Hope International University

Graduate from Hope in 2014. Loved the professors– they are absolutely WONDERFUL. I thoroughly enjoyed working part-​time in Admissions, and being involved with ASB and Campus Ministries. Forever a dear memory of mine.
Also, just in reading over a negative comment about the programs here (other than ministry and music): I graduated with my B.A. in Psychology in four years and my program was great. The professors in the Social Sciences/​Psychology department are helpful, informative and professional, as are the professors in the other departments. I was worried I would not be prepared as I entered grad school at another private university, but I was absolutely prepared (maybe even moreso than some of my colleagues from other universities).

Great place to learn and work! I studied here in the late 90s and have been employed here since 2011. A true community with some of the best students, staff, and faculty!

I walked out of the HIU MFT program for the last time last spring. It is amazing to look back on the last 4 years in just awe. I transferred from Santiago Community College to Hope’s Undergrad, 2 years later I graduated with my B. A in Psych and enrolled in the HIU MFT program, and again 2 years later received my M. A in Marriage and Family Therapy.
When you first go to college you completely underestimate the impact a GREAT university will have on your own development. All you see at first is classes and projects and you keep your head down and move forward. But at HOPE, things are different, you grow into a community even if you DON’T think you will. You make friends that become family, you meet Professors that become mentors and then you wake up realizing that YESTERDAY was the last day as a student and today becomes your first day of the rest of your career! If I could say anything to the Students who are starting this program or the Students who are looking to start this program, dig in deep with this foundation, get every ounce out of this program you possibly CAN because one day you will not have a chance to BE HERE, EXPERIENCE THIS and have the opportunity to take this for GRANTED. As I walked away last night I thought of, «I wish I would have gone on the days I skipped». I don’t take much time away from classes but even the few times YOU DO… you will think of on your last day. When you realize you DON’T have any more classes to attend.
In closing I look at it like this, you can go to any college and get student loans. But having been to multiple colleges, I look at my student loan payment and I KNOW I got a top of the line education. I know I was prepared for the world in which I received my degree, and I know the money I invested was worth EVERY PENNY.

Best school and teachers.

I loved my time at Hope (2010 grad). The community is great — love the small campus and the the ability to get to know everyone. The campus activities are great — loved that you could easily get involved in something almost every night of the week! The professors are phenomenal — they have a sincere desire to get to know you and help you grow as a person.
The dorms are OLD as dirt, but they’re a pretty good size (my brother is at ASU right now and his dorm is TINY compared to HIU). I wish they would allow students to live off campus prior to 21 years of age. Getting an apartment off campus is way cheaper, but I can see that staying on campus helps keep you focused. I also wish they allowed students who lived on campus an opportunity to ditch the meal plan ($ 9/​meal when I was there was not worth it — I could have gone to Olive Garden every day for that price!).

This school only get’s one star because the teachers there for the most part are amazing, however the school is hell on earth. I attend HIU and lived there from 2008 – 2009. The program that I had signed up for that was teamed up with CSUF was threatened to be cancelled twice in the year that I was there, I got sick of it and their administration so I left the school and applied to the CSU system on my own. I continued to live there however till the end of 2009.
School: Anyone going to this school not looking for a degree in ministry or music will be screwed. Everyone I know who decided to graduate from there they found were lacking in credits or classes and had to go back to school to finish them to get a job. There is ZERO job placement help there too so good luck finding a job after graduation, and get excited for massive amounts of college debt. with tuition costing over $ 30,000. Yet they are so bad at managing their money that they are in a constant state of closure. Oh and don’t even get me started on the shoddiness of their accounting department, the IRS would have a field day with them and the crap they pull to cover up their billing and receiving mistakes.
Athletics: HIU cared more about their drugged up, loosing basketball team than any other winning sport at the school. I lived with two exchange students who came to play tennis there. At the end of my first year budget cuts hit the school and they revoked the scholarships from the tennis team and the volleyball team, all highly successful teams, they cut the scholarships so much that all the exchange students who came to play on those teams had to move back home. But guess what the loosing drug and alcoholic basketball team did not see any cuts, hmmmmmm. Oh yeah and even though it’s well known that many of the athletes are doped up they refuse to administer drug test because they would have to expel everyone
Housing: absolutely disgusting, our RA actually got mold poisoning while living there. She was supposed to join the peace core after school but because of the health issues that followed her encounter with the mold, she was not able to go and had to move home. I lived there over the summer and our room topped out at temperatures over 100 degrees! We had the maintenance crew come in multiple times to fix the cooling because it was blasting 90 degree air into our room. Did it get fixed, nope. Our rich room mate’s family ended up buying us a rather large air conditioner for the room, which was illegal to put in but we were roasting up there. They say its a dry campus but that is a complete joke everyone there drinks on campus. We had major ant infestations, rat infestations, plumbing problems, mold, you name it. The dormatory should be condemned.
Social Life: This is a Christian school, but I have never met more fake, unwelcoming, clicky, back stabbing, emotionally unstable, rude, or gossipy people in my life. Plus many ppl there are only there because of the sports scholarships so they could care less about living a Christian life. I was the DD for my roommates to a basketball after party and a girl there got roofied and almost date rapped.
Classes: There are a few really great teachers there and I am sad that they have to be apart of such a horrible institution. However some of the teachers and advisors are a total joke. I swear my advisor was a pot head, and he did absolutely nothing to help me out. Other advisors and teachers were the kind of people that just hate the world and hate life and loved to take it out on everyone around them. If HIU could turn their executives and administration around and get ride of their useless teachers things would get better, oh yea and tear down the horryfyiong dormatory.
Anytime I hear someone talk about Hope International University I always say the same thing. The teachers are great but the school is awful go to Biola or a state school, anything is better than getting sucked into the vortex that is HIU.

You hear so many advertisements over the radio and see them on TV all the time– you know the ones that say something like, «So you want to finish you degree…» or «Get your Master’s degree from the comfort of your home on your own schedule…»
Well, that’s exactly what I’m doing at Hope International University. I’m attending through their online Master’s of Ministry program.
Right now you are probably thinking:
«What’s he doing?!? A paid endorsement??? It sounds like a commercial!!»
Nope. Sorry. I wish I were being paid to write reviews! This is just the honest truth based on my personal experience… and now, back to my endorsement.
HIU is a fully accredited university. With small children at home, I thought it would be years before I could ever realistically pursue a Master’s degree.
The staff that helped me through the application process were patient, kind, and knowledgeable.
The way that the classes are set up truly make it convenient. Each week you have new lectures to listen to, as well as threaded discussions (in-​class discussions), and written assignments.
The professors have always been reasonably accessible.
The bookstore is great (see my review of that business for specifics).
This has been the smoothest and most problem free college experience I could have ever Hoped for ;-)
I drove down once to look at the campus and to get my student ID picture taken (ID’s aren’t required for online students, but it made me feel like a legit student with the card in hand). The campus was lovely. I almost wished that I could take some on-​campus courses to enjoy the serenity of the actual location. (Plus, it’s only a few miles away from Disneyland!)

I like the campus and facilities. Parking isn’t terrible and the rooms are good.

This could very well be the worst college experience in my life. I have a seminary degree and an undergraduate degree from the UC system, so I know how large institutions should operate.
Hope is so unorganized. And I can only speak for the graduate school. And the Business and Management school to be exact. The teachers were okay (⁵⁄₁₀) but the work is remedial, the staff are rude, negligent, and unwilling to communicate most of the time. Financial aid doesn’t get applied and refunded to students for about 6 to 7 weeks after the course begins! And they really don’t care about how you buy your books, I was told to «take out another loan with another company or something.» They transfer you around because the systems are out of date or something.
The dean of the Business and management program, Dr. Jim Woest. It seems to me that he resents his students and in some ways doesn’t care about how his school is being run on many different levels. He comes off as holier than thou when he receives any sort of criticism relating to his institution. He also hangs up on students when hearing a minimal critique regarding the schools communication procedures and systems operations. It’s almost like he has no heart for individuals or his students, but only for the bottom line. Which is making money.
And in most offices excluding the registrar, the staff seems to be very distant and distracted. This place is a travesty, and I’m ashamed to have ever gone to this school or payed them a single nickel. No one outside of south Orange County has heard of this school when I tell them where I go. Hope’s email website has way too many glitches. It erases emails etc. The online format has glitches as well. It sometimes also erases work, and the teachers don’t care, they’ll mark you down regardless to whether there was a system, online failure.
This place is in the business of making money and that’s it. They don’t care about the students AT ALL. Please don’t waste your money or time going here, there are so many other better choices that you’ll really get your time and moneys worth. Im actually surprised that this place has 2 positives reviews. VERY surprised.
My wife also graduated with an MBA from Hope and she hated her experience also. They really didn’t teach her anything new that she didn’t already know from her undergraduate studies at California State, and they never supported her throughout the entire program she says. I’m only going off of our own two experiences at Hope.
They treated us both like we were just a number. And this is supposed to be a small Christian college! I experienced a host of non Christian attitudes, and unsavory business ethics here that are on the verge of flat out unethical behavior.
And I’d like anyone reading this to know that as a pastor, it actually hurts me to write this sort of a review for an institution that employs and teaches Christians.
Please don’t enroll at Hope International University, in the Business and Management program, if your studies, your monetary investment, or your confidence in Christian institutions mean anything to you.

Bye Bye Birdie musical was so well done! Noe graduated here 12 years ago and we got VIP seating for alumni. It’s free for us!

Although its been 10 years since i graduated, it still stands as the best 6 years of my life … learning to walk like Jesus so I could more effectively walk with Him.