 Is Western Governor's University worth it? Is going to WGU, which is a university that I've been asked about over and over again on this channel going to be a good financial decision? That is going to be the topic of this video. I'm going to go over whether or not the university is worth it, whether it's a good university or not, and also who the university is for, right? So I'm going to talk about the pros and cons and who the university is best for and who probably shouldn't go to it. Now this is a university that I have recommended quite a few times in my private consultations as well as to people who took my college 101 course, but that does not mean that it is for everyone and I'm going to go over the reasons for that in this video. So if you appreciate me going over this topic and you want me to make more videos like it, tell me by hitting that like button. Let's go ahead and aim for 1,000 likes in this video. I have a feeling it's not going to appeal to that many people, but it is a topic that I wanted to cover at some point on this channel. Alright, so first of all, let's talk about what exactly WGU is. Well, WGU is an online university where you can earn an affordable accredited career focused college degree at an accelerated pace. It's a non-profit private online university based in Utah. And although it is based in Utah, it's online, so you can take classes from anywhere in the United States. And what makes WGU truly special is the fact that they use a competency based learning model as opposed to the traditional classroom based learning. That means that instead of spending a certain amount of time to get a degree, which is typically four to five years, you can get one much faster. In many cases, you can get your degree in less than two years. And in extreme cases, you can get one in about two months. And again, we're going to go over that here in a bit. WGU is also a respected and regionally accredited degree. So there's a lot of these online colleges that have a very bad reputation to the point where if a hiring manager or a business owner sees that you graduated from one of them, they're probably just going to throw your resume into the trash can. It's not like that at all at WGU. WGU typically is respected by hiring managers and business owners. And that's even more so after the pandemic where pretty much all colleges went online and owners and hiring managers stopped really caring whether you went to a physical brick and mortar college or not. Now the reason WGU is called Western Governors University is because 19 different governors of states met together in 1997 and they talked about how college was getting so much more expensive and it was losing a lot of its value. And the governor of Utah, Mike Levitt, proposed that they create an online university that you could graduate from much faster and it only gave out degrees that were valuable on the market. So degrees where you could actually get a job. Now, another great thing about WGU is all you really need is a laptop and you can do all of your work online. So whether you are traveling or you're just staying at home, you can be attending WGU the entire time. It's also extremely flexible and you can do it on your own time. So many people attend WGU while they're still working on their job. And probably the best thing about WGU is not only can you graduate faster, but they are extremely generous about the credits that you can transfer in. A lot of universities are not generous about this because it doesn't make any sense for them profit wise, right? Why would they let you transfer a bunch of credits in when they want you to take those classes and pay like, you know, a thousand thousand five hundred dollars per class. If they allow you to transfer a bunch of credits in that means they're making less money. So I'm not going to go over this in detail in this video, but basically what they do is they pregame the degrees by taking these classes on other websites, third party websites such as Sophia.com, study.com or straighterline.com. The one that typically has the most amount of classes you can transfer in and the one that just has the least amount of hassles is study.com. And Josh Maddakor and I actually put together a super useful spreadsheet where you can look at any type of degree that you can get at WGU. And then it maps out the exact classes that you can take on websites like study.com, straighterline, and Sophia, etc. So the very first page shows all the different classes that you can take at WGU. And then it shows the number of classes that you can transfer in and also shows you which certificates you can get that transfer in so you don't have to take those classes as well. So in extreme cases you might have 40 classes you have to take overall to get your degree and you can transfer 32 of them in with certificates, classes on third party websites and other types of transfers. And so you literally only have to take eight classes at WGU itself. And I'll have that Google Doc linked down in the description as well as the pinned comment. If I forget, please remind me because sometimes I forget these things. I apologize about that. And yeah, if you do want to use study.com, I do have a coupon code where you can get 30% off of your first three months, which is Shane Hummus. So if you appreciate Josh and I putting all this work into this resource, go ahead and use that coupon code. Alright, so next we're going to talk about the degrees that are offered at WGU because there are some universities that offer hundreds and hundreds of different degree paths that you can possibly go down, whereas WGU keeps it very concentrated and only degrees that typically lead to job placements and most of the degrees they offer lead to high paying jobs. So for instance, they offer six different business degrees, which are accounting, healthcare management, human resource management, IT management, business administration management and marketing. They offer five different health degrees, which are BS and post baccalaureate certificate nursing, which is RN to MSN track, a bachelor of science in health information management, a bachelor of science in health services coordination, bachelor of science in nursing, and a BS in nursing that is RN to BSN. And these are all degrees that typically, if you look at the statistics, lead to very good job placements. They offer 10 different technology degrees, which are cybersecurity, a combined accelerated IT bachelor's and master's degree cloud computing, computer science, data management, data analytics, information technology, network engineering and security, network engineering and security Cisco tract, network operations and security and software development. And finally, they offer 10 different education degrees, which are not high paying, but they typically have very good placement rates. So if you get an education degree, it's probably not going to be a super high paying job, but you will likely have a job because they have extremely low unemployment rates. And they offer a BA in elementary education, special education, special education in elementary education, dual mathematics, education, mathematics, education, secondary science, education, middle grades, science education, secondary biological science, science education, secondary chemistry, science education, secondary earth science, and science education, secondary physics. So they are extremely selective about the types of degrees that they offer to people. And overall, they offer 31 total majors. Next, let's go ahead and talk about the cost with $1.8 trillion in total student loan debt owed by people who live in the United States and college costing on average $80,000 and people going on average about $40,000 in debt. Cost is incredibly important for you to think about if you're deciding whether or not you're going to go to college and which degree you're going to get. And luckily, WGU is extremely reasonable when it comes to the cost. So at the time of recording this video, WGU is about $7,400 per year. Plus remember, you can finish the degree super fast. So that means you're not going to be paying for the full four or on average five years that you'd typically be paying at normal universities. And on top of that, they are incredibly generous about the credits that they allow to be transferred in, which is very rare when it comes to universities. They allow you to transfer in credits from certifications, classes that you took at other universities, third party classes like I talked about with study.com. And also sometimes they'll even allow you to transfer in experience from your work. And on top of that, they of course are eligible and accept financial aid if you don't have enough money to pay for them. And they are incredibly generous when it comes to grants and scholarships. So many people are able to graduate from WGU with less than $10,000 worth of total cost. And on top of that, the fact that you are able to take it from home is going to save you a bunch of money when it comes to gas, commuting, wear and tear on your car, as well as food. So it's no surprise that students who graduate from WGU have less than half the national average in debt. And 45% of WGU undergrads actually complete their degrees without taking out any loans whatsoever. Now on top of that, if you're able to graduate two or three years early, that means you are getting a two or three year head start on your life. That means you're going to start making money two or three years earlier than all of your peers who decided to go to a four to five year university. So not only are you saving money on the front end, but you're actually saving money on the back end because of opportunity cost. During the time where your peers who decided to go to brick and mortar universities are racking up debt, you are actually making money. So 10 years down the line, they might still have, you know, $20, $30,000 worth of debt, whereas you have $100,000 in savings. Next, we're going to talk about satisfaction levels. Well, according to the WGU website, 95% of WGU grads would recommend WGU to others compared to 80% nationally. And 84% of WGU graduates were satisfied with their overall experience compared to 74% nationally. And they also have these statistics where they poll employers, people who actually hired graduates of WGU. And they show that 98% of employers said WGU graduates met or exceeded expectations. 95% said they would hire another WGU graduate. And 97% said that WGU graduates were prepared for the job. And they have gotten the Best Value School Award year after year. And this is basically a website that ranks different schools on which ones give the most bang for the buck in terms of value. And if that wasn't enough, you see YouTube video after YouTube video after article after Reddit post, et cetera, of people who graduated from WGU, and they recommend it. So overall, people tend to be very happy with their experience at WGU. Now next is a big question, something a lot of people are very interested in. How long does it take to graduate from WGU? Now there are many stories of people getting their bachelor's degrees in less than two years at WGU, sometimes less than a year. And in extreme cases, two months, like my friend Josh Madicor did. Now just looking at the thumbnails, you might be a little bit confused and it might be a little bit misleading, because most of these people are pre gaming their degrees. And that basically means that they're studying their degrees. They're taking classes externally like on study.com where it's much, much cheaper to do it. And then they are transferring those classes in. So if somebody says they graduated from WGU in six months, that means that they were enrolled in WGU for six months, but they probably pre-gamed quite a bit of that outside maybe another six months to a year. But that means you only have to pay tuition for six months, which saves you a tremendous amount of money. And I would say typically on average, it is very common to see people with the pre gaming as well as the transferring in and then taking classes at WGU, finishing in less than two years. And I also see quite a bit of people who take it very seriously, who maybe do it full time, finishing in less than a year. So if you take a super difficult degree like electrical engineering, for instance, and you compare it to a relatively easy degree like business administration, and yes, I know, you know, difficulty is subjective for some people, they have different strengths. It's subjective, I understand that. But objectively speaking, there are some degrees that are just more difficult on average than others, right? So with the electrical engineering degree, you are going to struggle to complete that in four years. A lot of people are going to take five years, maybe even six to get their bachelors. Whereas with a business degree, like business administration, it is much more realistic to complete it within those four years. And in fact, you could make a very good argument that colleges are kind of just trying to fit all of the majors within that four year box, even though some of them can be done much faster, they tend to drag it out by making you take classes that you really don't need to. And this is what you see with the traditional education system. They take a degree that you could probably do in one or two years, very reasonably, and they stretch it all the way out to four years. I've seen extreme examples where colleges will make it incredibly difficult for you to graduate in that four year time period. And so you end up, you know, something like an education degree, for instance, I've consulted with people who they actually took seven years to get their education degree. And I'm sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but an education degree is not one that should take seven years. That is absolutely a degree that you can get in two years or less. And the reason colleges do this is very obvious. It's because they make more money. All right, so let's talk about the pros and cons of going to WGU. Some of the pros, it's fast, it's cheap, it's great value. It's incredibly flexible. You can do it anywhere you are. You can do it from home or you can go to Starbucks if you want to. And it's also well respected, especially in the online degree world and especially since everything happened and all degrees for a short period of time were online. Some of the cons, very rarely you are going to find employers that don't like it when you go to an online school. They kind of just bunch all online schools together and they think all of them are like, you know, some of the scammy ones that you hear about quite a bit on TV. But like I said, since the pandemic happened and pretty much all schools went online for a short period of time, this is less and less of a problem. Another con is you have to be very self-directed. You're not going to have a professor in the class that's telling you what assignments you need to do exactly when they're due, et cetera. You're also not going to have other students that are physically with you that are studying with you and you guys are all working on the same thing. You're going to be doing this all on your own. Yes, WGU does provide support. Yes, there are other students that you can talk to. There's like, you know, different chat rooms and you can communicate with them, but it's all going to be online and it's relatively self-directed and that's because you can do it at your own pace. I would also say that you have to be a good visual or auditory learner. If you're somebody who really has to touch things like you're a kinesthetic learner, it's not impossible to do WGU, but it's going to be much more difficult. And then the social aspect of WGU is going to be somewhat lacking. You're not going to have a lot of face-to-face interaction with other students or professors. Yes, you can jump on Zoom calls with professors, but it's just not the same thing as being able to go into like an office hours type situation. And the last con is the network is going to be relatively weak. So one of the few reasons why it can sometimes be worth it to go to like Ivy League colleges like Harvard or Stanford is because of the fact that you are going to be around other very ambitious, very motivated people and you can network with them. A lot of the time you'll form friendships where you're going to have these friendships your entire life and maybe like 10, 15 years down the line, you might end up starting a business with one of those people. That is probably not going to happen at WGU. The network is not going to be as strong because you never really met these people in real life. Now with that being said, the WG network is getting stronger. A lot of like-minded people go to WGU. These are people who understand that the college system is kind of screwed up here in the US and they want to get through college with the least amount of time, effort and money. So in my opinion, these are all smart savvy type people that really did their research and they figured out a solution to that. So who is WGU for? People who want to get college degrees that have a lot of demand and good placement rates and in many cases have very high salaries as well. Also people who are motivated and want to finish their degrees as fast as possible. It's great for people who are already working professionals and they want to be able to attend an online university that's flexible so they can get their degree while they're still working. And people do this sometimes because they want to switch careers and sometimes they do it because they want to get some sort of advancement in the career vertical that they're already in. Another common situation is you might be in a career path where you arbitrarily have to have a degree in order to break into it. So it's one of those things where you have to have a degree in order to check the box but in many cases it doesn't matter what the degree is. So for instance, a lot of the time if you want to become a flight attendant many of the big companies require that you have a college degree and they don't care which one it is. There's also a lot of government positions that have these requirements as well. And the last one is one that was relatively rare before the pandemic but it's becoming more and more common. A lot of people are reaching out to me and they're actually wanting to skip the traditional college experience and do WGU instead at a young age. So this could be somebody who is just graduating from high school and they want to get a degree as fast as possible. Now let's talk about who WGU is not for. WGU is probably not for somebody who wants to finish their degree at a very slow pace over a long period of time. The second type of person who shouldn't go to WGU is somebody who wants a very specific degree that WGU does not offer. Now there are alternative schools that do very similar models to what WGU does. Off the top of my head Thomas Edison State University or TESU is very similar, also Excelsior. There's also Charter Oaks State College, Southern New Hampshire University. Those are just a few that I named off the top of my head and in some cases if somebody wants a very specific degree they look into those other universities instead. And then the fourth person who probably should not go to WGU is somebody who really wants to have the traditional college experience. So if you're somebody who wants to live in the dorms, go to parties, you know, join a frat. As president of Delta Psy and vice president we call our first official meeting in the new house. Something like that. You want to have that traditional college experience. Maybe WGU isn't going to be the best choice for you. And then the fifth one is people who want to have an elite network of alumni, right? Somebody who wants to have like that Ivy League level network that you would get if you went to a school like Harvard or Stanford. Now to be fair there is a lot of value in that but most people like 99% of people are not going to take advantage of their network anyways. Typically only recommend that to people who are extremely ambitious and they want to start, you know, like a startup type business that has like a billion dollar evaluation or something along those lines. So overall let's answer the question is WGU worth it? Well of course it depends on the person. But generally speaking, yes, yes, absolutely yes. WGU is a phenomenal school and it turns out to be the best option for many of the people that I consult with, many of the people that joined my college 101 course. You know, maybe in the future they sell out, they decide to start offering useless degrees in order to make more money. If that happens, I will be very sad. But right now WGU is a phenomenal choice. But even if they did start offering useless degrees, at least you'd be able to get them like two to three times faster, you know, with one half to one third of the price. And I consider WGU to be an exciting part of this umbrella term of this new emerging industry that's happening, which is called alternative education. And alternative education is exactly what it sounds like. Because in recent times, Americans have basically been brainwashed that university and education were the exact same thing. Like those two things are synonyms. When in reality, that's just not true. In Switzerland, for instance, college is free, yet only 20 to 25% of people choose to go to university. The other 75% of people get educated in alternative ways. And so this is what's happening in the United States right now. It's a very exciting force that is basically keeping colleges honest because it's giving them a direct competitor. And that is alternative education. These are things like apprenticeships, internships, boot camps, online programs and online training that you can take in order to get educated and you can skip college. So WGU is a type of alternative college. In my opinion, I don't even put them in the same category as other colleges because they don't behave like them. And WGU definitely gets a big, big thumbs up from me. I'm a huge fan of what they do. I wish they would sponsor my video. I contacted them several times to try to get a sponsorship because I've recommended them so many times, but I don't think they can even do that because they're like a nonprofit private. But yeah, phenomenal university. I would recommend them whether they sponsored me or not. And if you enjoyed this video, check out this video right here because I think you'd like this one as well. And I will see you next time.