I thought trying to deal with Kaplan's Financial Aid and Student Accounts Department was a nightmare, but after withdrawing it only got worse. This so called University has no integrity, and is one of the most tenacious predators I have ever encountered when it comes to dealing with either a school or business.
I was into my third term at Kaplan University and decided to withdraw due to the schools incompetent, tenacious Financial Aid and Student Accounts Department. Thank God I realized how corrupt and greedy this school was and withdrew before I started my fourth term. I have had nothing but problems with ever trying to get a hold of anyone I needed to speak with and they rarely ever returned any of my emails, dealing with Financial Aid and Student Accounts is a pure nightmare as they are incredibly disorganized, liars and ruthless.
I will accept responsibility that I didn't do any investigating or research on my own about Kaplan before letting their enrollment advisor talk me into signing up. I did some research before I withdrew to find out what credits and courses would transfer over to other Universities if I decided to try and rough it out at Kaplan. It was disappointing to find out that a good majority of the credits and courses would not transfer to some of the other Universities I wanted to attend. Most of the 5 credit courses that would transfer over were only worth about 3 credits to most other Universities. I realized then I was going to be going into an incredible amount of debt for courses and credits that might not transfer. At $320.00 per credit hour and being that most of the courses are set at 5 credits each that ads up to $1600.00 per course, and at 160 total credits needed for gradation that would be a total cost of $51,200.00 and that's if the tuition would have stayed the same, which by the way it increased to $340.00 a credit hour and the Financial Aid and Stafford Loans won't even cover all the tuition.
When I first enrolled at Kaplan, my Academic advisor assured me that all the courses would transfer and I did not have anything to worry about, but after checking into several other Universities I found out that was B.S., not to mention that they are supposed to be an accredited University, what that really means is they are an accredited school of higher learning, a big difference. This was just the tip of the ice-berg to what lead to my decision to withdraw from Kaplan University.
Almost from the very beginning I started having trouble with the Financial Aid department at Kaplan. I explained from the very start that I was living on disability Income and could not afford any out of pocket expenses. Once again I was assured I would not have to worry about that either, because of my income they told me that it would all be picked up in my Stafford Loans, and Federal Pell Grants.
When I was originally walked through FAFSA by my Academic Advisor, I filled out the loan papers and it showed that I would not have any out of pocket expenses through their financial wizard, but soon after starting my first term I started getting bills for unpaid tuition. When I confronted financial aid about it they would never return my calls or emails. When I was able to finally reach my Financial Aid advisor she told me it was because my EFC rating changed. I asked her how my EFC could change when my income did not change. She tried to say I went into FAFSA and changed it. I told her that was B.S. And then called FAFSA and found out that that Kaplan went in there and changed my EFC from a 0 to 1873 rating which lead to a out of pocket expanse that I was not prepared to pay. Once again they assured me to worry about it and it would get picked up into the following year's financial aid distribution. I found out that was a crock of B.S. Also once I started to get harassed for more money. Now their excuse this time was my grants and loans did not cover the full cost of the tuition which once again was a different story that I was originally lead to believe.
I have a friend who enrolled at Kaplan around the same time I did, and she was going through almost the identical same situation I was, and she even had a different Financial Aid officer than I did. The longer I attended Kaplan the more screwed up, disorganized, deceptive, manipulative and greedy I found out Kaplan was. Once I decided to withdraw it took Kaplan about a month to figure out what my final bill would be. They then wanted me to take this withdraw exit test and said it was required by the lending institution who was holding my loans. The website they gave me I could not use because I got all kinds of security warnings about the sites security certificates. It warned me not to leave any identifiable information, which is what you had to do to complete the test. I called Kaplan and wrote about it what I had encountered about a dozen times and nobody ever responded back to me about it. I contacted the bank who is holding my loans and they said there was nothing they could do until the school notified them that I withdrew. So to my dismay I ended up receiving a final bill in the mail on 08/05/08, even though I did not take the exit test. Three days after receiving this bill I then received a late notice. I don't know about you, but that's the quickest late notice I have ever received, in only three days. I started then getting emails and phone calls on a daily basis. I contacted student accounts about it, and told them I would pay the full amount next month. I have since received phone call three times a day on both my land-line and cell phone to the point it has become pure harassment. This has only been a little over a week now since receiving that final withdraw bill from Kaplan and they have called over 23 times now. I even wrote them back and called them back several times and said I would report them to the Higher Education Foundation, The Attorney General and the FCC for phone harassment. Can you believe they even have called twice today? I am now concerned what other trumped up charges they might come up with, and say that I owe so they can continue to call and harass me.
I can't believe with all the complaints I have read at this site, along with class action law-suites that have been filed against Kaplan University, they are still taking advantage of so many people with the hopes and dreams of improving the quality of their lives, only to have that dream shattered by such a greedy, ruthless, money making venture called a University that's just a form for a bunch of profiteers that are corrupt and greedy that are owned by the Washington Post.
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