For those seeking a conventional, traditional education market publishing experience. - Anonymous employee Cengage Employee Review

3.0
Sep 24, 2014
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

If you want to contribute to the creation of widely-used educational software programs and textbooks, this $2-billion revenue-per-year company is one of a half-dozen large educational publishing companies supplying (mostly English-language) schools and colleges worldwide with such materials. Compensation and benefits are competitive.

Cons

If you want to create disruptive technologies, enter non-educational markets, or advance quickly through the ranks, you will struggle against entrenched senior management with short-term objectives. Recently out of bankruptcy, Cengage Learning staff has been trimmed to focus only on guaranteed, 1 to 3-year successes that will please the private equity owners and tickle senior management incentive plans.

Explore other reviews about Cengage

1.0
Jul 13, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The individuals below the management level are good people, with some good people at management but C-Suite is horrible.

Cons

C-Suite hides their plans under corporate speak. Cengage was a family owned private company and they sold and ever since then has had, debt, schemes to shuffle and restructure debt while implementing RIFs after RIFs after RIFs...never ending and amazingly has been in increased this last year. From their actions it's outsource as much as you can of company operations and squeeze value from Intellectual Property. Look how many times they've renamed themselves. They had a CTO join for about a month or two until she realized it was a role with no team, no authority and left. The CEO is amazing at spin, you hear "great, great, great" corporate speak as the reality on the ground is "this failed, that failed..what!? they're gone!...what they moved that department offshore!...what!? that department is now a vendor relationship...oh we're not DEI focused because the wind changed". The trend is contraction not expansion, no ground breaking innovation. My jaded view from college on expensive books has only grew since I see how the sausage is made.

5
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