Capella University Reviews

I chose Capella because I believe the FlexPath option would fit best with my lifestyle. However, the difficulty of having a real conversation, particularly with the financial department, is enough to force me to change colleges. Apparently, Capella University places little value on its students' time.

Like the majority of reviews on here the financial aid department is a joke. Every term they “forget” to post one of the loans I get. Get ahold of them? Ha. I’ve been trying now for 6 days. Academic coach is useless. His only response to my telling him what’s going on is “the only thing you can do is call financial aid." This is when I almost lost it! There’s no contact info for any Dean's or Associate Dean’s office. I was shocked when my Academic Advisor would not give me a contact to anyone! It was bizarre!

I am requesting a formal investigation into my experiences with Capella University due to ongoing concerns regarding communication, academic support, and financial aid practices. During a previous term, I was forced to withdraw from a course because of issues involving my instructor, academic advisor, academic coach, and the Ombuds Office. My instructor refused to reopen a required group assignment and failed to respond to my repeated attempts to communicate. My academic coach, Jo Davis, contacted the instructor multiple times on my behalf and assured me that my financial aid would not be affected. Despite those assurances, I later lost $1,695 in financial aid, which I am now responsible for repaying.

Capella’s MS in Applied Behavior Analysis marketing presented the program as preparing graduates for BCBA roles and clinical practice. In reality, the school provided only coursework and offered little to no help securing the required 1,500–2,000 supervised fieldwork hours. I contacted advisors multiple times with no meaningful support. After graduating in 2025 I could not enter the field, received zero career benefit, and switched to unrelated work. The degree produced no return on investment. Be cautious of the gap between promotional claims and real-world outcomes. There was no positive gain after graduation and no financial gain. The site says you can get these jobs and that was a lie.

I have been attending this school for over a year always been a problem with financial aid have to wait for over 4 hours every time for them to not help or hang up on you. It is so frustrating; the online portals are never correct and every time classes start, you have to call and wait hours and hours. The people that you talk to never know anything, and you get transferred a dozen times.

If zero stars were possible, Capella University would receive zero from me. I was only one class away from completing my EdD when I was administratively withdrawn and denied the opportunity to reenroll. After years of hard work and a tremendous financial investment, I was left without my degree because of confusing course requirements, inconsistent guidance from instructors, limited faculty access, and a complete lack of meaningful support. Expectations changed depending on the instructor, and I repeatedly paid for courses while struggling to get clear answers.

Internal specialists have refused an emergency manual override.

I'm incredibly proud of all the graduates and want to congratulate all. But as a guest for the graduation ceremony, I would suggest to change organiser for this event, parking was horrible, we stuck on traffic for more than an hour even I was 2.5 hours ahead of event start. Finally, reached to complimentary parking lot the entrance as follow by google map however the entrance blocked with the cone and tape, I guess they had different entrance to enter. People who is not from the town obviously going to depend on google map but why the organisation care, they would just block the entrance. Went back to convention parking after waiting on traffic. Guess what?? Parking is full over there too.

Capella University is a masterclass in administrative incompetence and toxic lack of accountability. Capella is quick to take your money, but they will actively sabotage your GPA to cover up their own structural failures and negligence. Do not go here. Their online platform consistently publishes incorrect and false information. If you follow the explicit dates provided by Capella’s own system, your academic fate is entirely arbitrary. In one course, the system deadline is honored. In another, identical scenario, they selectively enforce a secondary date to penalize the student. There is zero consistency. When confronted with undeniable proof of their platform errors, the administration gaslights the student, cherry-picks when to enforce policies, and shifts the blame.

My opinion: Capella lacks Integrity. My recommendation: AVOID. I completed the Ph.D. program in Family Psychology and was actively writing my Dissertation when a medical emergency sidelined me for two months. When I tried to pick up where I left off, an apathetic voice on the phone told me my program had been discontinued and I could either a). Start over with a different program, or b). Walk away. I spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars working toward my Ph.D. only to have them pull the rug out from under me when I was almost ready to graduate.

Dissertation/PhD Hurdles: I am 70 years old. I was just about to complete my doctorate. They had me continuously rewriting the same paper over and over. I was told that the winter quarter this year 2026, would be my last and I had to have it done. I have been rewriting that paper since the last July, they were never satisfied with it. My mentor told me, "Oh no, you don’t have to rush because you have until July 2026. You have plenty of time." By the second week of March, well actually the last week of class, they emailed me an academic withdrawal letter. Nobody discussed anything with me, I appealed it and they denied it. So I owe them $280,000 for a doctorate degree I will not receive. There was nothing but a lot of miscommunication the whole time. They didn’t care, they got their money from Financial Aid and I have to pay it back.

I was set and prepared to complete the remaining fieldwork portion of my clinical masters degree when COVID hit. The closures impacted everything. My site was willing to amend the fieldwork to a digital format. However at that time Capella had not made a decision as to how it would address remote fieldwork. I was told I would either need to declare the program complete without the fieldwork (I had more than enough credits to graduate) or begin a doctoral program.

Joke of a "school". They take people's hard earned money and give them an education that's just as cheap as the paper the diploma is printed on. I do not recommend the RN to BSN program for anyone, go to a community college instead so you can get a good education at a reasonable price.

Attending Capella University was a costly mistake, and I strongly urge anyone considering it to think twice. After three years of work, time, and money, I was administratively withdrawn with ONE course left before graduating. I submitted my final paper on the last day of the term, only to be told afterward that it was “too late” and I “should be able” to retake the course a few months later. That decision alone set me back significantly.

This school is a scam. After my official evaluation I was told I only had 14 courses to complete. In the flexpath program. However, as I began the program there were more courses added. It went from 14 courses to 15 courses to 16 courses. Apparently they are allowed to lie to you and add courses along the way. Plus we had a week and a half of outage so there was no way of me continuing and completing my course in a timely manner because their system was down. And they refuse to credit you for that time that their system was down.

This school only wants your money! They will send the money you “owe” them to creditors. Brought my credit score down 16 points! This school needs to close for good. I never even got a chance to attend this stupid scam school.

I have been very patient with Capella on all the outages, but I am slowly running out of it. I have a time limit on classes with the Flex Path. Course links, materials, and websites are constantly down or having issues. I pay for these classes, and I am starting to get behind because I cannot get into class materials like I need to. When can students expect Capella to fully resolve all their technical issues??

DO NOT GO HERE!!!!!! Systems are constantly down and especially at financial aid time! They create excuses and systemic barriers so that their shareholders keep the majority of a school loan IN YOUR NAME, on their books!!! I REPEAT STAY AWAY FROM THIS HORRIBLE SCHOOL!!!!

I have been dealing with a rep called Erik Y. This man has been extremely disrespectful and is not interested in Capella making money. I reported him to his manager , but I think that they are both alike. Unprofessional. They don’t want to transfer me to someone else and he refuses to enroll me me. Like OMG. It has been two years. Eric ** should be fired!

I was a student at Capella University for about 2 years. I have stomach issues that cause me to qualify as a disabled student. They completely ignored this and legally are not supposed to be able to under the disabilities act. I was not told until the end of my 2 years with Capella that I would need to go through my academic counselor to submit documentation to be cleared to receive services. I was unaware of the process and would submit my information directly to my professors if and when a problem arose with my illness. As if this were not enough, I was accused of being prejudiced against the LGBTQ+ community because of questions that were asked of us to answer honestly in our cultural awareness class. The questions that were asked of us to answer honestly were on a personal level and also were about whether we thought we would be able to represent this community in their best interest.

I’m a year away from starting my dissertation and I’m having financial aid issues because Capella didn’t calculate my award correctly. They now have a 7,000.00 bill on my account. I’ve obtained my bachelor degree and master’s degree and I’ve never had any issues with my financial aid until I signed up to go to Capella University. Every term there is something wrong with financial aid and they give you excuses after excuses. I hope I’m able to find a resolution with them but I am prepared to make whatever reports and outreach I need to make. This is ridiculous and diabolical.

This school added on practicum hours but has NO idea what they're doing. Dragging their feet taking months and months to approve. Delaying you and making you pay tuition after tuition. They don't care!

They are the worst school to even consider. They will make everything difficult to the point that you have to pay a lot of money to graduate or quit and start over somewhere else. They will not help with practicum questions. The handbook is misleading. The billing circle will keep rolling while they don't care to help. It's a night mire. Run away from this school.

The university has some positive points -a user-friendly platform, strong professors, straight-forward enrollment process.

I'm currently enrolled in MSW. The classes are flexible. The reason I gave a one star, is due to the communication. It is horrible, especially starting internship, and through out the process. They make it so difficult, and it doesn't have to be. So frustrating and they don't care.

I'm not happy with the experience, particularly around practice education and communication with staff. They could improve by communicating more frequently with students on practice education due dates. Aside from poor advising and communication from the practice education department, it was around 3/5 stars for me.

Don't choose this school if you are a busy working Nurse considering an MSN in Education. I believe that this school intentionally delays internal processing to encourage you to extend financial aid or enroll in another semester (increasing your cost and keeping you with them). When it comes to your clinicals and practicum right before you graduate, they take an extremely unreasonable amount of time to approve your preceptor site, and the communication and support you receive from that team is pretty awful/lacking. The rudest and most unprofessional experience I had with Capella was interacting with that team. It felt wrong to receive such service in a graduate school setting. Run from this MSN experience at Capella, you can find easier online options for MSN in nursing education.

They are a for--profit and a huge scam. They'll falsely accuse you of violating academic policies and kick you out and still expect you to pay the tuition fees. I've seen it happen to a lot of people including myself. Please consider other reputable online colleges like WGU, UMPI, etc. #Scam-pella University

Horrid. If I could give it zero stars I would. The professors are awful, I have no idea where they find them. The “coaches” do nothing for you. I am not sure what their purpose is. It’s a total waste of time and money. I wish I would have listened

Absolutely do NOT attend the school I went to for my RN-to-BSN program. I deeply regret enrolling. I spent far more money than they led me to believe, and the entire process was a nightmare. They took an unreasonable amount of time to approve my preceptor site, and their communication and support were terrible. Save yourself the stress and choose a different school — this one was a complete disaster.

I attended the university online. I was informed I was going to need 8 classes to complete the BSN program. I took 4 classes and took a break due to life events. Before taking the break, I spoke to an advisor and said I could because they is a cut off time before you can take a break, if you don’t tell the school in advance they would charge you for class even if you don’t attend. The advisor never told me if my break was pass a year mark all my credits would be annulled. I took a year off, when I returned, they told me, the school would not accept any of the class I took. I was hurt, discouraged and disappointed, each class was 4 cited papers in 2.5 months, it was a lot of research, late night, yes they say, you can take as much class as you want but they work is a lot, they make sure that the students can not take more than 2 classes a class period.

If I could rate them a zero I would. When I applied, a lady reached out to me really pushing me to enroll for classes. I didn't want to register for classes until my financial aid was processed by the school. I immediately began to have problems with the financial aid office. I kept receiving emails about them missing documents, I called multiple times to get more information and explanation about what they needed, I had already given them everything I had (tax documents). At this time the enrollment counselor (not sure of her title) began pushing me to enroll, I made it very clear that I didn't want to until I knew I had received financial aid because I couldn't afford the fees and didn't want any financial issues.

They will have to pay for things without warning. Asked for transcripts. I paid for them and they would not accept them from the school because they were not password protected even though it came from an official email. Had I known that I would’ve paid to send them through regular mail. It was a complete waste of time and money.

It’s been over a month since I submitted my financial aid verification. I’m currently on my last week of class, and I have still yet to receive my financial aid. I’ve been constantly calling, emailing, and texting them and I haven’t received a response. I’m currently on the line and have been waiting 33 minutes. The portal was “broken” for weeks, and they keep directing me to a live chat where no one is available. At this point, I believe that they scammed us! Why does everyone have the same complaint?

Capella has a complete lack of transparency regarding Financial Aid. I have contacted their financial aid department a total of 13 times since July 8, 2025, regarding my FAFSA disbursement. Every time I call, I get a different story, on one call I actually got 4 different stories from one rep. Their chatbot does not work, their live chat is not operable, their dashboard is down, no response on email, and hold times are over 1.5 hrs. to talk to someone that cannot assist you. I have asked to be escalated numerous times and have been told there is no one else to speak with other than the rep reading a script. The reps are rude and argue with you when you try to explain your situation or you catch them in a bold lie, which makes it all worse. Recommendation: DO NOT OBTAIN YOUR DEGREE FROM THEM.

If you are looking for an option to further your education online do not utilize Capella University. It has been an ongoing headache for me. No one answers the phone for financial aid which I do not qualify for, but student loans are apparently labeled as such. Funds were supposed to be processed on July 23, to date, the website is still "DOWN"... how convenient. Random selection for verification with ridiculous timelines with threats of being dropped from enrollment however, they do not follow through with business on their end. If unprofessional was an institution, this is it.

Lots of non transferrable courses. Also avoid Chelsea ** and Kinsey ** and Leslie **. Avoid avoid avoid. I would say if you value your GPA and have worked hard, then don't risk it with these instructors.

Capella University’s Financial Aid department is a nightmare to contact. I called four times three times, I waited over 30 minutes before giving up. On the fourth attempt, it took 1 hour and 30 minutes just to speak to someone. This is completely unacceptable for a university charging thousands in tuition. If you need timely financial aid assistance, look elsewhere, Capella clearly doesn’t prioritize student support. Poor service, wasted time, and zero accountability.

I withdrew from this college due to no aid and now being charged 4700 from a creditor them saying I never withdrew from the college and they returned my aid and now I have to pay. This is unbelievable. I did everything right to leave the college. And now they want me to pay bill because they messed up.

I have no idea who to talk to but a lot of these reviews are spot on and what I’ve also experienced. Unfortunately, I have to finish because I promised my dad before he passed. After five years of dedication as a student at Capella, going for my DHA, and consistent participation in the financial aid program, I am walking away deeply disappointed and disillusioned. Recently, I was informed that due to changes in my loan status, changes that were never clearly explained to me, I may not be able to complete my degree. As someone who has worked tirelessly while relying on financial aid, this situation feels like a betrayal. I trusted Capella to provide clarity and support, but instead I’m left facing a financial burden I had no way to prepare for.