My Fianc as well as myself are student's age 38 and 39 that attends Axia College, University of Phoenix. The reason I attend an online college is because of being a full time working parent and did not have time to attend a land college but I wanted to further my education. My Fianc had the same reasoning for attending an online college.
In the month of December I contacted a very good friend because I knew this person was attending Axia College University of Phoenix online to see how it was going. At that time I was told there was no problems. This person had been attending the university for several months so I figured it was the best way to get information being that it was first hand and not hearsay.
My Fianc was also attending the college for several months before I took interest in asking how the University was going (we did not live together at this time). She also told me at that time that everything was going fine with no major issues. So after getting first hand information, I contacted the University and spoke with an admissions counselor.
While on the phone with the admissions counselor, I asked a few pertinent questions like what was the graduation ratio compared to the 300,000 students that attended the University. His reply to me was that the graduation ratio was an astounding 97%, I also asked him the most important question, what was the success ratio of graduates from the University actually gaining good employment after graduating. Again the ratio was astounding at 100%.
Between My very good friend and my fiancs information along with the admissions counselor information I made the decision to set up to attend the UOP. Setting up to attend did not take to long as it seemed the counselor was very eager to get me started (this should have thrown up a red flag). It only took two days for the University to inform me that I was all set up to go and classes would start January 10, less than a month. When I attended previous Universities, the amount of time it took the school to set me up to begin classes was an average of 5 to 6 months (again this should have thrown up a red flag) but to my ignorance I was eager to get started.
The UOP was great for the first 11 months until I had personal issues and failed a class. I make no excuse, as failing the class was my fault. None the less at this point I was to be getting a pell disbursement and the remaining amount of my Stafford loan. I should make clear that the amount of Stafford loan money exceeded the amount of tuition by $1,900. The amount of pell disbursement was $2,055 of which none of either was relinquished to pay on my tuition.
I wend round after round with the UOP trying to find out why I did not receive any of the pell disbursement or the excess Stafford loan. Several calls were made by myself to speak with a financial advisor to no avail my calls were never answered nor were any correspondences of any sort answered by the University. This went on for 4 months until I finally demanded that I speak with a supervisor. The supervisor was not available (shocking right) but the next business day which was a Monday at 5:55 pm I received a phone call from which was my new financial advisor.
Let us keep in mind that the original financial advisor had told me prior to failing the class (because I asked a very important question) that if I were to fail a class at that point, I would still receive the full pell disbursement as well as the excess Stafford loan money. Now when I spoke to the new financial advisor she assured me at that time I would be getting the pell and Stafford money after I finished my next block of classes. I thought this was odd for the simple fact that my original financial advisor told me that I would be getting the pell disbursement and the Excess Stafford loan money even if I failed a class. At that point is when the new financial advisor told me that I did not have enough credits for the pell and excess Stafford loan money so they would not be disbursed to me until I pass the next block of classes.
At this point I asked the new financial advisor to look at the notes that were suppose to be on the account record. To no avail, there were no notes and the new financial advisor said to me and I quote I do not know what you are talking about there is no notes or record. I was told the only thing, as a record is what she had since she was appointed to be my financial advisor. Now the same exact thing happened to my fianc at the same time when she failed a class but the amount they with held and magically disappeared was greater than mine because she had failed two classes. Between the both of us the University magically lost over $20,000 between pell disbursements and excess Stafford loan money. That is not something to be overlooked.
My fianc and myself' both went 11 months without receiving a penny of our pell disbursements or excess Stafford loan money. Matter of a fact my fianc' never received any of the excess Stafford loan money nor did she ever receive a full pell disbursement. Her pell disbursement was always &1,000 short. Now I am not stupid by any means and to reiterate the reason I went back to school was just to advance my knowledge and gain more knowledge in a field that I am already familiar with. Do the math, there is three pell disbursements over a calendar year and three Stafford loan disbursements to pay for the tuition, the pell disbursements are to provide for whatever is needed for schooling. The excess of the two before the tuition went up yet again for the second time in less than a year equaled $6,000. Plus when the University took yet another Stafford loan out in both our names to pay for tuition (keep in mind the amount of Stafford loan money was already in excess of what was need to pay tuition) in the amount of another $2,000, that added another $12,000 that we have no idea of where it went or what it was used for because the University is still withholding the pell disbursements to pay our tuition's. This is not even saying what they withheld since the new increase of tuition.
Now let me get to the credibility of the teachers if that is what they are called. Honestly I have had so many teachers that knew less than me teaching the classes. I will just use one example, on May 4 I began one of my classes and that class was IT 215. At the beginning of the class I knew that it was going to be a terrible class based on the response of the teacher to some students. I will quote what was said, I am not here to help you but to guide you. Is the teacher not supposed to help you? This was news to me and I watched and saw a few things from the teacher and sure enough the teacher credibility to teach was soon shown. Every question he was asked to help someone with, he did not know the answer. Needless to say I withdrew from the class and had many discussions with the University as to why. To no avail if the teacher can not teach a class why is that person there and why would any student pay for the class? I was contacted by several students in that classes to find out those 15 students out of 17 students that were in that class dropped the class. The decision was made by the UOP to credit every student of that class (at least the fifteen of us that dropped the class), I am not sure of the remaining two. I could go on and on about teacher from my classes as well as my fiancs' classes but it really would not do anything other than help us blow off steam so it is inappropriate to do so.
The bottom line to all of this is we feel like we were scammed and the school should be penalized for it. Since all of this has started we were both told that if we do not finish the degree that we are working toward, that we would not be able to access our credits. We have also found out that the credits from axia are not transferable to any other school because axia is not a accredited school. The only way to get credits transferred is from the university itself so that would mean another two years of paying for a piece of paper with no learning attached to it. I am a month away from graduating with my associates' degree as well as my fianc. We have spent a lot of money for a degree that is worthless. I know, who are the dumb ones, we are for even thinking that the UOP Axia College was a good school. There is a lot more we could add to this but we are going to let the Education Board along with the Attorney general sort it out. We are going to mitigate a class action suite against the University.
As far as what I seen in regards to Axia being the same entity as UOP, that is not true.in order to be the same entity, Axia would have to reside within the UOP walls and it does not. Axia has its own building so it is considered a separate entity all together. We laugh when we see people who obviously work for UOP trying to defend the school. If your going to defend a school make sure that there is not a paper trail leading to exactly what every past student has claimed. This will never end but you would think that by being sued already for $9.8 million and $4.4 million (just a couple to give an idea) that the University would at least try to be sneaky about their fraudulent actions.
Schoolkid
Wilton, New York
U.S.A.
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