I am on Disability and wanted to get a degree through Westwood College. The State of Illinois was to pay my tuition. Because the State takes a long time to pay I had a balance due on my account each term and was threatened with being dropped until a payment was made even though I reminded them that I don't pay, disability does. Westwood "Strongly" urged me to take out Federal student loans to pay for the terms until Disability paid. After pleading my case to no avail I reluctantly agreed to take out the loans at a 2% interest rate. I really did not want to do this but they said I had to.
Towards the end of my education I thought I would check to see if all of my finances were in order. After several months of asking, Westwood finally gave me an email stating that disability had not paid on several terms throughout the past couple of years and I now owe thousands of dollars to SallieMae for unpaid student loans at a 6.8% interest rate (Westwood said it would be 2%). So after some investigation by the State it turns out that Disability had in fact paid and WEstwood had "Misplaced the money/credited it to someone elses account" Basically stole my money. The director of financial affairs quit right after giving my the documentation.
Over a year later I finally got an excel spreadsheet of my financial accounting of Westwood. Westwood claims that they owe me nothing and I owe them nothing but I owe Sallie Mae thousands. So I contacted Sallie Mae and they sent me a list of all the checks sent to Westwood. According to the records that Westwood gave me, 100% of the checks are a different dollar amount then what Sallie Mae said they sent. Even the checks refunded to Sallie Mae by Westwood are a totally different dollar amount. Example: May'05 Sallie Mae sent $1,833.33 and $1,666.66. Westwood's ledger says the amounts are $1,778.33 an $1616.66 for a total difference that I am responsible for of $105.
That Might not seem like a lot but that was just 2 of the more than 20 checks with conflicting dollar amounts. They range from $50 to over $250 per check. Adding up to thousands of dollars that Westwood had misplaced/lost or stolen from my student loans that I now have to pay back at rediculous interest rates.
I could not finish my education because disability would no longer send money to Weswood until the matter was settled. I could have taken out more loans to finish school but why on earth would I give Westwood more money if they in fact have stolen over $12,000 already.
I can not transfer my credits to another college. No one will accept credits from Westwood. Stating that their accredidation is through a second rate accredidation.
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