Kaplan University Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Kaplan University full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Located in sunny Fort Lauderdale. It has pockets of bright people. The idea of higher education for the non-traditional student is noble and worthy.

Cons – Unfortunately, senior leadership rarely listens to those people. Lack of clear direction, tends to respond rather than lead proactively.

Also,like other for-profit schools Kaplan has focused on the profit side and spends more than 3x on marketing than instruction. Just think about that.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop trying to follow the University of Phoenix, be bold and forge your own path.

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

Former Employee – worked at Kaplan University full-time

Pros – Casual dress for the office.

Cons – Too much red tape involved in getting anything done quickly.

Advice to Senior Management – The segregation of lower level employees and execs is borderline pre-civil war South.

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

Former Employee – worked at Kaplan University full-time for more than a year

Pros – Feel like you're making a difference in students' lives.
Backed by the Washington Post.
Good work/life balance.

Cons – Very political environment with invisible alliances.
Senior Managers often care more about self preservation than overall benefit to the company or students.
It is common for managers to take credit for work done by subordinates, or to downplay positive results that managers can not take credit for.
Do not upset the status quo or you will be isolated outside the main political circle.

Advice to Senior Management – Innovate or perish. The online education landscape is changing and Kaplan may not be able to keep up if its core management is stuck in political gridlock.

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

Former Employee – worked at Kaplan University full-time for more than a year

Pros – If there are any, none come to mind.

Cons – Production is king. Whether you're doing the best thing for the student or not is secondary. Your numbers are more important. Poor leads . . . these are folks that are, for the most part, looking for work and led to believe, by the aggregaters, that they are in the right place. The advisor is then supposed to get them into school. Finally, until the very end, management led everyone to believe that they were not going to close the site. They even lied to all of us.

Advice to Senior Management – You hire for bright people. You should probably treat them as such. Your people know what's happening. Get rid of your young executive management team . . . they don't have the experience or foresight. Management is too prima dona in that the very good idea to have all of you do the advisor job for a couple of days a year met with such derision. Who knows, you might learn something that would help you get some traction in that market space.

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 Kaplan University full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Culturally diverse employee population
Great office envionment for cubicles

Cons – Very little chance for upward movement
New employees produce or are fired

Advice to Senior Management – Management is micro-managing with pressure to produce

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 Kaplan University

Pros – Its a job. The location and the co-workers are the only good thing about this place.

Cons – Too many to name, terrible place the mind games they play. So many people have to take a medical leave because of the stress. Be ready to give up at least 1 of your weekend days-no way around that.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop playing mind games with people and if you start holding everyone accountable instead of 1 department maybe the company can be stable again

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Kaplan University full-time

Pros – Florida is a sunny location

Cons – A terribly run "for profit" organization. I've been with the company a little over a year and have experienced 5 re-organizations and hundreds of people laid off. They will hire new employees and turn around and lay them off months later because they are bleeding money. It's unfortunate because the problems could easily be fixed, not sure why upper management hasn't taken notice. It would have saved a lot of peoples jobs

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Kaplan University as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – Available jobs at Kaplan because no one with any integrity will work there unless they absolutely have no other options.

Cons – Never speak your mind because that is not accepted at Kaplan. College seniors cannot write to save their lives, yet faculty are directly told to ignore that. Anyone who speaks out against the status quo is viewed as not being a team player. Not a quality education.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to all feedback because it is free advice that most employees will not give for fear of losing their jobs! Start using all of our federal money in a much more responsible way--you get most of your funding through federal financial aid, so we are ALL paying for your poor quality of education.

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 Kaplan University full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Work can help others if done properly, it's better than not having a job

Cons – Work life balance, business structure, ethics, overly aggressive workplace politics

Advice to Senior Management – Golden rule please

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 Kaplan University as a contractor for more than 3 years

Pros – 40 hour work weeks, ease of job

Cons – No room for pay increases and only lateral advancement, very disorganized, unsympathetic to human needs.

Advice to Senior Management – None

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