Pros
There were a lot of pros when I first started working with GCU. I was able to connect with my students and help them achieve their goals regardless of the life circumstances they were going through at the time. The pay was good as was the atmosphere. At the end of the day thou, what really "filled my cup" was befriending the students and helping them achieve what they never thought they could. To be a part of that journey was such an amazing experience.
Cons
While I still love GCU, I am truly baffled by how much they pay and how they treat their SSC's. I recognize that UC's drive GCU as they support enrollment and we would have no job without them. What i don't understand though is why their pay is so significantly higher than ours when we do so much more work...almost 4x the amount they do. By forming relationships with my students many of them have returned for their graduate degrees and many of them refer their family, friends, and coworkers to GCU. I would easily argue our roles are just as important as the UC role. Unfortunately, with the increase of ghost students and pell runners, SSC's have had to start completing more verification documents with students. During a particular period last year, we were basically told to put all other things on hold to get these verifications done. UC's are no longer required to assist students through their first 2 courses which means SSC's are constantly calling at risk stds, std's that fail to post, and std's that ghosted us after having received their stipend check. A UC is able to automatically level up each year with a significant pay raise as long as they are bri ging in their quota of students. Whether the std's stay with GCU or not is irrelevant. Meanwhile, the SSC's have KPI expectations that they have to meet in order to level up and get a pay raise. This is a super stressful expectation (especially now) as the SSC's are not able to keep these ghost std's or pell runners in class. Then, the SSC's balances become higher causing them to lose points on the KPI even further. Essentially, the SSC's are now responsible for every aspect of a std as UC's have no accountability. SSC's have to follow up on missing transcripts, non passing grades, classroom escalations, not posting, financial aid (including agg issues, defaults, unusual enrollment, unusual circumstances, high risk, verification, citizenship, etc.), course reminders, welcome calls, inbound calls, new std templates, emails etc. So, as long as a UC can bring in their 12 std's a month they are golden with a $100,000 pay but we as SSC's have to maintain a minimum of 600 std's (not looking at the pay scale right now so im sorry this is not perfectly accurate) to make $100,000... IF we are able keep our balances low, std's active, reentries consistent, student satisfaction high, std's financially packaged as quickly as possible, and still get all of our activities done each week.
