Cengage Learning Reviews 592

User interface gets updated, but that's it. Currently taking a Network Admin class that uses Cengage exclusively, and none of the labs work for me. A more detailed complaint includes: the azure virtual lab has had the systems updated, cool right? no. Nothing else was updated and my instructions are from 7 years ago. not only has it promoted laziness and malpractice for my professor but it has also caused me unnecessary debt as well as similar mental health issues with thinking I was the problem. I continued to think this until I researched a Cengage specific problem, in which I found that the course material hadn't been updated along with the UI, from 7 years ago... I am an IT Support Major, this is detrimental to my education.

This Cengage app, freaking sucks, I’m a college student and everything has to be perfect on this dumb app to have a good grade, it’s a waste of my time, just listening to instructions and it won’t let me skip it. Cengage makes my stress levels go through the roof

Only Lazy profs use this. Spent 300 on top of my tuition just to be able to complete 5% of my grade for the course. Legit a scam. The e version does not work and formatting sucks. SCAM AND NOT WORTH IT.

Worst customer service experience ever. Have spent hundreds of dollars with them over the course of college and when my textbook did not include the access code, they refused to help me and offered no solutions other than "check the loose leaf textbook". Would give 0 stars if I could. Communicated with their 'team' for over 24 hours and provided all necessary information, attachments, images, proof, etc. Every person who replied was a different representative and I have never been so frustrated and disrespected as a customer. Find alternatives if possible because this grifting company is just looking for any possible way to charge college students. An absolute joke and I am disgusted by the treatment of students. They disgrace the term 'customer service'

Customer service will not help you. Save your money because you will have to buy the book or course multiple times. I was in finals and it closed me out of the course and insisted I rebuy the course. Horrible.

A million reasons to hate this program. I could go on and on about the grading system that others have complained about in the courses learning about Microsoft 365 products, but Cengage also needs to seriously reevaluate their test questions on other courses. I'm in a book course where each chapter gets a Skills Test for calculating and solving equations included in the chapter, which I get scores between 90-100%, and a Theory Test which are comprehension questions based on the reading material, which is written horrendously and I end up with grades as low as 60%...and that's with Cengage accepting the higher grade out of 2 allowed attempts. It's your classic "memorize this entire chapter word for word and regurgitate it back" type of test. I'll be taking 50,000 words worth of notes, only for the test to include, I kid you not, less than 5% of the chapter material. The book has a ton of distinct information with specific formula numbers, due dates based on certain criteria, calculation conditions, specific federal/social security tax forms, complicated definitions, and more. Not to mention, for the test you're given 20mins to answer 20 questions where each question asks for an extremely specific piece of info from a random sentence in the chapter...granted it's multiple choice but I barely have enough time to read and comprehend the question let alone figure out the right answer. The questions themselves are abysmal with it's wording. My teacher allows us to use our notes so I'll obviously be taking my answers straight from my notes. But it'll be wrong because excuse me for taking the question too literal and precise to the actual answer...a lot of the questions are too vague where some questions I get right because I knew the specific facts and conditions of the actual answer they wanted, like how a trick question throws in an extra word that makes the answer wrong if you don't pay attention. For other questions, I get wrong because the question seems slightly off and doesn't include enough clear information, so I get too precise with the definition of the true answer like before instead of just answering the general question. I'm in a Payroll course and the information in the book gets VERY specific with it's rules. So for example, I get a T/F scenario question that could 'technically' be true, but it isn't clear enough or doesn't give enough details to match the true full definition. So, considering the wording of previous questions being written similar with my answers to them being inconsistently wrong and right, I never feel confident in what the right answer could be. These types of questions seem like someone just threw together a bunch of questions not caring about the clarity of them. At times, the test can feel like Cengage WANTS you to fail these tests, like earlier seeing how you only get 20mins to answer 20 questions...like half of the time, if I'm given a trick question, I don't have enough time to realize the trick since I'm being forced to rush through all the questions! Even the content in the books are worded so overly complicated grammar wise and with the vocabulary used. Like someone who writes their essay trying to use as much advanced vocabulary as they can to sound smarter than they actually are but ends up only confusing your average reader and making the essay more complicated than it needs to be. I'm glad ChatGPT exists because I'm constantly using it to simplify and better explain every couple of sentences to make it easier to understand when I write it in my notes.

Apologies for the long rant but there's just too many problems with this learning site that honestly need to be brought to the company leaders' attention.

The question help videos are so outdated that they don't even show how to use the software you are supposed to use with some problems. The book tells you to do things one way, though it really does not give useful examples and certainly does not have examples of how to use the required SALT program. Then the teacher will tell you to do it another way, and the videos tell you to do it a third way. There is no useful explanation of how to use the SALT program. If you have a choice, burning your money would be quicker than buying this software.

I wish I could rate this lower. I have been forced to work with this buggy, useless program for nearly every college semester. Each time, I learn nothing but the new bonds my frustration and rage leads to. One miss click in a program can lead to you getting the entire question wrong. It is a frustrating program that doesn't take into account human input or other operating systems outside of windows.

Whoever designed this so lazily should be ashamed of themselves. Half my college courses use this class and what is ridiculous is my answer will be 100% correct and it marks me wrong and all my teacher does is refer me to your horrible useless support. This site is for lazy teachers who don't want to grade. I have retaken assignments and had once correct answers come up wrong the second time for the same questions! How does anyone even let this happen! You people are pathetic and lazy. GET YOU S**T TOGETHER BEFORE YOU F*** WITH PEOPLE'S GRADES

Cengage is horrible and it is hard to believe a school would even use it. The Labs don't work like they should and you cannot get through them as a result. Simple steps don't do what they should so you are unable to finish them and get bad grades. Believe me you don't want to take a class with Cengage. This is the worst there is.

The charts tables and images from the text book only show a small portion of the image. you cant read more than a column at a time in the view box and there is absolutely no reason not to blow it up in size except for laziness.

The process of making a purchase can be woefully slow, and I had to leave to page and re-enter the page multiple times in order to complete my acquisition.
You are required to sign in every time you visit a page. A week after using cengage, the website failed to load my course after logging in. Then, the website moved me to a page where I have access to my account details. However, I cannot leave the page. Problems arising in this website are exasperating, and they hindered my studying progress.

stupid garbage platform just let me have a pdf of the book that i paid HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS FOR and dont even get to see in full. WHY do i have to view it one page at a time, and half the time that i sign into the dashboard, my book is not even there. I wish i had used any other way of buying my textbook. I would have rather paid more just so that I can actually use the book that I paid for. I hate cengage I HATE IT I HATE IT

Absolute garbage platform compared to pearson currently. Textbooks always crash, the paid extended quizzes and flashcards are a joke and barely help. I get that they are trying to protect academia but their entire interface down to their customer service is a joke and a sham. Please someone disrupt this company.

I get the whole thing with online textbooks and I appreciate the vercitility and reduced price of them BUT when I pay $50 for a textbook I expect the website that I view my book on to not randomly crash

Why is this required for so many college courses? I prefer getting actual textbooks irl. I don't wanna have to pay for a textbook online just to do the assignments within it when I already paid for the course itself.

Teachers use this so they don’t have to make up or grade quizzes and exams themselves. I don’t like using it because getting started isn’t always easy. You purchase unlimited and still they try to charge you for additional materials so you are forced to call. Chat never works. Customer service is a joke. They will keep you on the phone for 30 minutes just to give you no resolution. You will have to call multiple times about the same issue. The only upside to Cengage is that you may save money if you have 2 or more classes that are using this platform.

Useless organisation. Complete fuuls is what they are. They never give you clear guidance as to how to download starting data files yet their books are very expensive.

Disgusting program and pathetic customer support. The GitHub + Cengage extension barely works whatsoever and causes problems left and right. I worried about my class performance because of this nonsense, and when I tried to contact customer support, the issue got escalated to the developers. I have not gotten any response from Cengage support in more than two weeks after the help desk on the phone told me it would take a few days. Don't waste time on this joke of a program.

I had subscribed for Cengage Unlimited, forgotten about the renewal, and was charged $200. I called to explain that I had decided not to attend school this term and called to get a refund once I saw the charge. They refused to refund even though there was no activity on the account. The company is not considerate of its customers to rectify this issue!