I have attended DeVry University and am within 15 classes of earning my degree in Network and Communications Management. Problem is the funding. When I started back in 2007 before we had our first child I decided to further my education. With the hours that I worked, I was not able to attend a "normal college".
Due to this I was about 1/4 of the way through before we had our first child. We had been running into the ER due to false alarms and I had been in the middle of tests to which took emailing paperwork from the hospital to get the instructor to let me retake the test. Seemed reasonable enough, they don't just give degrees away right? The I was penalized for having to retake the test. I started to get upset and made some calls finally to speak to someone who would listen. The issuse was fixed. I was not penalized for basically having a life while trying to further my education.
Then we had a second child who needed to be in the hospital right after bing born due to health issues. I had just started a new session. I hadn't even gone to two classes yet and they were telling me that I needed to log on to class or I would be removed from the class for failure to comply with the attendance policy. After explaining the situation several times to several different people I was asked "I know that you said that your at the hospital right now with your wife and newborn daughter but do you think that you can take a few minutes to log onto class so that I do not have to remove you from the class?" When I told them no, I was told that I was being removed from the class due to failure to comply with the attandance policy, and they then hung up on me.
About a week later I called into the school so I could transfer my credits to a local college that just started offereing the same degree as online course with only one day in the class room. I was forced to explain why I wanted to transfer, was told that I still had to pay for the class that I was removed from because of dropping right away I lost the funding that I was already granted. After about 3 hours on the phone I finally got to talk to someone that truely understood that situation and was able to do something to help me. They waived the fees that were associated with the class that I missed, I was signed back up to start in a few weeks, giving me some time to spend with my wife, new born daughter, and year old daughter.
Then when I was suppose to start the next session I was placed on financial hold. I had to get financial aid convinced that I was cleared of the issue I previsouly spoke of. Lisa Fox in the financial aid department said I would be able to take one less class that I signed up for for the next two sessions as there was a problem with my financial aid. I basicly had to pay for the class that I just got waived because of lack of communication between the registar and the financial aid office.
Things were good after this. I was making great grades as I was on the honnor roll most of the time with a few exceptions due to me not studying as much. The the biggest issue I have ever had to deal with and am still dealing with. I am 15 classes from finishing my degree and have reached my "Aggragated Loan Level". Which means that I am not able to get any more money from the department of education I must take out a private loan. I have been paying on my sutdent loans since I first started taking classes, so how can I have reached my aggragated loan level? Seems that there were a total of 4 loans ($13,396) that I had not known about that were in default. No wonder I couldn't get any more money from the department of education.
I am currently speaking to a lawyer about this as I am only capable of paying the loans that I knew about not the ones that were not disclosed to me. They are now telling me that it will take about $20k to finish my degree and with have reaching the aggragated loan level I have to come out of pocket. I can not get a private student loan as DeVry is not recognised by may lenders as being an accredited school, and with having defaulted on a government student loan my credit score is now being hurt. Once lenders see this I am rejected. I was even turned down for a limit increase with my credit card because of this.
In my mind, Devry is a good school for education but if you do not keep track of evey penny from your awarded financial aid you will find yourself in my shoes.
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