⭐☆☆☆☆

Extremely disappointing experience with Torrens University, particularly in administration, documentation, and student support.

Throughout my degree, I experienced ongoing administrative failures, most notably unresolved errors on my academic transcript despite formal approval for refunds under the Extenuating Circumstances process. I followed up 7–8 times via email and phone and repeatedly requested escalation, yet incorrect fail grades remain on my record with no clear timeline, ownership, or accountability.

A major issue has been the lack of proper documentation and incomplete processes. Refunds were approved, yet I was not provided with clear invoices or formal documentation outlining exactly which subjects were refunded and how the adjustments were applied. This lack of paper trail has directly contributed to ongoing errors and delays.

Processes often felt half-finished and poorly coordinated, with departments working in silos and students left to repeatedly explain the same situation. I was also asked to re-answer personal and sensitive questions related to circumstances I had already formally documented and had to relive multiple times due to poor internal record-keeping and communication between teams.

Student Services was largely ineffective in escalating issues. Despite calling, explaining the urgency, and being told matters would be followed up internally, no meaningful action or resolution occurred. Escalation appeared procedural rather than supportive.

These failures have had serious real-world consequences, directly impacting my ability to apply for competitive graduate roles and progress my graduate visa under strict deadlines. At a critical transition point after completing my degree, the university’s lack of documentation, follow-through, and accountability caused unnecessary stress, emotional strain, and financial pressure.

There is a clear disconnect between the university’s messaging around student support, employability, and graduate outcomes, and the actual experience students face when they need timely, documented, and competent administrative assistance. While some academic staff and course content are strong, the systems supporting students outside the classroom—particularly international students navigating visas and compliance-sensitive processes—are unreliable.

I would strongly caution prospective students, especially international students, to consider the risks of administrative delays, poor documentation, ineffective escalation pathways, and limited accountability when choosing this institution.

In reply to Sam.

Thanks for the feedback, I was looking into this offering, but may look elsewhere now.

I have one question. I’m just looking at the Torrens prospectus and wondering how CMS200 is redundant with WAD200 and CLD300. It seems like the former is Content Management Systems (?), while the later two are based on React or something. These don’t seem like overlapping fields. What are they teaching?

Also, anywhere else you would suggest instead?

In reply to Sam.

Dear Sam,

I have faced the exact same issue including administrative failures and complete policy breakdown preventing my graduation on time. Thankfully I was able to retain of all of details and have prepared a strong legal case which I’m planning to pursue. If you’re able to assist in any way where you’re able to detail me the details of the administrative failures, I should be able to make the case even stronger and finally bring about justice. Please share me the details if you’re interested.

I’d like to share my experience with this university, which has been nothing short of disappointing and frustrating.

First, the administrative incompetence is staggering. Despite sending dozens of emails and messages over several months to both Student Services and various lecturers, I couldn’t get one straight answer about my course requirements. My question concerned the 300 hours of work experience supposedly required for a subject, which would have been challenging given my circumstances. I spent months asking about the process and whether alternatives existed, only to finally discover that I just needed to complete a basic research report. I began asking in February 2024 and didn’t receive a final response until May 2024. This simple answer should have been available immediately, instead of having me go back and forth multiple times. During the confusion, I almost took three extra subjects to fulfil these hours unnecessarily.

After that whole ordeal, a new issue arose. It took the university more than three months, involving multiple calls and emails to, again, both Student Services and various lecturers, to approve me for graduation after finishing my course in 2024. I was due for graduation in June 2025. After all this back-and-forth, it turned out that one of the people in charge of approving mistakenly thought I hadn’t completed all my subjects. He had confused my degree with another one. If I hadn’t reached out as much as I did, I wouldn’t have known that I supposedly hadn’t finished my course, and I would probably still be waiting for my approval now.

I naively got myself into $100,000 of debt thinking I’d get an education and improve my life prospects. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I simply don’t feel equipped to enter the job market with the poor education I received.

Unfortunately, this course has been a painful waste of time and—worse—money that’ll take me decades to pay off, if ever.

The quality of education was abysmal. Here’s a rundown of some subjects I took:
– DGDTY100 ($2,848.13) could have been replaced by a single 10-minute YouTube video.
– DDD203 ($3,080.00), PBL202 ($2,990.50), and SEN301 ($3,080.00) were some of the laziest, most frustrating, and nonsensical subjects imaginable. These were design subjects, by the way, which I might have overlooked if not for the significant amount of design theory that I was never actually taught.
— In PBL202, they put students in groups of four from completely unrelated degrees to solve global issues that had nothing to do with our degrees—like clean water and sanitation in underdeveloped countries—that engineers, scientists, world leaders, philanthropists, etc. haven’t been able to solve. This project had nothing to do with any of our degrees: fashion, interior design, game design, and web design. I would’ve preferred to learn about something more relevant like, I don’t know, web accessibility?
— Furthermore, in DDD203, they had us designing a plan for a community on Mars?! The same issue occurred with students from different fields working on this project. There’s a pattern forming here—is it really that difficult to create dedicated subjects for each degree instead of having the entire design cohort do these generic, USELESS ones?
– Most business subjects could have been easily covered by a few articles on Investopedia. In BIZ301 ($2,990.50), we had to create a venture plan for a fictional company—which ended up being “Uber for space.” 😐
– UXF200 ($2,990.50) and AUX300 ($3,080.00) consisted of watching YouTube videos during lessons. Free online resources offer more thorough content than what was taught in these subjects. To make matters worse, the lecturer was arrogant and rude.
– CMS200 ($2,990.50) was redundant when WAD200 ($3,080.00) and CLD300 ($3,080.00) exist. Even a lecturer directly stated that this subject was obsolete and outdated.

In what was supposed to be a UX and Web Design degree, I didn’t learn essential skills like animation, e-commerce, or WCAG. Now I find myself building a portfolio with the few projects I got from this course, having to teach myself crucial skills.

Meanwhile, I received promotional emails offering scholarships to return when I hadn’t even officially graduated yet.

I essentially paid thousands of dollars just to write reports and play make-believe. The thought of spending decades paying this off makes me feel sick and scammed.

Save your money and time—this university is not worth it.

First of all, I want to say I WISH I HAD LISTENED TO THE BAD REVIEWS about this school. However, I did attend for one year, dropped out and this is why…
I attended the Brisbane campus, for context, and the one little building they had was tiny and embarrassing. There was construction going on all the time (no idea why) and the “university library” literally consisted of two bookshelves (I probably own more books than Torrens).

The campus is also terrible geographically, being right in the middle of Fortitude Valley, having no free parking (closest park is $15 a day) and there’s no university charter buses either.

And the teaching, omg, so low quality. I feel like I didn’t learn anything. There were no exams, so I didn’t really have to study the content (because why study if I’m not being tested, right?). The lectures were useless; they basically tried to cram a week’s worth of content into one lecture and so, because there’s just so much to learn, you don’t actually learn anything. The teachers were even worse—the university can’t afford to employ “real” lecturers (PHD graduates, professors etc), so they’ll take anyone with a bachelors degree at this point and you can tell.

Also the class sizes are so small (because its a scam school) that I was the only student in the whole classroom for an entire term at one point (I’m not joking).
While they do have a big international student cohort, I worry for the employability of these graduates and feel like they are taking advantage of international students that have not being accepted into more prestigious and reputable programs. It’s laughable how low their admission requirements are — you literally just have to have a year 12 certificate and you’re in. What happened to competitive admission?

Also, the IT support and graduating process is a nightmare because the student support is non-existent. I wish I was lying when I say it took them 6 months to process my diploma graduate certificate. And that was with regular phone calls, sitting on hold and then politely asking what was taking so long.

Basically, this all just screams “not a real university” and “money grab”. If you want to waste your time and money, go ahead, but please, trust the reviews, think twice and apply for a better program somewhere else. I promise you, there are so many better ones.