employer cover photo
employer logo
employer logo

Columbia University

Is this your company?

Columbia University reviews

4.0

66% would recommend to a friend

(5,439 total reviews)
avatar

Lee C. Bollinger

61% approve of CEO

51% positive business outlook

Columbia University has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 5,439 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Columbia University employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Education industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

5K reviews
1.0
Aug 21, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Tuition remission has helped several of my coworkers get their master's, or their spouses, their bachelor's. The benefits are great and vacation time generous. Coworkers are really good people. You'll never be asked to work overtime.

Cons

The administration is very tight-fisted, and high performance is not rewarded, unless you are very astute politically. There is little interest in the final outcome of a project; rather, the meetings, emails, and tones of discussion around a project. There is little collaboration between groups, so the wheel may get reinvented many times over. There are some people who seem to have given up hope and just go through the motions. It is really just a company like any other, trying to maximize profits, but there is somehow an attitude that because it is a place of higher learning, employees should feel grateful to be there.

4.0
Aug 13, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The plusses of working at CU are: the chance to interact with brilliant minds in research, the experience in getting your hands involved in more opportunities than other research employers offer, the prestige and boost on your resume.

Cons

The downsides of working at CU are interaction with large egos, poor management

2.0
Aug 13, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The tuition benefits are the best part of working at Columbia. Especially as they cover your kids (school, Columbia, and even other undergrad colleges) your spouse can earn an undergrad degree too. Master's Program are good if you don't have one already but there are only a few part-time degrees available and they are not always ones that you are interested in and are somewhat mixed in as far as actually value of education and teaching. Vacation is very good with 23 days as the standard starting amount. The health Benefits are good with a wide range of choices and optional vision and dental Plans

Cons

Incompetency of leadership especially in the upper echelons of libraries. The 'Peter Principle' is in full effect here. The are also a lot of lifers here, unmotivated and incompetent people can eek out a long and fruitless existence with the bureaucracy. This is problematic if you work or even need to deal with them. Managers are too often picked for their subservience over their leadership abilities, vision, management skills or general competency. Salaries tend to be very poor and those involved in the budgets are very cheap and do not understand ideas of value of bottom line especially when it comes to investment in technology.

Viewing 5434 - 5436 of 5,439 Reviews

Glassdoor has 6,184 Columbia University reviews submitted anonymously by Columbia University employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Columbia University is right for you.