Cambria Rowe Business College instituted a policy stating that if you were ill for more than six days without a doctor's excuse OR third-party varification, you were removed from the school for the remainder of the semester. They claim this is a PHEAA policy. This is not so, according to PHEAA (Pennsylvania Higher Education Academic Association). I became ill with what turned out to be food poisoning from eating at a fast-food/convience store chain. I had flu-like symptoms, and being that i do not drive or have insurance for ambulatory transportation, and am disabled, I remained at home in bed for seven days. Cambria Rowe called my home to discuss the situation on my seventh day home, and when my roommate refused to disturb my rest from a bout of vomiting, proceded to call the home of my mother and were quite rude to her in informing her that they were removing me from the school.
Now, I had signed paperwork before starting classes there stating that because I was 25 years old at the time and an independant adult student living apart from my parents, that Cambria-Rowe did NOT have authorization to contact my parents regarding my schooling.
Upon my calling to schedule a meeting to explain my circumstances, I came prepared with my roommate to verify how ill I had been and why I could not get to a doctor or hospital. Cambria-Rowe was not satisfied, although their handbook clearly stated that my third-party witness was perfectly acceptable.
They then decided to kick me out regardless of my having followed procedure, and informed me that although my student loans would NOT cover my tuition to that point because i had not been enrolled for 30 days, my government grants would cover fully, because i also had not been there long enough for them to charge full tuition.
I recieved a letter from PHEAA three weeks later stating that Cambria Rowe had tried to cash in on my student loans even though I had NOT been there long enough to qualify for student loans, and I now was to start making payments on a $3,600 loan, plus interest. Now, Full tuition per semester at Cambria Rowe at the time was around $2400, and they had informed me that because I had been enrolled for 14 days, that my grants would cover the tuition for those 14 days, and that I would not be charged for the time NOT spent. I immediately phoned PHEAA and informed them of this, and they quickly investigated and dropped the student loans.
I then recieved a bill from Cambria Rowe demanding I pay them $735 immediately in one lump sum. I immediately called them and reminded them that they had informed me that my grants were to have covered that, and that I owed nothing. I then called PHEAA again, and was informed that my grant monies had indeed paid out that amount to Cambria Rowe.
To my shock, when I sent no money after hearing that response from PHEAA, Cambria-Rowe sent my name and phone number to a local debt collector, whom harassed me with letters and phone calls, even after I informed them what cambria rowe had promised, what pheaa had imformed me, and gave them the number to confirm with pheaa that i owed nothing.
I was finally left alone, but this ordeal took a year to resolve in total and left me with agony, anger, and stress. I have since spoken with prior students who also experienced similar deceptive and unfair practices by cambria rowe. This school should NOT be liscensed, but shut down.
I'd love to hear of any other experiences about this.
Amy
Altoona, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.
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