I am tired of being unemployed and i feel like i need to be contributing instead of taking from taxpayers who are lucky enough to have a job in times like these. I am scared!
I was sitting at home and watching the jerry springer show and the maury povich show and the various judge shows and wondering what in hell i was going to do before i was homeless. The kinds of things i learned how to do —newspapers, photographic darkroom work, typesetting, etc. Have all become extinct —at least the skills i learned how to do... I was attending paralegal classes but from what i have heard, women over 40 and men over 45 tend not to get hired for any job here and it helps to have a professional license or to be able to0 freelance and with a paralegal certificate, i figured i could temp or freelance whenever, wherever needed and not be on a permanent payroll...
I saw a tv commercial for virginia college where there was this confident, helpful and smart african american gentleman who was supposed to be from virginia college career services telling how he was the iron and he straightened out students' lives — also, how one of the students needed a job so he could pay his tuition and how the african american guy had set up an interview for this student to get the part-time job and was able to come to school and that he, the african american gentleman, solved problems that students had because that was his job. He was believable and reassuring and i felt like with him on the case, i would have no problem at all getting a job.
The only problem was, he is not a real person or he is not a real person at this campus of virginia college!
Even though i know recent law school graduates who are out of work and are having to do paralegal work —so much so that the american bar association appears to be concerned, i still thought that earning a paralegal certificate would be helpful if i wanted to go on to law school or work for a large law firm. Certification is not required in texas but as competitive and cutthroat as the job competition is here, every little bit helps... And obama has approved all of this educational grant money. So far, he has not told us where we are going to put these new educations to work so we can make some money and support ourselves in our families —but don't let the real world intrude into how wonderful an education is!
I had friends of mine who were sent to virginia college here in the paralegal program and one ended up with a very nice state agency job in the field. So i decided i would go to virginia college to get my paralegal certificate.
I had to set an appointment with one of their admissions persons who is really a high-pressure, fast-talking salesperson who is a little loose with the truth. I got an appointment to come in on saturday and they gave me a laptop computer to fill out my information on. They also wanted my transcript from the two-year college i attended previously which is legit. And i noticed when i came in the lobby that they were trying very hard not to laugh at me. I am not sure if it was because of my weight, age, or because they thought they had another sucker on the line. The salesman/admissions person made a somewhat snide comment about what i was wearing... Hey, fool, if i was working and had a job, i would not need to come here to learn a trade and i am not so sure that paralegal jobs are that bankable a skill anyway.
The salesperson gave me a $20,000 estimate and said it was so cheap because my credits from the two-year college would transfer to virginia college. So far, so good... I noticed that the salessperson had a lot of different tunes on the i-pod in the office and he had me pegged for tony bennett and smooth new age jazz. I also noticed a sign on the wall that indicated that the salesperson had sucked in quite a number of fools but i learned early on that you have two ears and two eyes and one mouth.
The salesperson tunes the sales pitch to the mark (you) by playing to what he or she thinks you want to hear and by playing your kind of music (they think) they are trying to show you that they can identify with you, express their concern about your future and show that they care about you. (like hell!)
I heard about how great the paralegal program was and how i with only a high school diploma could get that paralegal certificate but the salesperson did not know which area of legal specialization would be hiring or what, exactly, did a paralegal do.
I am eligible for low income tuition grants since i am damn near homeless.
The salesperson assured me i would do well here and be able to get a job right away. Me, i am not so convinced. There is a junior college and two trade schools that offer paralegal studies so there should be no shortages of people. Jobs, on the other hand... I met with the financial aid person and started to have misgivings.
You see, they were so desperate to rook in the suckers, they were open on saturday &and their wireless internet with which i was supposed to connect to the internet was turned off. I like to economize as much as anyone but i also noticed that the president of this school happened to have a mercedes-benz that looked like new and they don't give those away. I tried to hook up to the wireless anyway and i realized no one in the place knew how. Maybe there is trouble in paradise. Wireless internet is expensive...
The financial aid person began to fidget and act very nervous around me. I have been around the block a few times and the last time i saw someone acting this nervous was when i helped a friend apprehend a shoplifter and i began to suspect something was not on the square.
I also noticed that you are escorted everywhere here—like what are you going to see and who are you going to talk to that you are not supposed to be? I did surprise the salesperson jamming out with gangsta rap and seemingly snickering about me. But i am getting ahead of my story.
I noticed a white couple who looked like jerry springer guests, upstairs in the financial aid office reception office. The lady was in tears and the husband was saying, "bullshit." a few minutes later, they came back... I never had the chance to ask them what was wrong. I wish i had had the chance but i had to go back to fast talker who told me to bring my financial aid application up to date. Also telling me that only my high school transcript was needed.
The salesperson told me that i needed to come back monday and talk to financial aid and i noticed that the salesperson was having a very hard time not laughing in my face.
Comes monday and i showed up. The people i had seen were not anywhere near my age and all seemed to be smirking like they had a secret i didn't know about. Well, the salesman pumped me up about how wonderful the paralegal program was and then showed me some figures. Turned out that the two-year college only graduated 4 percent and 40 percent transferred to a larger school. Virginia college paralegal program had 39 students and 20 graduated and found work and that was 96.4 percent. I then wondered how many of those had already been working as paralegals as my last disasterous class at the two-year school had been full of persons already working as paralegals, and it helps the stats when your people are already employed in the field.
There is an excuse for not hiring here. If you are too old, you are "overqualified." a great all-around excuse is " you don't have any experience" and then for some people, 7-8 years experience is required and for others, much less. Ladies over 40 and men over 45, do not even bother to apply unless you have a friend or family member to vouch for you... And, in austin, texas, that is not just for a paralegal job.
I go to financial aid and i tell them that i i have a lousy credit rating and will have trouble getting a loan." no problem, said the financial aid person, " this is for your education and they won't check. This is for your future!"
Once again, i envision myself being the best-educated bum under the bridge if i survived that long!
I had a pell grant and a work-study and an educational opportunity grant where i attended previously and i wanted the same here. I was told that the educational opportunity grant was not available and it would be 30 days before they would know whether or not a work-study grant was available and all of the money would go towards paying off my loans.
Loans? Who said anything about loans!
Real expensive education — approximately $7,000 or $7,500 in pell grant, a subsidized stafford loan and an unsubsidized loan per semester with no guarantee of work-study (or maybe if the government got it, i would not get it and i would have no job and who knows where it would go and if it would really be credited to my loans). Also, if i happened to get any scholarships —salesman promised me assistance in applying for scholarships but this is not going to happen...
Work-study is awarded when your pell is awarded, usually —not 30 days afterward. Maybe after 30 days, it is too late to back out. Good thing i was not so fast about getting in.
Too expensive for me to get an education i most likely will not be able to use and i might be dead before the 25 years allowed for the loan to drop.
In the meantime, if i get on social security disability or even social security disability — the department of education or whoever the hell is underwriting these wonderful loans can take everything i own including my old 19-year old car that barely runs...
How am i going to repay with no job? I would be even worse off that i was before i went there.
So now, i learn that none of the credits from my prior school will transfer, i have to take out massive loans with onerous consequences if i can not pay them back and i did not see anyplace where the stafford loans have debt forgiveness by working for a non-profit agency like the perkins loans...
And nobody is telling me how much this is going to cost me or how much money i will have to pay back! I am just supposed to focus on how wonderful my life is supposed to be with all of this education. Well, why get the education and pay all this money i do not have and never will have and will never be able to pay back—it is like playing with a marked deck in a casino —all in favor of the house.
No wonder they were sneering at me!
I reluctantly signed the promissory note and i kept noticing that this person was adding more to the tab.
I found out that it looked like a $80,000 tab by eavesdropping on this person's computer when she would leave the room. Whether that was by semester or for the entire course of studies.
I also had to provide the names and addresses of six people as references like when you buy a used car so if you skip or default, the skip tracers and intimidating collection agencies can hunt you down and maybe make sure you are doing time in a federal pen... At my age, i don't have too many friends left and how in the hell do i know who they are. They went into a database and found some persons with the same last name and who lived next to some friends of mine.
It was starting to seem like a used car deal too and you have three days in texas to back out.
Only they did not give me the terms for how long you have to change your mind about not wanting to go to school...
They also test you in three areas and if you fail one of those areas —as you inevitably will because you do not know to expect it, a remedial course fee of nearly $2,000 is added to the tab... The test is multiple choice, by the way. Just take the answers and see which is closest to the question...
By now, i want out and am damned sorry i signed anything. I was supposed to come back tuesday for the orientation and to get signed up for classes and i have still not seen a schedule of classes or gotten an estimate of how much each credit hour costs.
I do remember wanting to talk to the career services people and i wanted to make an appointment the way i could at my old school but the financial aid person steered me out of there. The jobs that they help you get part-time are an index card put in a plastic pocket and there were a bunch of plastic pockets hanging on the wall upstairs. The scholarships were a montague of "win a scholarship" scam entry forms —the kind of scam you see on the internet and there was one texas equalization scholarship that is for private non-profit colleges, this virginia college is definitely for profit and i wondered why they put it there on the table for desperately drowning people like me to clutch at... Part of the con game.
I was getting suspicious and sick of being herded around like a cattle drive with deep pockets. I had erased all temporary files on the laptop they had me enter data into by now because i am not going to get ripped off here.
These people were a lot younger than me by at least 20 years and they were too young to realize that you do not play a player.
I did get to meet one of the attorneys who taught at classes at virginia college and i asked the attorney about their area of legal specialization... This attorney had two. I expressed my concern to the attorney that the only area of law that seemed to be hiring locally and only sparingly at that was intellectual property law — to which the attorney said that was at large law firms and i needed a bachelor's degree before i could be hired in that area.
I interpreted that as a paralegal certificate won't cut it and again, you do not need to be certified as a paralegal in texas anyway...
I called the federal department of education and learned that if i do not enroll for classes or attend or endorse the loan checks, that i will not be held responsible. To make sure, there is another number where i can contact the inspector general of the student loan program.
Adding insult to injury, i learned that you could pick up free passes at virginia college to the new robert rodriguez film screening and no one there had bothered to tell me about them while i was there.
Is it getting that bad that they have to advertise free film screening tickets to get people in there? Or maybe they didn't want people like me in there.
I remembered the statistics i read on the salesman's computer. There was a class of 39 and of those 20 got jobs after graduation. What happened to the 19 who did not get jobs? What did they lose when they could not pay back those student loans?
Hell, for $80,000 a semester & again, i apologize that i could not ascertain if that amount was for one or two semesters or the entire program& i could go to law school for that...
Dreams die hard and in these economically desperate times, economically dispossessed workers and people who are just starting out may be driven to do desperate things like pay out money they do not have now and may never have even in their lives because they think they are getting a chance at a life, a chance to provide for their families...
This is the same sort of garbage the prosperity gospel bastards are selling. Pay as much as you can for a chance at a future...
I am still outraged that they did this to me and i hope that you will think before you go there.
I have to deal with some business that suddenly came up but when i come back, i am going to consider other options. The health care profession is becoming the next bubble of speculation, i think, but i have no aptitude for it... Oh well...
The prosperity preacher pushers at virginia college should be ashamed of themselves! Maybe someone benefits from this but i wouldn't have been able to use any of this...
If there is no one within 20 to 30 years of your age to assist you and tell you the straight story and if they will not give you the amount that you will be paying on paper —and rudely snatch it out of your hand when you get to look at it and then go back onto their computer and change it up where you can't see what they are doing - it is time for hell no!
Now i am going to have to alert all three credit reporting agencies in case someone steals my identity since they have all of my information. As soon as i can, i am removing this school from the department of education permission to ask about me!
Thank g-d i did not fall for this. I came too damned close!
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