Education Management Reviews

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

Pros – Good location in Downtown Chicago; decent benefits and pay; supportive boss; good people overall

Cons – Poor planning and execution of new program development; low office morale; unstable industry

Advice to Senior Management – Learn how to balance the "for-profit" aspects with the "education" aspects of the business; yes, you are selling a product, but when the product is education, there are different ways to handle the business aspects.

Yes, I would 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 – Great training and team oriented!

Cons – no local team members - all done via skype/phone/email

Advice to Senior Management – n/a

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – Compensation was good. Career opportunities up until about 2008 when the economy went down and the industry was under scrutiny.

Cons – Poor leadership at the highest levels in later years (after acquisition by Goldman Sachs in 2006).

Advice to Senior Management – Let the local campus leadership make local decisions. Centralization led to the loss of many well qualified employees at campus locations.

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

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

Pros – Prelude:
One of the only reasons why this review received a 2 star rating is that it provided me an idea of what I do not want to see myself doing as a professional very early on in my career. If you are a young professional much like myself, this position will provide you a much needed understanding of the innerworkings of corporate America. You will understand what it takes to remain a number, and you will learn what it takes to climb the corporate ladder.

Pros:
As an ADA I was lucky enough to enroll a handful of students that genuinely needed to attend the college. It is wonderful to know that you have helped a student who is passionate about art find a program that could potentially help them start a career that is appropriate for them.

Base compensation is also fair for the nature of the work. Work/life balance is comfortable unless you have a family; you will work Saturdays.

Seeing student work is amazing. This was one of my biggest motivators in working at the Art Institute.

And of course, coworkers. Some are wonderful, down to Earth and share the struggle.

Cons – Cons:

The position of ADA is simple. You will be a telemarketer and salesperson. You will be expected to make at least 80 calls per day. Your goal will be to set up "interviews", (aka sales pitches) to potential students and their families. One of your biggest tasks will be to actually get students to start college. They will have financial issues, logistic issues, and sometimes, personal issues. Your director will expect you to "trouble shoot" these problems to "help" your student make their start date. Every three months their is a quarterly review consisting of qualitative and quantitative performance issues. It all comes down to how big of a suck up you are and if you were lucky enough to make your numbers.

The mass majority of your prospects will be unemployed individuals seeking any type of college to "improve their life". I did feel guilty enrolling students who I knew were not prepared for college classes. It wasn't fair for the teachers and it wasn't fair for the students who are able to keep up with the work. This is what drags down the quality of education at EDMC's schools.

Management's biggest role is to continuously train new hires being that it is a revolving door.

Advice to Senior Management – EDMC you've become a franchise. The American consumer is not stupid. They do not want to attend a school that has 48 other locations.

Reevaluate your target market, maybe that'll affect your retention

Reform your recruiting model. Promote veteran ADAs who actually have a passion for helping students.

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

Pros – The Human Resource team is helpful and the employee benefits are great. If you are self motivated, they have a lot of great internal training. The company mission and overall goal is easy to commit to.

Cons – The management in the location that I worked in is extremely inconsistent. While growing quickly, they promoted to many people to management who were not qualified, but were simply in the right place at the right time. Now they lose good people all the time because of it.

Advice to Senior Management – Take a good hard look at what your managers actually contribute at your Phoenix office.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – met some nice people while working at EDMC. employees encourage themselves and try to keep it light eventhough we all knew of the big dark management cloud watching

Cons – the training seems to be HELP the students get an Education oriented while once you actually are out of the training it is al about the numbers. you are always worried to not meet the numbers because that means that you will be losing your job. its a constant stress of enroll students on the phone "cold call " style, some are weird some didnt even wanna go to school some are just cursing at you for calling in the first place. you need to get two students a week else well you might be next on the fired list. huge layoffs and huge lack of trust in management... spend the whole day on a phone was not worth it at all

Advice to Senior Management – management needs to grow up they act like they are still in high school and all are out there to get you. there is no career opp. unless ur friends and buddies with management very high schoolish

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 7 years

Pros – Wonderful administration, staff, and faculty

Cons – One size fits all mentality . Interested in profit more than quality of education

Advice to Senior Management – Allow for more decisions to be made at local level

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Education Management full-time

Pros – Faculty have flexibility to set up their classes as they wish. They're not tied to teaching a standard program prescribed for every single campus as is the case at some other for-profit institutions.

Cons – Very low quality of students recruited. Faculty are expected to teach a greater load at this company than at any other institutions in the area.

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