getting ready to get out - Anonymous employee Cengage Employee Review

2.0
17 Apr 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Interesting work, great colleagues. Perfect for entry-level experience in educational publishing if you have a trust fund or live with your parents. Presumably excellent quality of life for upper management.

Cons

The extremely low salary range for non-managers is a major problem at this company. Salaries aren't just low in comparison to industry standards; they're unethically, prohibitively low. How the many employees who are paid under $40K/year can afford to live in Boston (or Chicago or San Francisco, for that matter) is beyond me. Forget about life goals such as owning a house or eventually having children if you're single and find yourself stuck in a mid-career-level position here--it simply isn't going to happen unless you have a trust fund or are able to negotiate an extra $20K/year+ beyond your original offer. As if the realization that I am not going to be able to have any semblance of a future I desire if I stay in this position wasn't depressing enough, the salary issue significantly lowers morale in what would otherwise be a positive working environment. Almost all of my similarly situated colleagues are extremely hardworking and talented yet are regularly distraught over the ongoing difficulty we face in making ends meet. To add insult to injury, I've heard stories of underemployed people in administrative roles being asked to book single flights that cost over a third of their annual salary. As much as there is to like about this company, I simply cannot continue to live like this.

Explore other reviews about Cengage

3.0
4 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Company has some interesting approaches to the market and in the past they seemed value employees. There are some good employees there and there was, in the past, visionary leadership, but the people with the vision and leadership skills left the company a few years ago.

Cons

The company actively de-values employees. They had a project they called "Project Horizon" where they told all employees they needed to cut costs, so the company was going to have multiple layoffs over 3-5 years - but nobody was allowed to know when, where, or why - - just one day large swaths of people would be gone. That hung over everyone's heads - for years, and is indicative of how Cengage values employees - it doesn't. Everything is about trying to secure new funding and prepare for an IPO, so they stopped investing significantly in the products about 3 years ago and that's about when they stopped acting like they cared about employee wellness as well.

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