I enrolled with Axia College of University of Phoenix in late August. My official start date was September 9. I had gone through all the processes and documents that were required to begin classes, and was told I could go ahead and start. I had been told that everything was completed to the school's satisfaction and that there would be no problems, to enjoy working towards my degree. I was ECSTATIC to begin classes as I was 25 with 4 children and had just found out during the enrollment process that I was expecting child number 6, AND going through a horrific divorce! This was a highlight of my life at the time, and I was so happy to have something to look forward to that I knew would be the best thing I could do for my children at that time.
I began as scheduled, and was doing great in my first two classes. I was loving the format and the freedom I had to do the assignments on my own time, so long as they were completed by the deadlines given. I also had no technical problems. Everything was amazing until I recieved an email from my financial advisor 2 weeks into class telling me that I had been selected for random verification for my financial aid, and that I had to fax or email the required documents to them. Great! Not a problem... Or so I thought.
I scanned the tax forms and emailed them to my financial aid advisor as per request, and continued on for another week until I received another email from them. It was to tell me that the forms were not scanned properly (mind you, they were perfectly clear and showed EVERYTHING on the pages) and that I needed to re-scan them and resend them. I shrugged it off and sucked it up and did it again. Another week went by and yet AGAIN, I got an email from the financial advisor telling me it was STILL not clear enough and could I do it AGAIN? So, being the good little student I was, I simply re-scanned and re-sent for the third time.
Finally, after another week, I got a phone call from the advisor telling me that it still wasn't clear enough and I needed to send them the documents via fax. Now, for most people that wouldn't be a problem. For me, however, it was. For one, I did not have access to a fax machine at home. Secondly, I did not have a store, gas station, or any place I could go to fax the documents in my little bitty hick town even if I paid them. After trying for a week to find someone to let me use their fax, literally reduced to going into random businesses (with children in tow, mind you) and BEGGING them to let me use their fax machine and physically showing them money I would use to pay them if they let me, and STILL being told no.
After that week of humiliating failure, I emailed my financial aid advisor and asked for a physical address I could send my verification documents to, and offered to send overnight so that it would get there as fast as possible. I was told that they didn't know of an address, could I just fax it? I explained what all had gone on, and that faxing wasn't an option and that obviously emailing hadn't worked. The advisor told me they would see if they could find an address but that they didn't think there was one I could mail things to, since it was an ONLINE school, EVERYTHING had to be done online or over the phone/fax. After a couple of days I contacted the financial aid advisor by email YET AGAIN asking for a physical address.
Two more days went by, and so I emailed the financial advisor, and sent a copy of the recent communications to my other advisor to see if she could help. Neither of them replied, so I called the regular advisor and was sent to her voice mail, which informed me that she had gone on maternity leave and would not return until the first of the year! Now, as a mother, I can understand this, but you would think she would have had the courtesy to notify the students she was helping beforehand and informing them who to speak with in her absence. This was not done. I hunted down someone to talk to that was a DIFFERENT advisor, and informed them of the situation. They too, told me that there was no physical address. I sent the financial advisor another email, as it was nearing the deadline I had been given to submit the documents or be dropped and owe money out of pocket. I informed the financial advisor that there was absolutely no alternative, and that if I was to be able to meet that deadline, I needed a physical address. There was no reply, and I proceeded to send one email a day to the financial advisor asking for a physical address. I never received another response and was dropped.
The day I was dropped I sent an email to all of the advisors I had spoken to regarding the matter, and asked if I would be charged for the classes when it was THEIR fault that my financial aid never went through? I never received any replies, until I got a bill in the mail saying I owed the school almost 800.00! I called again, and got bounced around and never got any answers. A week after all this, some lady had the nerve to call me asking why I had dropped out!!! I told her what had happened and YET AGAIN got told there was no physical address!
So now, I have collectors hounding me for this money, my credit report is showing it (I disputed it with Equifax but they didn't do anything either), and NO ONE at the school attempted to help resolve the situationin the only possible way left! I don't even understand why the documents weren't good enough in the emails, unless the idiots lost them all those times and simply didn't want to take responsibility for that. I guess it would have made them look that much more ridiculous to request that darn email a 4th time. What a waste of time! I was so disappointed that I couldn't finish, but I think if a student is not going to be able to finish their degree, it should be THEIR choices that caused it, NOT AN INCOMPETENT SCHOOL!
Thankfully, since I have been doing research online ever since, I have not given up hope for online classes, as this is the best option for my lifestyle. I am in process of enrolling with Herzing College Online for the Associates of Science in Medical Office Administration, and when the situation I went through with UoP was explained, I was told I will always have the final option of mailing in documents I can't fax or email! They gave me the address already.:) I start on April 28, and will have options to complete the program in as little as 14 months as long as I keep a good GPA.
Luckily, Uop didn't screw me up on going to college elsewhere by having me owe a crap ton of financial aid loan money back for a degree I never got, since they never could get the verification, they screwed themselves in the process. I'm grateful that the school's errors occurred early enough not to be as costly as some of the other student's issues I've read on here and other websites. It's amazing to me that that awful school even continues to enroll students with such horrible ethics and practices, and I wish the best of luck to the ex-students who have been taken advantage of, as well as current students who need to be very careful and tread on eggshells with the crooked, scheming, people at UoP. I hope everyone gets where they are aiming in life, one way or another, and then someone needs to start up a website to show what they've done and where they are in life after UoP screw-ups and rub it in good! Get lots of traffic to the site and maybe we can all prevent other people seeking degrees from getting scammed or otherwise have their life derailed by this awful, low-grade facility!
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