I consider myself an intelligent guy, now that Ive been dragged through the dirt by this unscrupulous institution and learned my lesson in the worst way possible. I am barely able to stay afloat with what I owe them. I have got nothing in return. Here is how I was ripped off.
I was led into visiting their school through their advertisements and then I was convinced by their recruiters who I would say are more like immoral sales men. They fed me a story which seemed very manageable at the time. Here are the main things that the initial recruiters told me which were lies:
- Graduate with Bachelors Degree in 2 years
- For about $20K total, most of which will come from government grants. If any amount is left then we will use student loans.
- The credits can be transferred to other schools later if you wish to continue your education after wards.
Being young and nave I fell for what they had told me not even suspecting that a school would lie to a student that way.
I chose night classes from the beginning since I wanted to keep working and get an education at the same time. My original class was about 25 people in my group since the way their scheduling works they set groups to start and graduate together. I started off great excelling in all my classes. Right away after starting I met with financial advisors (little did I know this would be a common occurrence) and to my first surprise almost nothing was covered by grants so we had to get a loan for most of the cost. They again mentioned a figure around the 20K that I had been told it would cost so I agreed to take a loan from Sallie Mae (a lender they suggested) for that amount. Being that I was young they needed a cosigner for me to take that size of a loan. They led me to believe at the time this would pay for my time there and I continued to study there.
Along the way students had been dropping out left and right. I thought I was doing well and little did I know they were actually the lucky ones.
Months later I am called again into the Financial Advisors office to review my tuition. This time around I am told that its time for me to reapply for grants for the next coming classes, and I have to do so or I cant continue. I was in shock and I wanted them to explain themselves. The only thing they explained was that my 20k in loans had already been used for classes up to that point and supplies. This was pretty much the halfway point and my original class was down to about 5-10 students.
At that point I asked for advice and was given none but was informed that the Associate Degree for my program had been discontinued recently so I really had no other option. My thinking at this point was if I quit now I have nothing to show for it and I just gave them $20,000. I felt pressured to stay as I had already devoted so much and to do so I had to get another loan. I continued to work hard at my job because I knew that the deferred payments for that loan would be due soon after I graduated.
By this time there were only 2-3 students left in my original group including myself. One day my group gets called into Career Services. I am then informed that due to the fact that most of my class is gone this group will be broken up and I have 2 options; switch to morning classes or wait at least 3 months for another group of night classes be merged into that one. This was only part of the nightmare as I chose to switch to morning classes but that group hadnt had all of the same classes that I had already had only some of them. I spent the rest of the time there being bounced in between groups and forcefully taking time off a couple months at a time until the classes that my group needed were available. This pushed my graduation to the 3rd year and didnt end until about 6 months after.
When I was finally finished at 3 years I owed about $60,000 to Sallie Mae and am currently paying large monthly payments for. Who knows what happened to the grants that were supposed to pay for most of that. After this was done Sallie Mae contacted me saying some of the funds were returned from the College as it had asked for too much. I believe it was about $4,000 that Collins returned to the Lender. About a month after graduating I get a letter from the college saying that I owe them $800 for something that wasnt paid. That didnt make any sense to me and doesnt yet it has not been paid and I am trying to fight at least that for the moment.
I wish I could just get my money back and hand them back their diploma which doesnt mean anything to anyone that I tell about it. I cant use my credits anywhere else I try, and it has just left me with an enormous amount of debt. Every time someone ask or I see a commercial I wish that I could warn everyone considering it about bad business practices of that institution and my biggest mistake, going there.
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