Is there any knowledge of a class action suit that I could join? If not, would there be anyone interested in joining if I start one? I have sent certified letters to the executives and president of the university along with filing complaints with the BBB, DOE, and Attorney General. I am hoping I will get a response from one of these so I won't have to follow through with a suit.
Since I started with Kaplan University Online in I have had nothing but problems with the financial aid system. It seems that each academic year I am fully covered but then suddenly at the end of each year I have an outstanding balance that is past due when I had no previous knowledge of any balance.
At the end of my first academic year, I received a call stating that I owed $754.00 and was past due on the payments. This is the first I had ever heard of any out of pocket expenses other than my application fee. After further investigation, I found out that they did not account for enough credits to cover my classes. Luckily, for this instance, there was still some money left in my student loan account and I was able to take out money for personal reasons to apply towards the balance.
Now, I am starting my final class at Kaplan to get my Bachelors Degree, and I just received a disturbing call. They said
that I have a balance of $1,201.00 and that my monthly payment of $400.33 was due on December 1. I told them that I
had absolutely no knowledge of this balance and I even read an e-mail I have from the financial aid department stating that they will take the promissory note out of my account documents because I will not have any expenses to
pay. They said that on November 14, they decided to withdraw my student loan for the last semester because of
my EFC. If the EFC was too high to allow for this much in loans, then why was I promised them in the first place? And how can it possibly be legal, or even moral for that matter, to withdraw it last minute without any notification
coming to me about it until my account was past due? I now have until February 1 to pay the full balance or I will be blocked from my last class, which means I will not be able to graduate.
There was also a point in the conversation with financial aid this morning where they stated they made a mistake. I was transferred to a second person who eventually noticed that more money was dispersed than I needed and that I was, in fact, entitled to a refund. She placed me on hold to talk to a supervisor and when she came back, suddenly I was back to owing money again. Its like the right hand doesnt know what the left hand is doing; and Im the one paying the price for it.
I have researched online and found that hundreds of other people have the exact same problem as me. How can the students be held responsible for the incompetence of the Kaplan staff? I have been unemployed for over a year and I
have no money to pay this balance. I was told today about a professional judgment that can allow me to receive further
financial aid if I qualify because of not working now, but I was also told that would take months to complete and by then I will have already been blocked from my classroom. Why was this information not given to me when I applied for loans and mentioned that I was concerned because the application goes off the previous tax year and I am not currently
working? Why do I keep being told that all my classes are fully covered by loans only to receive a call months later stating I am past due on payments I did not know existed?
I will also be sending complaints to the Better Business Bureau, the Department of Education, and the Attorney General. I cant understand how a University as big as this one can treat its students like it does and I intend to try my hardest to make sure no future students have to endure what I did.
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