Why Many Parents And Students Regret Choosing DPU: What I Learned After My Son Enrolled
The rain was soaking through the cuffs of my jacket as I hauled a cardboard box of my son’s broken dorm furniture to the trunk of my minivan last October. He tossed a chipped orientation coffee mug into a garbage bag by the curb, wiped his damp hands on his jeans, and said, “Told you DPU was the worst.” I didn’t argue. Two and a half years earlier, I’d pushed him to give this place a shot, lured by the big scholarship offer and the admissions rep’s promise of a guaranteed job after graduation.
My son was a solid B student in high school, and he didn’t get accepted to the state university business program he’d wanted. DPU reached out first, emailed him every other day, invited him to a special accepted students day with free lunch and a branded hoodie. They offered $12,000 a year in merit aid, which cut our out-of-pocket cost almost in half compared to other options. We visited on a warm Saturday in April, the tour was led by a friendly sophomore who’d played on the same high school soccer team as my cousin’s kid, and we ate lukewarm pizza at the student union. I brushed off the fact that half the hallway lights in the business building were out, and that the career center was just two cramped desks in a corner of the administration building. I told my son smaller schools meant more personal attention, that this was a good deal that wouldn’t drag us into six figures of debt. That’s what the website promised, anyway.
The first red flag popped up two weeks into his first semester. Three of his 10 classes were canceled, after the professors left for other jobs without warning. He got shuffled into online night classes that met from 7 to 10 pm three days a week, which meant he couldn’t take the part-time campus job he’d counted on to cover books and groceries. When he emailed his academic advisor to ask about switching sections, he didn’t hear back for 18 days. I called the advisor myself, and she told me straight she was advising 270 business students, she didn’t have time to answer every email within a week. I told my son to be patient, that it was just first year jitters.
By the end of sophomore year, the cracks were too big to ignore. After finals, he found out he’d taken two classes that didn’t count toward his business major. His advisor had signed off on his schedule at the start of the year, and no one from the department caught the mistake until it was too late. To graduate on time, he’d have to take two extra summer classes, costing an extra $5,000 in tuition. Then we double-checked his scholarship fine print: the full aid amount only covered the first two years. After that, he needed a 3.5 GPA to keep it. He had a 3.3, dragged down by one professor who never graded midterms and gave the whole class C’s, so his scholarship got cut in half. The 92% job placement rate we’d seen on the website didn’t mean much, either: when he applied for the internship the program guaranteed, they said they’d over-enrolled the major, and all the spots were full. He stayed on at the coffee shop he’d worked at since he was 16, same as before college.
After he told me he wanted to transfer, I joined a couple regional parent college groups and asked if anyone else had experience with DPU. I got 42 replies in 24 hours, almost all of them matching our story. A mom whose daughter was in nursing said half her clinical slots got canceled last minute, leaving her a full year behind. A dad whose son studied IT said the computer labs were still running 10-year-old software that no local employer actually uses. That’s when I realized our bad experience wasn’t a fluke, it was the norm.
What I want other parents to take away from this isn’t just that DPU has consistently left students and families scrambling. It’s that there are concrete, small checks you can do before you commit that I skipped, that would have saved us thousands of dollars and a year of lost time. First, don’t take published job placement stats at face value. Ask admissions to send you a list of specific employers that hired graduates from your kid’s major in the last two years, and ask to connect with one or two recent grads to hear their experience. I never asked for that, I just trusted the number on the website. Second, pull up the department website for your kid’s major and count how many full-time tenured professors there are versus adjuncts. If more than half are adjunct, that’s a red flag. Adjuncts are almost always overworked, don’t have permanent office space, and don’t have time to help students navigate scheduling or internships. DPU’s business department was 60% adjunct when I checked after we decided to leave. Third, when you visit, set aside an hour to skip the official tour and wander the student union. Stop three random students who look like they’re in your kid’s major and ask, “What’s the biggest problem with this school?” Most will tell you straight. I was too polite to do that on our visit, and I missed that every student I talked to after had the same terrible advising experience we did. Fourth, read every single line of your scholarship offer. Highlight the GPA requirements, how long the full amount lasts, and any hidden requirements you have to meet to keep it. I just glanced at the big number at the top of the page and signed. That mistake has cost us $12,000 so far.
Right now, my son is working full time at that coffee shop, taking one online class at the local community college to get ahead for his transfer. He’s applied to the regional state campus 45 minutes from home, which has half the tuition and three times as many full-time business professors as DPU. We still don’t know if he’ll get in, or how we’ll cover the extra costs even with his transferred community college credits. I get at least one message a week from local parents asking what I think of DPU, now that we’ve gone through this. I tell them what happened, and send them my list of things to check. Some people still decide it’s the right fit for their kid, and that’s okay. I just wish someone had told me what to look for before we signed on the dotted line.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Why Many Parents And Students Regret Choosing DPU: What I Learned After My Son Enrolled