university and I stand corrected on two points. One that the University is affiliated with Colorado Technical University (brick and mortar) they are listed as one of their campuses. Two the course descriptions were updated, but not in the catalog, they are in the catalog addendum.

As far as the accreditation is concerned, I am still looking into that. They stated that they just had their accreditation reinstituted for this school year in January. They are a branch off of CTU (brick and mortar) accreditation. So now I am going to look into CTU's (brick and mortar) accreditation to see where they stand.

I will keep all posted on my investigational progress.