For the past two months my wife has been trying to confirm information regarding her financial aid status while in attendance at the University of Phoenix. Constant phone calls have lead to the same run around answers to basic and simple questions; "What am I getting awarded?", "When are my loans being dispersed?", etc.
My wife has recieved constant emails, sent to my mailbox mind you, after advising this university of all updated information for all of my wife's information, including her cellular phone and other information. We have updated information on several occassions only to have the university continually make the mistake of sending information to the patron. It almost seemed as if they were doing it on purpose. Maintaining somewhat shaken faith in the university my wife kept making consistent phone calls to confirm the status of all of her finnacial aid.
The university would not confirm the status of her financial aid and on top of that, kept asking my wife to fill out veriifcation form after verification form. As if they could not process any information becasue of the constant need to verify information.
It almost seemed as if they were stalling to request the financial aid so that they could charge my wife directly. No sooner did I suspect this, bills for classes began to arrive at our home requesting payment in full for classes my wife had been currently attending. My wife, with my help argued with customer service rep after customer service rep to get all information confirmed and ironed out.
No sooner did the customer service reps tell my wife to disregard the bills-the financial aid would, "KICK -IN", she would recieve another bill. This became tiresome, not to mention the fact that the classes were extremely remedial.
Finally, wife became fed up and decided to withdraw from the school. They seemed at the least extremely incompitent in handling student accounts and before my wife went any further with any other financial undertaking from this school, we felt it was best to part ways with the school and seek furthering her education elsewhere.
No sooner did my wife advise U.O.P. That she wnated to withdraw, they advised her that she would be charged 1,854.00 for the class she was taking because her financial aid had not "kicked-in"
Mind you, my wife was advised at the beginning stages of the process to attend U.O.P. That she qualified for 10,000.00 in financial aid and at the point of her requested withdrawl she had only completed two courses and was in the process of completing her current course. She did not want to be charged for the upcoming course but a financial aid advisor informed my wife that again her financial aid had not been recieved by the school.
My wife decided to check with the lender to confirm why the school had not recieved payment for the class she was currently attending. My wife was informed that the school can request the approved funds when the student is in attendance!
To sum it all up, the school was not requesting the approved funds when my wife began the class, they requested the funds when the class ended, and the school would have you begin another class while the approved funds would be requested for the last class taken.
Meanwhile, you begin another class and if you decide to withdraw, they bill you for the class in full not having taken the difference from financial aid funds, if you did not complete the course. Knowing this my wife completed the last course, her fourth class and requested to withdraw from school prior to starting a new class so that she would not be billed, but because they request the funds from the lender at the end of class completion, my wife basically was in a class "not-paid-for" yet because the school had not requested the funds.
So now she wants to withdraw but they want to charge her for the alst class attended which could easily be covered by her approved funds from financial aid. The school tries to threaten you with a heavy financial burden to keep you attending classes even when you want to withdraw.
In my wife's case she was approved for more than enough money to cover any balance owed to the school once she had withdrawn form the school.instead she was threatened. And to top it off, when she argued with reps and supervisors as to why she was going to get billed she recieved such a run-a-round, and disrespect it made you feel like you were dealing with a loan shark. My wife checked with the lender prior to notifying the school today, to make sure that a dispersement of funds to cover her last class was secured. The rep advised my wife that the dispersement was ready all the school had to do was call to have the money sent.
With this information my wife called the school in an attempt to withdraw. Again she was given the run-a-round and put on hold on several occasions. I assisted her with asking challenging questions as well. They heard my voice in the background and advised that she could not consult with another person while speaking to a school official.
The conversation went very south after that and my wife was advsied that she would not recieve any more assistance with the matter and the school official hung up on my wife. My wife, got a gut feeling to call the lender back to make sure all of her funds were still in place.
When she spoke to the customer service rep the rep advised that the school (University of Phoenix) called and requested a cancellation of the current funds to be dispersed to cover the class she was going to finish. The school later called and advised that she had a balance to pay.
Extortion!
This so-called institution needs to be closed for such practices. My wife and I have not had any closure with the matter as of yet but we will continue to go as far as we need to go to resolve the matter, even if it becomes a civil matter.
Do not attend the university of phoenix-for your own well being. There are plenty of privates institutions that deserve your business.
Brandon
Long Beach, California
U.S.A.
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