Cengage Learning Reviews 592

TrustScore 1 out of 5

1.1

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Review summary

Created with AI, based on recent reviews

Considering 71 reviews, most reviewers were let down by their experience overall. Many customers found the pricing to be exploitative, especially for temporary access to textbooks and digital materials that often cost as much as physical copies but offer limited use. The website and product experience were frequently criticized for being dysfunctional, with issues like slow loading times, frequent logouts, and difficulty accessing purchased content. Users reported problems with the product's design, including poorly displayed textbooks, broken links, and a cumbersome navigation system that made learning inefficient and frustrating. The customer service was also a major point of dissatisfaction, with many describing it as unhelpful, unresponsive, and unwilling to issue refunds for issues like incorrect orders or double charges. Some people also felt that the grading schemes were overly specific and unfair, particularly in courses like MS Excel, making it difficult to achieve high scores even with correct results. Additionally, a few other people also felt that the platform's content was often misleading, contained outdated information, and sometimes lacked essential chapters or exercises, hindering their learning process.

What people talk about most

User experience

Reviewers express significant frustration and disappointment with the user experience, often citing issues... See more

Product

Customers had negative experiences with the product, often citing issues with accessibility and content.... See more

Website

Reviewers highlight significant dissatisfaction with the website, frequently describing it as poorly designed... See more

Price

Consumers express significant dissatisfaction with pricing, often describing it as unfair for temporary... See more

Customer service

Customers consistently note negative experiences with customer service, often describing it as shocking, a... See more

Reviews shaping this summary

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Cengage price gouges for temporary access to a book. That is an insane and predatory business practice for students, some of which are barely making ends meet. Capitalistic pigs at their finest folks.... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I paid $200 for a new textbook directly from Cengage's website. It took 20 days for it to arrive, and it is clearly used. Pages are folded over, and gunk is spilled on the back cover. How can a publis... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Cengage is genuinely the worst platform I've ever used for learning. I'd rather crawl through 100 miles of broken glass than complete another cengage assignment. It's only used by lazy professors and... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Absolutely horrible- tried to purchase their materials for my son. The prompt asks if youre a student- if you click "No" it automatically places you into an instructor account - then you have no way... See more


Company details

Written by the company

Cengage helps higher education instructors, learners and institutions thrive with course materials built around their needs.


Contact info

1.1

Bad

TrustScore 1 out of 5

592 reviews

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1-star

No history of asking for reviews

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Hasn’t replied to negative reviews

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Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Poor UI

Cannot even copy and paste normally from online textbooks. Terrible experience. Poor eBook design, requires login all the time. Overall highly not recommended.

19 February 2024
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

All Chemistry Labs are longer than 10 pages. You can only print 10 pages at a time.

We were required to buy Cengage online for Organic Chemistry, no workarounds or exceptions. There is a print limit of ten pages per session, but every single Chemistry Lab is longer than 10 pages with multiple blank pages included in every Lab. There is no way to avoid multiple downloads for a single lab due to the inability to exclude a single page in a series, ie print pages 232-237, 239, 241.

12 February 2024
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I have been using this Terrible textbook for my Accounting Course

I have been using Cengage's MindTap textbook for my financial accounting course, and several portions of it are missing instructions on how to do the work. I am so far behind in this class, I would not be surprised if I failed. I can't believe I am paying money for this class, and that I paid money for this incomplete book. If there are any schools/colleges/universities out there who read these reviews please DO NOT make your students suffer and fail by utilizing these textbooks.

4 February 2024
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I would give you people negative stars…

I would give you people negative stars if possible. Whoever is running this company should be ashamed of themselves. This is the most annoying, tedious, user-unfriendly, garbage software I’ve used. My lazy teacher basically put our class on autopilot and forced us to do your 3 hour courses that don’t even work properly. Half of the files needed I can’t even find or weren’t downloaded in the first place. If I never EVER use this again it will be far too soon.

Get it together.

31 January 2024
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Terrible company

Took away my subscription after I had purchased it. Cengage customer support would not help me out at all. Was forced to spend $150 so I could do my homework. I do not recommend associating with this company. If I could give negative stars I would

19 January 2024
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Ebooks are horrible!

Ebooks are horrible!! This platform is laborious to use, requires several steps/clicks to arrive at a simple bookmarked page. The pages are broken up into far too small sections, making reading a huge pain, because of having to constantly select the next page. The read aloud feature is of extremely low quality, mispronouncing several basic english words, and also reading the citations out loud with letters and punctuation included - very bad). And, it does not automatically proceed to the next page without manual selection. Overall, the ebooks are terrible to use. I hate the web platform used for reading the ebooks.

9 January 2024
Unprompted review
Rated 3 out of 5 stars

Customer Service

I liked how nice the first man who answered me was. When I got transferred everything was fine until the woman who handled my call asked me for an address. I didn't understand she meant a physical address (since I had barely woken up and was exhausted from work) and I have to admit, I'd be frustrated too if I were on her shoes, but she was almost yelling at me to give her my address at some point. She got pleasant afterwards but it was a bit frightening, honestly. I would have understood had she told me: I need a physical address like the street you live in, the city, etc. etc. From your bank card but she kept repeating "I need your address" as if I'd suddenly understand when I clearly did not. Obviously I'm not a child but we all have our moments. Other than that the customer service was fine I guess.

20 October 2023
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Grading system is horrible

Grading system is horrible. I contacted Cengage about the poor grading of an assignment (that was completed according to THEIR instructions) and was told that not only was the garbage grading correct, but that I couldn't even make them change it because only an "expert in the field" aka the teacher could report the issue.

Why schools are using this as a tool I'll never know and it's disgusting that students are being forced to pay for this crap instead of an actual education.

16 October 2023
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Renter Beware!

Cengage has a rental program for their textbooks. I was required to have a hard-copy by the professor in spite of having the e-book. I finished the course and returned the book to Cengage in December of 2022, using the label that Cengage provided. Several months later I was billed over $200 for the book but it had been returned. What a bunch of crooks!

14 October 2023
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Prepare to go broke all so you could receive a half assed education

I had to pay a lot to access my materials for multiple courses in university aside from paying for tuition. I bought an access key which won’t let you access your course and once you do access your course you might have to pay twice to access the materials you already paid for that way your course is active. Tell me how that makes sense? Why am I paying tuition when I’m basically receiving an education through a website that eats up your damn money

11 October 2023
Unprompted review
Rated 3 out of 5 stars

Not the best thing since sliced bread

Not the best thing since sliced bread
but at least the customer service is good. I changed classes and needed to pay for the same text book twice, so I called customer service, and they quickly resolved the issue. I use Web Assign for my physics homework, and it is sometimes buggy but good for the most part. Probably not worth the high price still.

31 August 2023
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

the automatic grading system is awful

the automatic grading system is awful, For context I am taking a java course... the automatic grading can't even read my public class name... and my teacher does not want manually grade our code. On top of that the website is horribly slow and support is non existent or just AI generated.
AVOID A CENGAGE COURSE AT ALL COSTS

30 September 2023
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Worst service I've ever used

Worst service I've ever used. Customer service is hard to find and when you do manage to get in touch with them, they offer the worst communication I've ever encountered. Their site is also really bad since the e-books are way to slow to be useful.

28 September 2023
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

It is impressive how bad Cengage is.

It is impressive how bad Cengage is.

As a student, I have already taken 5-6 courses that use Cengage. I am so sorry if you have to spent 100+ USD on Cengage Unlimited, because you are about to be welcomed to the worst material, slowest labs and virtual machines, and will make your overall class experience miserable. I have had 30 minute labs turn into 3 hour assignments because of crashes, glitches, and just overall painstakingly slow speeds of the servers that the VMs are hosted on.

Honest tips:
If you have no choice, just use their PowerPoint Presentations to learn the material. Give up reading, or any other features that they have because they are USELESS. Trust me. As for the labs, all you can do is brace and pray, im sorry.

Screw you, Cengage. Professors, please use a different platform.

23 August 2023
Unprompted review

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