WGU Layoffs

[sacredrain]

Ok let's say magically all 135,000 students are only at WGU for 1 term (even though that's rare we'll use that). Losing 3200 students is a drop in the bucket when you have 135,000 students. That's less than 2.4%. There are also new students every month. Stunts like yesterday don't provide great PR and the online colleges are already responding with a LOT of social media ads about transferring. Wonder why that started this morning? Hmmmm....

135,000 x $3475 (which is the lowest tuition and not what tuition is for most degrees) = $469,125,000. That's almost half a BILLION dollars!

Yeah they're so generous that they just laid off 160 staff and hired a new CFO who started 10 days ago. Coincidence? Doubtful.

You and I can agree to disagree, as I said I seriously doubt there are 135,000 students at WGU at the moment. As for the pr thing, its not their fault that people took to the internet to say they had been laid off, we live in the social media era, this type of thing will happen. You also cant help it that universities are sensing blood and after students. There is only a limited pool of students and too many universities and colleges in America, so competition is fierce. If you are a private university without state funds you will have to go after every student you can, as you are competing against tax payer funded universities. 


Not only that not all students are paying the full rate, some are part time as well so without knowing who is part time, who is paying what your calculations are far off. Plus without knowing what their expenses are, it is hard to see how much they are actually bringing in or have left over. I know some full time faculty there were making 80K plus a year with benefits, plus some program mentors were at 55k to 65K per year with benefits. Not only that they have campuses in a few states and staff there as well, so without knowing how much they brought in and how much they have in expenses, its hard to determine what their financial picture is like. I am not defending them, just pointing out to everyone how this works and why this probably happened. But people will think what they want to think and believe what they want. In all honesty I have seen places lay off more people in higher ed and K to 12 ed than WGU, the fact it is only 160 people is a blessing compared to a school district that is discussing laying off 400 in the upcoming school year.

The 135,000 students enrolled came directly from WGU yesterday. 

The PR problem is that WGU waited hours before notifying students and staff. Students emails to their mentors were returned which caused a huge problem. The emails should never had been returned. They should have been forwarded to a supervisor. Students called Student Services who had no idea what was going on. They weren't told until the end of the day that the layoffs took place. Students still do not have new mentors. New students started today and there's tons of posts of students saying they can't access anything because they no longer have a mentor. That is not a great way to start off your term.

You don't sound like you know much about how tuition operates at WGU. Tuition is a flat fee for 6 months. There is not such thing as part time tuition. Everyone pays the fee based on their degree program. Each degree program has a tuition fee that's billed every 6 months.

There is part time tuition if you are self pay you can get part time tuition and if you are at the end of your term you can get part time tuition if you do not have 12 cus to register for. Military va students can either sign up for the military full time of 18 cus or can sign up for military part time 12 cus. 12 cus is the full time for most non military students. Financial aid students cannot get part time  status because of the financial aid funds, unless at the end of their term. If a student meets any of the criteria stated, they can ask their mentor or call WGU's financial service to get the part time status, it does not occur automatically.

And here is the info from their handbook:
https://cm.wgu.edu/t5/WGU-Student-Policy-Handbook/Tuition-Information-for-Part-Time-Enrollment/ta-p/107
Part-Time Enrollment
As stated in the article Full-Time Enrollment Status, all students are expected to be enrolled full-time for each term, while enrolled at WGU. Full-time for an undergraduate student is 12 competency units (CUs). Full-time for a graduate student is eight (8) CUs.

Students who are unable to enroll full-time due to not having enough CUs in a term may enroll part-time. There are three exceptions to full-time enrollment where a student should be considered part-time.
Students in their last term prior to graduating without enough CUs remaining to be considered full-time.*
Students in the term prior to the demonstration teaching period without enough CUs enrolled in their term to be considered full-time.*
Students in the undergraduate portion of a nursing bridge program who do not have enough CUs remaining to obtain the BSN degree at full-time status.*
Students unable to enroll in full-time CUs for their term and who are approved for part-time status may have their tuition prorated based on CUs attempted for the term. Adding any additional CUs to the term after the part-time status has been processed will result in increased tuition.

Once a student’s term is updated to reflect the part-time status, tuition is prorated and posted to the student’s account. Students who are eligible for financial aid will be reviewed after tuition is prorated. Once reviewed, financial aid will post to the student's account. For undergraduate students who are eligible to receive a federal aid Pell Grant; the Pell Grant is revised based on the number of CUs remaining.

If students are enrolled in less than half-time CUs (less than six CUs as an undergraduate or less than four CUs as a graduate), students are not eligible to receive any direct federal loans.

*Note: Prorated (part-time) students will have their tuition adjusted by the number of competency units attempted within a term, not by time attended within a term. Only tuition will be prorated. All fees are still charged at the full amount for the entire term, regardless of full-time or part-time status in a term.

As I stated I work for WGU as a contract evaluator and contract part time faculty member (new positions they created about a year ago) and I have many colleagues there as well (some as PM's, a few as CI's, and some as enrollment counselors). So I know how the university works, please do not assume I do not.  If anyone does not know how WGU works, it is you apparently. 

As for what happened yesterday, HR and managers had to phone up staff who were being laid off throughout the day, plus load balancing takes a while if a mentor had say 100 plus students those students have to be divided up among existing mentors. I agree it is bad for the students, but management is supposed to go in and confirm degree plans etc.. as for accessing things, the university had a systemwide outage for degree plans, as myself and others could not access plans as they were updating. There was what is called a "red post" on the student login screen to courses most of the day yesterday and part of today.

The Teachers College layoffs make sense. Didn't they close down their California programs and several other states?

The Teacher College didn't have layoffs. Only Business and Healthcare had layoffs which is odd. Business is their largest division.

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So saying you have 135,000 students could mean students who are in the middle of terms, students who have graduated that month, and students who have committed to the upcoming term, and new students who have completed the enrollment process. This is why I am saying they may not have the 135,000 strong number, due to how they count students. Most universities only count students who are actually there and have enrolled say 10 days after a term starts.

I didn't pull the number out of the thin air. WGU used 135,000 in their email last night. You work there so why don't you ask them how they calculate the number of students enrolled? You have a mile long list of excuses. Stop it. This was handled poorly.

No not excuses, just explaining how WGU works and I told you how they calculate students, if you take the time to read the posts, you will see that I have said several times its not fair or right what happened, but you simply just want to insult people who put the facts out there.

As for the Business College and layoffs once again they had over hired, same with the College of Healthcare. The Teachers College and IT College have always been lean and had the least amount of pms, cis, and staff. The Business and Healthcare Colleges are paring down to match the numbers of the Teachers College and the IT College. I have also said this numerous times in threads, but no one bothers to read them.

So to everyone good luck with this thread, I will no longer be responding to it. If anyone wants some WGU information that does not pertain to this thread, feel free to pm me.

[JusticeNamaste]

One of my Course Instructors was impacted by this. She shared with me that WGU has long been in the habit of behavior such as this. She also informed me that more layoffs are said to be in the works and that the Evaluation Department is slated to become automated with AI Technology evaluating the student's work instead of the actual evaluators. If you've been a student at WGU within the last few years, as I have, you many have noticed that whereas the evaluation feedback was never personalized (such as the use of personal pronouns such as "you") that has now changed completely so that the feedback DOES include the use of personal pronouns - according to my former Course Instructor, this is being implemented so that the evaluative feedback will sound "human" but will actually be automated by a bot.


The students will not be made aware of this, but the more personalized feedback that evaluators are now giving will, at some point, be made to sound human, but will, in fact, be an AI generated response. Students are being lied to. This is not fair and it's not right at all.
I, for one, will be finishing my degree by the end of this year and will NOT be recommending this school to anyone. I spoke on the phone for over two hours last night with my (now) former Course Instructor and she is absolutely devastated by her layoff, as her husband has cancer and is in the middle of receiving radiation treatments, and as her insurance was through WGU and her husband was on it, at the end of this month, her insurance will now stop. I am posting this information here for all current WGU students as this information needs to be known - and if this comment is suddenly deleted by the moderator for violating some sort of standard, then what does that say about the transparency of WGU itself? 

Please, everyone who is currently attending this school, think about what I have posted here. I have nothing to lose as I am a student myself, but my heart absolutely aches for my Course Instructor who has been absolutely wonderful to me. WE, the students, pay for the salaries of the employees at WGU and WE, the students, deserve the full unvarnished TRUTH.

[ss20ts]

YIKES! I wonder how AI evaluations work with accreditation? I'm sorry but I'm not paying any college for AI evaluations. I want to be evaluated by someone - a person - who has knowledge and experience in my courses. I don't want a robot to say good job. The way this was handled has me really reconsidering getting an MBA from WGU. I was going to do their MBA in a few years but after this I'm not sure I want to be associated with a school who doesn't have an ethical bone in it's body. They handled this soooooo poorly! The lack of communication and transparency was astounding. I see more BIG changes (not good ones either) in the works with a new CEO and CFO who do not come from academia. CEO came 6 months ago and CFO came onboard 9 days before the layoffs. CFO is from AT&T. Why any higher education institution would bring in executives who don't have a background in higher education I'll never understand. Well unless WGU wants to start operating like a for profit then it all makes sense. Add in an 11%+ tuition increase to this mix and the red flags are flopping in the wind.

[collegechick]

One of my Course Instructors was impacted by this. She shared with me that WGU has long been in the habit of behavior such as this. She also informed me that more layoffs are said to be in the works and that the Evaluation Department is slated to become automated with AI Technology evaluating the student's work instead of the actual evaluators. If you've been a student at WGU within the last few years, as I have, you many have noticed that whereas the evaluation feedback was never personalized (such as the use of personal pronouns such as "you") that has now changed completely so that the feedback DOES include the use of personal pronouns - according to my former Course Instructor, this is being implemented so that the evaluative feedback will sound "human" but will actually be automated by a bot.


The students will not be made aware of this, but the more personalized feedback that evaluators are now giving will, at some point, be made to sound human, but will, in fact, be an AI generated response. Students are being lied to. This is not fair and it's not right at all.
I, for one, will be finishing my degree by the end of this year and will NOT be recommending this school to anyone. I spoke on the phone for over two hours last night with my (now) former Course Instructor and she is absolutely devastated by her layoff, as her husband has cancer and is in the middle of receiving radiation treatments, and as her insurance was through WGU and her husband was on it, at the end of this month, her insurance will now stop. I am posting this information here for all current WGU students as this information needs to be known - and if this comment is suddenly deleted by the moderator for violating some sort of standard, then what does that say about the transparency of WGU itself? 

Please, everyone who is currently attending this school, think about what I have posted here. I have nothing to lose as I am a student myself, but my heart absolutely aches for my Course Instructor who has been absolutely wonderful to me. WE, the students, pay for the salaries of the employees at WGU and WE, the students, deserve the full unvarnished TRUTH.

Thank you for sharing this information.  I wanted to start my master's there soon.  This gives me pause.  This is as bad as AI scanning our resumes.

YIKES! I wonder how AI evaluations work with accreditation? I'm sorry but I'm not paying any college for AI evaluations. I want to be evaluated by someone - a person - who has knowledge and experience in my courses. I don't want a robot to say good job. The way this was handled has me really reconsidering getting an MBA from WGU. I was going to do their MBA in a few years but after this I'm not sure I want to be associated with a school who doesn't have an ethical bone in it's body. They handled this soooooo poorly! The lack of communication and transparency was astounding. I see more BIG changes (not good ones either) in the works with a new CEO and CFO who do not come from academia. CEO came 6 months ago and CFO came onboard 9 days before the layoffs. CFO is from AT&T. Why any higher education institution would bring in executives who don't have a background in higher education I'll never understand. Well unless WGU wants to start operating like a for profit then it all makes sense. Add in an 11%+ tuition increase to this mix and the red flags are flopping in the wind.

I agree with you about AI.  This is ridiculous and now I'm not sure about proceeding with their program.

[collegechick]

I just called and emailed the graduate studies manager, Aubrey at WGU to confirm this AI claim. I will post back her response. If she's still employed with the school...

[collegechick]

I just spoke to Audrey, the manager in Graduate Studies at WGU & she verified that actual humans grade the papers. She also confirmed a human mentor will always be available. She said 160 staff members were laid off, amongst 1000's of employees.

[ss20ts]

I just spoke to Audrey, the manager in Graduate Studies at WGU & she verified that actual humans grade the papers. She also confirmed a human mentor will always be available. She said 160 staff members were laid off, amongst 1000's of employees.

Keep in mind that all employees don't know everything happening at a company. They could be running tests and only those who need to know are in the know. They have about 4000 employees and laid off about 160.

[GizmoJack]

I just spoke to Audrey, the manager in Graduate Studies at WGU & she verified that actual humans grade the papers. She also confirmed a human mentor will always be available. She said 160 staff members were laid off, amongst 1000's of employees.

Thanks for making the call collegechick. This sounds more credible than an A.I. conspiracy theory post on a chat forum. Could A.I. grading of papers happen? Sure, anything's possible. Would the school attempt to hide this from the public? Probably not a good PR move. 

While the general sense is WGU could have handled the communication of staff layoffs better, it doesn't sway my opinion of the school in the least. I would rather administrators furlow 160 excess staff members vs keeping bloated departments and raising tuition higher for all students. 

Colleges, just like many other businesses have had to make tough choices to adjust to the economic fallout of 2020. In March TESU significantly reduced the number of non-RA credits they would accept. This was a huge tuition hike but they did what they had to do. 

WGU is raising tuition this year after about 5 years of little to no increases and is STILL one of the lowest cost schools in the country. Yes, I am a recent graduate who believes 
WGU is a great school. I would recommend them to anyone. I write this note in hopes of balancing the conversation in this thread for those seeking information before they make decisions.

[ss20ts]

While the general sense is WGU could have handled the communication of staff layoffs better, it doesn't sway my opinion of the school in the least. I would rather administrators furlow 160 excess staff members vs keeping bloated departments and raising tuition higher for all students. 

WGU is raising tuition this year after about 5 years of little to no increases and is STILL one of the lowest cost schools in the country. Yes, I am a recent graduate who believes 

The tuition increase is 11+%. That's a significant increase. This is in addition to hiring a new CEO and CFO who are not from academia and layoffs. It's more expensive than many state schools in state tuition.

[GizmoJack]

While the general sense is WGU could have handled the communication of staff layoffs better, it doesn't sway my opinion of the school in the least. I would rather administrators furlow 160 excess staff members vs keeping bloated departments and raising tuition higher for all students. 

WGU is raising tuition this year after about 5 years of little to no increases and is STILL one of the lowest cost schools in the country. Yes, I am a recent graduate who believes 

The tuition increase is 11+%. That's a significant increase. This is in addition to hiring a new CEO and CFO who are not from academia and layoffs. It's more expensive than many state schools in state tuition.

Uh, yeah....OK.