This is a comment on THE Ave post : “For-Profit College Chain Accused Of Creating Fake Jobs; WGU “Non Profit” Washington State School Does Not Disclose These Numbers” 

FRAUD:  

WGU curriculum is sourced from resources like Lynda.com, Codecademy, and other for-profit businesses. You can also expect the curriculum to change mid-term as WGU shuffles around vendors. The content on these sites can change it anytime and in my case, one course no longer met the requirements of the the local accrediting agency and needed to be changed in the middle of the term. Testing and study materials are often factually incorrect, and replete with grammatical and spelling errors. These errors were found in general education classes as well as computer science. Courses directly contradicted W3C, RFC, IETF and other standards. This is not a school aimed at professionals – though they would lead you to believe otherwise.

Though WGU is non-profit, it’s similar businesses like ITT tech – only without the physical campus. The employees are call center workers – and they conduct themselves that way. The experience can be compared to spending in-ordinate time call center rep. The reps are called ‘mentors’ because they often lack a degree in your field of study. This can be confirmed by looking at the job openings for WGU. You can expect financial aid to be aggressive with you and it’s the only process within WGU that is followed up with any regularity.

With a grad rate of less than 25% (Source: US Dept. of Ed.) statistically speaking, you’re more likely to drop out from frustration than earn a degree. The Department of Education is cracking down and closing online schools. Heald College was part of Corinthians which was shut down, followed by ITT Tech. WGU practices are identical to those schools so be prepared in case WGU is forced into closure. Your degree may end up worthless.

Testing is conducted by a yet another contractor, in India and over a web conference and web cam. They are routinely late to start exams, and struggle to communicate with students. Expect to begin exams 30-60 minutes late. While you wait you are not allowed to get up from your seat.

If you find a mistake on a test, you can’t “challenge” the test – WGU will not revisit curriculum for correction – instead they will ask you to contact eCare – which is their customer service department. Unfortunately eCare is just another call center – though I didn’t find them impolite, nothing was ever followed up and they don’t offer any avenue to engage with eCare team directly. WGU is instrumented to keep you at arms length at all times.

The best education I got from WGU is to know better than to hire WGU graduates! However if you take a look at the Board of Directors for WGU you’ll notice that they sit on WGU’s board as well ad the boards of the vendors that WGU uses. WGU is nothing more then a scheme to sidestep the regulations that Department of Education is putting in place to prevent student loan fraud. By having a nonprofit between a profitable business in the part of education WGU can continue the fun a lot of funds with no genuine intention of graduating students.