University of Phoenix Reviews

I certainly thought of this when a teacher rated my final presentation for Mgt. 521 with a zero grade. To this extent, I used the formal academic channels to have this grade changed. Basically, I made a game that got the entire class involved, it used verbatim the discussion questions from her syllabus in the presentation. I received the "outcome" of the challenge to this facilitator's grade, and the statement "not relevant to the class" was underlined and in bold. Furthermore, it stated that this was a final action, and no appeal will be honored. I was beside myself in shock.

After thinking about it, UOP as a company, is wholly owned by Apollo Group, now has changed directions without considerations for their consumers, which I am one. I can actually imagine the management of this for profit company with blinders on now, only focused on the holy dollar, and the rest of the people are perfunctory. As a business person, if I treated my consumers of product like this, I would have no customers!

Since UOP has used FAFSA to take money out in my name, I will continue to achieve my MBA/HRM, take my SPHR certification, but I tell you one thing that UOP apparently does not understand, one person telling ten more people not to use them, is much more of a detriment to business operations than anything else. So, I will get my piece of parchment, my certification, and will never look back for any reason!

I would change learning establishments, but conventional schools do not seem to care about a student who works full time. Now other adult learning "universities" that I have looked into shocked me with who they are owned by, guess who, the Apollo Group, Baker U. for one. So that leaves me with the choice of 15 or so other colleges and universities that have questionable accreditations, and strange class structures/practices.

So I have made my choice, and will endure through it, but I tell you now, the more people that spread the word, the worse UOP and the Apollo Group will do. When I graduated, I was even featured on the large screens at the commencement ceremony. My slogan then was "I am a Phoenix, I am determined." To my behest, it is now, "I am a Phoenix, I am disappointed."

At this time, I found out they were sending back $2,500 of my financial aid, so now I have to pay University of Phoenix $2,000. The person said she would get back with me but never heard from her. Then the collections dept of University of Phoenix contacted me and I said I don't have the $2,000 and would like to make some payments. They said it had to be all within 72 hours. I could send a letter to them explaining my issue why I should be given consideration for the money. I wrote and faxed the letter. They called in a few weeks and told me they never received the letter and it wouldn't matter. I told them I want to make arrangements and they said they don't make arrangements. This made me quite upset and they got me mad. I just got out of the hospital from having a heart stint put in and now have to take more than $100 more a month for med. I am trying to solve this problem.

They sent my file to FMS collections and they said they would make arrangements but it was to be about $340 for six months. I said I can't afford that amount. I could give about $50 until I get IRS paid off in March then I can give them more. They wanted me to give my checking information over the phone so they can take it out. I said no because I did this once and the company didn't stop the subscription when they were supposed to and took out too much. The banks said, "If you give it out, you are writing a blank check, and they won't cover it." In the meantime, I have never received any confirmation from my student loan that the money was sent back. In fact, the last information was they hadn't, so I still owe them the $2,500. The collection company said they were going to take me to court to get me to pay. I still don't have the money they want. If they garnish my wages, I will have to give up food and medicine. I won't let my bills get behind. I am trying to clean up my credit now.

Working the normal 40 hours was hard, but the promotion resulted in 60+ hours a week being the normal schedule. I was unable to afford the University of Phoenix the full attention of class presence as in the previous five years, which I called the University and pleaded my case. I was told numerous times by my academic advisor that for any reason I would not be in continuous educational class with the University of Phoenix that I would lose my financial aid and would be in default of my loan.

I took numerous classes after this conversation with the advisor, only to fail the classes. In frustration, I withdrew from the university after 5 years. I refuse to send them another dime. After withdrawing from the University, I received an overdue bill without any explanation about the class that I had withdrawn from in the period allowed by the university. A few weeks later, I received another billed stating that I owed money for one of the other classes I started when I took the promotion six months earlier.

Just recently, I answered a call from one of the academic advisors from the University of Phoenix, who informed me that there is a "leave of absence" clause at the University, and my advisor at that time should have informed me of the university's policy. Furthermore, to continue with my education at the UOP, I was informed that I would need an additional 24 credits to graduate. This is not common for this University to do this to returning students.

I have sent all my information over to the BBB for consideration, and have started the process of trying to be forgiven and released from this university's stronghold to continue my education. At the time of my separation from the UOP, nine credits and four classes were all that I needed to complete my computer science degree.

When I inquired as to why, I was told that they (University of Phoenix) had sent money back to my lender in the amount of $1,164.00 and $2,330.00. I then asked why they did this because my student account shows that they were paid for my last three classes in the amount of $1,560.00 x 3 + $85.00 x 3. This amount totals the same amount that is reflected with the Department of Education and with Sallie Mae, my lender, and shows an excess of $1,100.00 due to be refunded to me. I have inquired about the supposed money that was sent back to my lender on several occasions and was told that no money was in fact returned.

I called the Sallie Mae Dept. of Education on 10/28/09, 10/30/09, 10/31/09 and on 11/2/09, and was told that the funds were not there. I was then advised by the Department of Education and by Sallie Mae to hire an attorney to investigate what has happened to the money my lender sent to University of Phoenix. My lender is Sallie Mae. I think there has been fraud, misappropriation of funds and embezzlement committed by the University of Phoenix. I have emails and student account pages upon request from Ashley **, an employee of the University of Phoenix and financial aid counselor. I will provide proof upon request.

I was told I was not eligible for a refund because they had to take out payment for three more classes even though they had already taken out for three classes. This made no sense to me since like I said, they would be receiving another disbursement in Dec. 2009 and Jan. 2010. I have been able to look at the account and it looks like they are going to refund the money back to Sallie Mae Lending and try to charge me for the amount that was the originally the credit balance for my account. All I know is that as soon as I get a bill, I am contacting an attorney and my advice would be for everyone who feels they have been dealt with unethically by UOP to do the same.

I contacted the Financial Aid department and was advised that my grant was sent back due to a change in courses. I contacted the Department of Education and I was advised that the grant money was sent to the school and was never returned. I contacted my Financial Advisor and received voicemail. I left various messages and submitted emails, yet none of my calls or emails had been returned.

I am nearing the end of my block of classes and have recently gotten a new financial advisor. I spoke with the advisor about my financial aid issue and inquired about applying for my current financial aid, since my FAFSA has been completed. He indicated that he would review my information and give me a call back. This was three weeks ago and since then I have sent numerous emails and left voicemail messages and have received no feedback. I have even contacted the school's live chat to try to get answers, but they connect me to voicemails.

I am so frustrated and annoyed with the lack of professionalism and customer contact from the school. Since the financial aid department is not in my area, it has been hard to get answers. Once, these classes are over, I will not deal with the University of Phoenix again. Are there any resources or is there anyone that I can contact to complain or get my issues resolved?

I also called Federal Student Aid and Wachovia Bank and told them I was not pleased with the school and did not wish to return the next semester and not to disburse the funds for the following semester. They agreed; therefore, I felt everything was ok, but I was wrong. University of Phoenix sent me a bill for $1700.00 for the semester I did not attend and would not release my transcript. I was devastated because I could not go to another school. Moreover, at the time I had two children with disabilities at home; therefore, I could not pay $1700.00. I contacted the Student Finance Commission and they concurred with me that I did not owe University of Phoenix anything because the money was still in my account. Now, it is on my credit history and I want it off.

I have repeatedly called UOP and of course, I have gotten the runaround. I finally got a phone number to a counselor only to find out she never seems to answer her phone, ever. I was given her email address and after calling again to try to speak with her, I ended up with her voice mail once again. I immediately emailed her and got a response back within 10 minutes! Apparently, I was billed for one night because they said my financial aid was not ready at the time I attended that one night. Also, since financial aid had not been ready at that time, I would be the one responsible for that one night's payment. I was also told that the program itself was $1068.

Hmm, well if the whole program was $1068, and I was billed $263.68 for one night, did that mean that I would finish said program in about a week?! This all doesn't make any sense at all. Her dates in her email were wrong as to when I attended, the amount is questionable and she's nowhere to be found in regards to getting a hold of her via the telephone. UOP seriously needs to have an overhaul of their personnel.

They failed to tell me the increase in price from my associate’s program to the bachelor program and in many cases I had no idea who my academic or finance counselor was. They have poor response in getting back to me with questions or concerns. In some cases it would be weeks before I received a call. The instructors had little to no experience about teaching and many had just finished their degrees with the university. I transferred to my state university who would not give me any credits for my UOP math classes stating they were about a HS level and not university level math classes. The cost of tuition is sky high at $1,500 per class when my state university charges only $870. Do not attend this school without doing your research. Many state universities are now offering full time online classes. Do your homework. Beware of this university that uses fast talking sales pitches to get you in the door.

I immediately called Darla who is one of the managers of the financial aid department. She was the one to inform me of what Ebony did. I informed Darla that I was very concerned of this action being taken without my knowledge and do not trust them with my information anymore. The day before speaking with Darla, I spoke with my academic counselor Cara, asking her about the exit interview letter. She informed me to disregard the letter. I was not satisfied with her response and felt there was something more to this situation.

This situation makes me wonder how many other people have had to deal with this and what is really going on with students' grant/loan money. Why was Ebony able to submit this information to my lender without any type of signature from me stating that I was withdrawing from the college. How many other students could this have happened to and may possibly have a loan to pay back that they never applied for. In addition, why does Ebony have access to my account if she is not my financial aid counselor? This seems to be a very shady situation, and all of my questions are not being answered.

I have 29 emails. Yes, 29 emails in the span of six days that have gone back and forth with GCU blaming UOP and vice versa. Now I have just received a letter saying if I don't pay $2,010 for the current block of classes (why she let me take these is beyond me) I will be turned over to collections on 10/21/09. Even NSLDS has said there is nothing to update! I am caught in the middle of this mess, not caused by me, but unless I can find a solution, I will be paying the price for someone else's mistake. My college education will be over and my credit trashed. At this point, it seems that UOP doesn't intend to do anything to help resolve this situation nor will they talk to the finance dept at Grand Canyon. I have become so stressed about this and I don't know what to do.

I took the first class, which was an insult because it was about navigating the web and UOPs sites. If I needed to take this class, I should have been given it when I first started. They charged me $1,675 for this Mickey-Mouse class. I kept calling them asking about my financial aid, and they said you have to be certified. “It will be forty five to sixty days, but don't worry. We won't let you start your second class.” I called several times during the five weeks of this simpleton class, and they kept telling me to wait.

I had just about decided to withdraw when tonight I was told that my tuition will be disbursed on the fifteenth, but I will owe them two hundred and forty dollars. I am on unemployment, and I cannot afford this, and I told them so. I have been told, “Well, don't withdraw now because you will owe the university sixteen hundred dollars… just don't post in your second class.” If I don't post in my second class, won't that cause problems with my financial aid? If not now, then in the future. I do want to get my education, but not at UOP, and I will need some financial aid. How do I get out of this? I need to know by two a.m. CST, Wednesday morning.

I applied for and was granted financial aid through the first year and subsequently through the second and third years of the doctoral program. However, in January 2009 I was told by my financial advisor I would need to apply for a new financial aid package for 2009/2010. I informed him I had already done that. He looked up my status and told me that I was okay through September 2009, at which time I would be three classes away from completing my doctorate. He also informed me he would no longer be my financial advisor due to growth in that department. I contacted FAFSA and found I was eligible for and had been awarded my financial aid for 2009/2010 to be disbursed on or about September 8, 2009.

On April 21, 2009, academic advisor Misa ** informed me that she would no longer be my academic advisor and that Mellisa ** would replace her. After this change I received two notices from the University of Phoenix (while enrolled and attending Doc 733, doctoral project) that since I was no longer a student at UoP, I would need to fill out the enclosed form and return it to UoP showing that I was no longer a student. I called Mellisa ** and asked her to rectify the misinformation and she assured me she would do that. I did not hear back from her.

I have completed all coursework except the last three classes and IRB/ARB approval. My financial advisor (Debbie **) told me the remaining classes would fall under my current financial aid package and that all I needed to do was complete a new FAFSA application for the 2009/2010 school year. I informed her I had done that and had already received two letters from Sallie Mae telling me I was approved for a total of $30,000 to be disbursed September 8, 2009 - enough to cover the upcoming class, my research fees, and my remaining classes. She told me she would get back with me after she checked the record for completion and acceptance of my financial status.

I did not receive any phone calls from her for two weeks, so I called her. She told me that she had found my records and all that was missing was a promissory note and a form telling the university finance department I agree to apply any excess funds from my financial aid dispersal to any outstanding debt I owed the university. I informed her I had no outstanding debt and I had already done that online with FAFSA as it was a university requirement. I received a check and a billing statement from the University of Phoenix in April 2009. The check stated, "Online Refund, $3835.20.” The statement showed a balance for the current class. I was confused, so I contacted ** and asked why the current student loan did not cover the current class. ** told me it did cover the current class but to avoid any conflict I should send part or all of the balance shown on the statement.

I sent half of the balance shown on the statement, $1117.60, and the excess funds were used to finance my "third year residency". On May 1, 2009 I received a statement showing the original amount of the loan ($3835.20) and a payment of $1117.60 with a remaining balance of $2717.60. I contacted ** again and she stated the balance was for the remainder of the current class and the upcoming class. She said since my loan had already been approved, I would be able to go on with my class.

I contacted my academic advisor Mellisa ** and told her my loan had been approved and funds would be available on September 8, 2009. The class began on September 1, 2009. She told me that I would be able to attend after I made arrangements with the finance department. She told me if the payment arrangement was accepted, she would only need to re-instate me in the class. She said she would transfer me to a collection agent in the finance department. The connection never took place, so I called the UoP operator who connected me with collections. I talked to "Rayshon" who told me if I set up payment arrangements over a period, the arrangement would allow me to be re-instated in my class. I asked him what would happen to the first payment since my disbursement was coming within the week. He said it would show as an excess or overpayment and be sent back to me. I told him that would be excellent since I did not have a job and I could return the loan to my relative as soon as that happened.

I asked why I was allowed to enroll and attend class before the university received my loan money when I was recruited for the master's program. He had no response. I agreed to make the first payment within three days (72 hours) as he asked. I borrowed the money from a relative the same day Rayshon and I made the arrangement. I called Rayshon the next day to inform him I could get the money to make the payment, but it would not get to my bank account until very near the deadline.

As I was about to give Rayshon the credit card number, I asked if he was sure I would be able to be re-instated in my class. Rayshon said he did not remember telling me that and I could not be re-instated unless the full amount was paid. I told him it would be paid in full with my student loan on the September 8, 2009. My dissertation process is 60% complete and has been reviewed by my mentor and dissertation committee. After making the recommended changes, I am now ready for submission to IRB/ARB. I have been dropped from my program with only three classes remaining and 9 months from graduation.

A couple of months later, I wanted to attend the campus. I sat down with one of the counselors and he explained that there is no program at that campus for an RN program. And I come to find out I was put in a class that would not even get me an LPN. I would be stuck behind a desk dealing with billing. When I found that out, I was very frustrated (frustrated does not even begin to explain what I was feeling). I also found out that I was not even taking classes online to get me on my way to become a nurse.

As of right now, I am not taking classes at Phoenix University. I have a couple more months before I am supposed to pay them money. I need to find a way of getting out of this mess with little to no money out of pocket. I am currently not working with two kids at home. If anyone can help me, please contact me.

Theresa got even ruder and threatened me with submitting my account to Collections stating that I would have to pay money out of pocket if I left the school. I told her to go ahead and submit me to collections and I would get an attorney and to keep talking because I was taking notes to submit to the attorney as well. At this point, she stated she could no longer continue the phone conversation. I told her to put me through to a person in charge of her dept. She put me on hold and that was when she put me through to Debbie **.

Debbie assured me that everything would be resolved, told me to fax and hard copy mail her the documents, but I would owe the school still the amount of $287.50. Debbie ** stated that she would personally handle my case and get it handled asap and I could call her anytime to follow up with her. I have now called her for several days and left her many messages on her voice mail and got no response back. I cannot reach anyone at University of Phoenix who is willing to help me process my paperwork and expedite the issue since I'm trying to transfer to another school.

I have been fighting with UOP and Wells Fargo since 2005 regarding 2 loans that were taken out in my name that I didn't authorize or use. Wells Fargo even said they sent money directly to UOP, which UOP said they have no record of. So where is that money! I have tried to resolve this by my self for 2 years. I have called UOP and Wells Fargo several times, and I sent them information and haven't gotten anywhere. I have contacted an attorney to deal with them, and they don't even cooperate with my attorney. And now EdFund has gotten involved, and I've been threatened of having my wages garnished to pay back the loans. I would not recommend UOP to anyone!

I already have my AA in Psychology, and I was interested in getting my BS in Psychology and maybe even my master's and doctorate. My kids are attending high school virtually here in Florida (www.flvs.net), and we are beyond happy with it. I was told my experience at UoPX would be similar, and even though I felt the price tag was high, I could get financial aid. Before I knew it, I was getting call after call; and finally, I agreed to meet with the enrollment counselor.

During our meeting, everything was sugar-coated and I was told to enroll and get started right away and they would take care of my financial aid. I told her I would still need to think about it and left. I was called constantly, even while I was out of the country on vacation. I got a quick call from an enrollment counselor where she machine-gunned information at me while I tried to keep up and take notes. I got another call from a financial aid adviser, and she machine-gunned information at me I couldn't understand.

Against my better judgement, I went ahead and started the day after I got back from my trip. Now that I finally had access to a class and saw the format, I knew this was a mistake. Like I have read from other victims, this is nothing but forced blogging and essay writing. I called and emailed all the parties involved by the second week and told them I wanted to withdraw. I got a call from my enrollment counselor, only since the academic adviser was on vacation for two weeks. She called me a couple of times telling me that she had the same experience but to hang in there. I could hardly get a word in.

With much effort, I completed the useless GEN200 class, which won't transfer anywhere because it's only a class on how to work within their platform. They have you work in teams, and you have to turn in papers completed by the entire team as well as individual papers. We had team members who never participated, maybe because they were smarter and withdrew earlier on. But it forced the rest of the team members to take up their load, because we would be penalized otherwise. There was no restructuring of team to accommodate for missing teammates.

They enrolled me in my next class halfway through my first class, all the time getting "pep talks" from the enrollment counselor telling me to hang in there. The academic adviser was always on vacation. I finally dug around their website to find the official withdrawal form, filled it out immediately, and faxed it over. This was the second day in the new class. To be courteous, I posted to the teacher not to assign me to a team, so that they would not be stuck in the situation we were in before.

You see, all the time I thought my enrollment counselor was "cheering me" on to success, I have found that they get a bonus for every student they enroll. Plus, the longer they keep you in a class, the more they can collect.

Now that all is said and done, I'm stuck with a bill for $1650 (part of which I have to pay $85 for materials. Really? It's an online course!) Plus they are threatening to turn me over to a collection agency for $403 they want to charge me for "a week of class." You see, by being courteous, they claim I met the attendance for class which is different from meeting participation for the class which is 2 blogs, four days out of the week.

I'd rather pay an attorney to fight them than pay for this financial abuse.

This time I am requesting from my lenders to give me detailed summaries of how my money was being applied and still communicating with the University of Phoenix and trying to get this issue resolved. On January 2009, I had a collector call me and leave a nasty message on voicemail threatening me. I still have the voicemail on my phone to be played back. As a result of my complaint, I am asking that the institution release my transcripts and allow me to finish my last three courses with the university so that I can look for jobs. I am requesting that an attorney contact me as soon as possible so that I can get advice on what further action I can take to pursue any further steps.

Approx. 2 months later, I was finally able to reach the voice mail of Mr. Ryan **'s supervisor, Mr. Jason **, and sent him an email. Mr. Jason ** replied stating that, unfortunately, the University of Phoenix does not offer military discounts to veterans or retirees. Students who work for the Department of Defense are sometimes eligible for a military discount depending on if they are located or assigned to an approved installation. Ryan informed me that “It was determined that you were not assigned to one of the approved installations, so you will not be eligible for the military discount..." I work at a Naval Base in San Diego, so it can be deducted that University of Phoenix does not offer discounts to military personnel to any of the bases in the Southern California area, and if one is a retiree, it is even worse.

I filed a new request for a program extension in March of 2009, as I was dangerously close to being unable to complete the program with back-to-back classes. The board denied me a second time, but did not send me their decision until after the date at which the decision would have been crucial. Essentially, I was forced to take another class while awaiting their decision, because if I had not and they denied me again, I would be unable to complete the program with back-to-back classes by the time I received their decision. The grounds they cited for denial the second time was that I would have enough time to complete the program with back-to-back classes. I do not believe that the academic review board has ever granted a request from a student. I have spoken with several former UoP advisors and they have unanimously indicated that the academic review board does not grant requests for any kind of extenuating circumstances.

I had a decision to make in March because I had to complete half of a degree program to avoid losing credits, but I only had 8 months to do it in. I applied for financial aid, both subsidized and unsubsidized, and signed on for a double class schedule so that I would be taking two classes at a time back-to-back, effectively completing 14 months of education in approximately seven months. The financial councilor informed me that only one of the classes could be applied to financial aid in a particular disbursement period, and that the second classes I took would have to be covered in the unsubsidized loan. UoP did not send my loan checks, where were all over $3,000 by certified mail, which is negligent, and the University did not disburse all of the funds to me.

One of the unsubsidized loans was never mailed to me despite my inquiries with my financial advisor. A month later, one of the unsubsidized loans which was held by the University for 90 days, was returned to the lender. All attempts to have the loan funds re-issued by the lender to the University pended UoP approval. UoP flatly rejected having the funds reissued based on the fact that the date when the request was acknowledged was 90 days after the date the funds were wired from the lender to UoP.

I have asked the University of Phoenix’s financial aid staff to give me contact information for a supervisor within their department, to get this issue resolved and they refuse to give me this information and no one is willing to help me. I am amazed people working in a financial aid office don't understand what a deferred loan means. This issue has caused a great deal of stress on myself and my wife. It has gotten to the point where I feel harassed.

They have dragged their feet about my Pell certification and are really late - claiming that they are behind with the financial aid. I am due to receive a disbursement today from Sallie Mae. They refuse to defer the amount owed until the disbursement because they know of my intentions. Therefore, they get to deny me my official transcript. They are a bogus institution of higher learning and at this time I welcome a class action suit against them.

My academic counselor told me in an email that the concentration consisted of only 4 extra classes and for me to pick from a list. One to two months after that, she called me to tell me that the program had changed. The HR Concentration now required 5 additional classes instead of just 4. I didn't say anything at the time because it did not affect my completion date. However, a couple of weeks ago, she said that the newly required class had been dropped because I was the only student and the university requires classes of at least 4 students. I sent an appeal to the school asking that the class be waived because I was originally told it was only 4 classes. I heard back today that the appeal was denied. I am still fighting it, but I have no idea whether or not it will be approved.

On August 10, 2009, I sent an email to my finance counselor, Sean **, instructing to send me a clearance letter saying that I had withdrawn and the funds that would be sent back to my lender. Sean sent me a clearance letter and never withdrew me from the school even though I didn’t have any classes scheduled to take. I have had a credit on my account from my July class and until this day, September 10, 2009, that credit has yet to be sent to me and it is still showing up on the national database that I am still enrolled at UoP.

I have called all over the school and different finance departments trying to get this corrected and found out that my finance counselor did not submit my withdrawal until August 27, 2009 when I informed them that I had spoken with the Department of Education. I also found out that my finance counselor forged a withdrawal form that only had my name, last date of attendance and his information making the form seem incomplete. It is September and I have yet to get an exit interview withdrawing from financial aid and still no refund. I was told by several different schools and upon doing research of my own that a credit is not supposed to be on any student’s account for more than 14 days and anything after is against the law.

If this is the case, I wonder why UoP is being allowed to get away with this. Why has this institution not been investigated for unethical practices long ago? With so many valid complaints against this school, why hasn’t its regional accreditation been taken away? These schools that get accreditation are supposed to be monitored. Lastly, I was withdrawing in the first place because they had me going another two and a half years to receive my undergraduate degree and I already have an associates plus 30 credits from them. And tuition is skyrocketing with them. They charge more than all of the online institutions that I have checked so far.

I would not recommend this school to anyone. They talk a good game but in the end, nothing is as it appears to be and guess what? When stuff go down you can never reach anyone or they suddenly get amnesia. My experience with UoP has been very stressful and time consuming.

This University gambles on the fact that students won’t bother to take legal action concerning these small amounts of money. However, please note well that if they should unlawfully ascertain ten dollars ($10) from one million students, that’s a sum total of ten million dollars. I hereby propose that we solicit the support of others through this very platform and move forward in the immediate future to file a class action lawsuit. I am so ready. I am anxiously awaiting every support on this proposal. We have all learned valuable lessons from this institution; therefore, please let us not become ingrates. Let’s reciprocate in a more dignified fashion and teach them a lesson or two in the area of total quality management, ethics, critical thinking, the importance of proactive PR approach, and the importance of preserving the goodwill of a business. My esteemed colleagues, please be encouraged because there is a solution.

The classes are not taught by an instructor but merely overseen by someone that grades you on your reading comprehension and grammar. You are graded on "talking" with other students in a forum setting. You do not receive any lecture or anything that currently pertains to the subject. As long as you have your word count and your grammar is perfect, you will receive an A, no matter what you wrote in your paper.

I started in January and dropped in May. Within that time, my counselor changed three times without notification, they increased my tuition, missed every appointment they ever set with me and when I asked about my student loan distributions, it took me two weeks to get them to finally admit they had used my loan money before my grant money. Oh yeah, and they actually don't offer my program on campus in my new city like they had promised at enrollment. Once I requested the paperwork to drop the program, I was inundated with phone calls from counselors offering affirmations such as "You can do this," "Don't give up on yourself," "Don't you want to see this through? We know you have it in you." Those affirmations turned to insults when I told them "It's you, not me."

Stay away from the University of Phoenix and any other affiliate of the Apollo group. I was one of the lucky ones. I got out owing the university only what I used. Many of my former classmates left owing money they never used. The Apollo group uses sketchy and manipulative tactics to get your signature and does not deliver on most promises. Don't be fooled. If you have attended a real university before, do not take any certification/re-certification or masters courses with this group. You will be highly disappointed. I wish all those who fell into the Apollo group trap much luck. Do everything you can to shut this mother down. I have opted to complete my master's program with a real university.

When it was time to pay the first resource fee, my husband called the school and authorized a $75 one time charge on 7 May. He expressed that any further charges would be unauthorized. Instead of charging $75, the school charged $150. In July, the school charged almost $700 in fees that he did not incur. He spoke with financial manager, Jessica **, who said that Raquel ** gave false information about the fees and it was my husband's problem. After countless hours and 4 days on the phone, Jessica refunded $486 to the card. That left us with $198.25 charged to an unauthorized card. However, Jessica sent us the copy of the old authorization for a different account and said it could be used for any account we hold.

It is illegal for a company to charge a card that is not authorized, let alone make the fraudulent charges for fees that were never incurred. The University of Phoenix has said this was his problem and the money would not be refunded. Because of these illegal charges, the credit card has been turned off. University of Phoenix put this credit card well over the limit and caused our family to lose the ability to spend the remainder on the card if necessary because Phoenix charges as much as the card would hold over the limit.

We now have to file a dispute with the bank and have been assured by the bank and a financial representative at the University of Phoenix that all funds would be returned to the card because the university's actions are illegal. We are still fighting this battle and it is a lost cause in trying to get the university to do the right thing. If you feel the need to still attend University of Phoenix, never, never give them financial information. They will make up charges that you owe.

My own account is overdrafted by almost the exact same amount, but I have it in writing that their charges are a mistake and it will be resolved by the end of the month. If it is not resolved, the government will be involved because they are fraudulently using FAFSA monies from the Pell Grant.

In the beginning, my classes went great, with me receiving A's and B's. My adviser was Holly. The first problem arrived when I was halfway through. I noticed my program study was listed as general. When I contacted Holly, her response was that for the degree, I would have to go an extra 2 years. This should have been told to me at the beginning.

Then, my muscles did start to swell, and my nerve points started shaking. Well, I went to the emergency room, and yes, it was my fibromyalgia acting up. I e-mailed both of my instructors, and they said I had to take 0 for some of the weeks since I did not give advance notice. I did get an extension, but it wasn't enough time. And even though I received 0 for two weeks in the classes, I still had to study them in order to do the final. I then did what I was supposed to, contacted Holly, and explained the problem. She said it was up to each instructor; however, she would have someone from the disability office e-mail me. I received the e-mail and was stunned at the first line, which said "Welcome to University of Phoenix. We are glad you are considering the university to further your education." As I read further, it stated this progress will take 2 to 3 months and they cannot help with any ongoing problems.

Since the university knew I was on SSI, they should have appointed a counselor right from the start. If they did, I would have never attended the university due to what I read. Everything I was promised was false. Because I could not receive enough time for the classes and could not finish them, I failed both. My GPA was still over 2; it ended up at 2.43, which means my Pell and loans should have still been good. The university is now saying I owe $980.00 and refuses to send my transcript to the university I was accepted in.

In August 2008, I had a balance of $4,289.25 on the books. During this time, I was enrolled in online classes using my personal computer to complete the class assignments. Two weeks into the class, my computer crashed, needing funds to repair or replace, I contacted my financial counselor to request the funds so that I could complete the class with a passing grade, as my current GPA was 368. I feared it would lower with a failing grade. My request was denied, citing the funds were being held for the costs of upcoming classes. Needless to say, I failed the class receiving a grade of "F".

Disgusted with the financial counselor's refusal of my request, I never returned to the school. Within a month the school kept $960.75 and returned the excess funds to the financial institutions and billed me for a shortfall of $596.25. I wrote a letter to complain to the Student Complaints Department, who wrote back supporting the counselor actions, citing the monies I had secured were to be used for cost of upcoming classes.

I feel I should not be liable for the shortfall, as it could have been avoided if the funds had been released, my computer repaired and completing the class with a decent grade thereby finishing my remaining courses and graduating. I am currently enrolled at Berkeley City College. With the release of my transcripts from UOP, I will have the credits to graduate with an Associate Degree in December 2009 and transfer to a 4 year University to complete my Bachelor’s degree.

I would like to know if you can help resolve this problem. I now owe over $25,000.00 in student loans and no degree to show for it as well as a negative debt on my credit file. The school is holding my transcripts hostage until the payment of $596.25 is paid in full. I am one of the millions of American who have been laid off from their jobs due the current economic crisis, and am dependent on student aid to complete my education aspirations. I feel the school has taken advantage of me and violated my rights to a college education.

In October, they were insisting that I register for the upcoming class in November 2008. They were really persistent for me to go ahead and register and that I was verbally promised that there shouldn't be any problem with my evaluation of my transferable credits. After a few months, I was still waiting for the evaluation of my transcript so I contacted them on the status. They did finally provide the official evaluation of my transcript and it had taken them five months to provide this information. When I saw what I had, I was shocked that $36.67 were not being accepted. That is an additional year and a half or more worth of education that I can't afford to have.

I decided that I have to cancel. They were informed, but they came back indicating that I was registered and that I have a balance. I returned the loan money that came directly to me and had a balance of $288.58 because I was registered for two weeks. They wasted all my time and decided to go back to DeVry since they are much better to deal with. I filed a complaint with the BBB about the incident in June 2009. UOP was very unfair and wasted my valuable time. They didn't provide education service, they provided a bank service. You have to be pushed into enrolling while you wait for them to act on your request. I could have been in school during that time, but I waited patiently while they wasted my time and have to pay the balance.

Now it's August 2009 and I'm having another issue with DeVry that my federal Stafford loans were limited because when I was enrolled with UOP. I was informed by DeVry that my loan overlaps with UOP. This was odd, that should have been cancelled but found out that I have another balance with the lender for $408.51. They took out a portion from my loan, not sure why but UOP explained to me that the Federal law can only let them withdraw certain amount. This is frustrating that I have to go through a hard time and now, I have a balance that I owe my school and only have four classes to go. I hope someone can help.

At the first class, my feelings told me there was something wrong with this school. I tried to drop and not continue with this school. Then they were threatening me and said it was too late now because I have signed the contract and paper, and I could be in debt with collectors if I tried to get out from this school. Then they offered me to take one more class so the financial will cover your classes’ tuition. Now, at the end situation, I am in debt with more than $7,211.00 for those 2 classes.

In my conclusion, this school is a trick and a trap for all of us here. I, you or maybe even your children could be a victim right now and in the future. I hope our government should shut down this school for good, or otherwise they will continue to trick and rip-off the other people like me.

P.S. I learned nothing from this school. What I was doing in this school was attending online 1 or 2 hours every day from Mon-Sat and talk all ** to whatever subjects as teacher and students posted, besides nothing related to my major. So, it looks like we use the money to buy our degree. And I believe most students from this school after they graduate they would have no skills at all to their major study beside chit chat online. However, I learned my lesson which is $7,221 for these 2 classes at Phoenix University. Please do not try at home, and please do not try to be like me!

I’ve been laid off and have no job. I do not know how I could pay off for this debt with this big amount of money. Please help me out to talk about this to other people, and please do not be a victim like me. I could get into bad credit because they kept asking me to pay for this amount.

Flash forward to my second financial aid disbursement of December 2008 and once again, it is over 1 month late getting to me because they needed more paperwork. Now that I'm into my second aid year, I anticipated that I may have the same problem as the first aid year so I tried to head the problems off at the pass. I requested and sent in my title 4 letter 3 weeks before it was needed so they would have it on file and wouldn't need to ask for it. Lo and behold, even though I had been proactive and sent the letter before they asked for it, they still asked for it and said they didn't have it.

Well, I sent the letter to my finance manager's boss because he was the one to help me straighten out the first mess I was in. For some reason, the letter never got posted to my account so I called my finance manager and she told me that she was going out of town and that her boss was not available for her to talk to. But when she got back in 7 days, she would get in touch with him. So, I got a call back from her 7 days later stating that she couldn't get into touch with her boss to get the document posted to my account because now, he was out of town for the next 7 days.

So now, we are 3 weeks later, and my funds were due for disbursement 10 days after this. Well, lo and behold, her boss calls me and lets me know he is not sure why there's a problem in the first place. But he got it taken care of and my funds were going to certify on the 31st of July and I should have the money within 3-5 days after.

Today is the 7th day and I have been emailing like a maven, calling everyone I could in finance since 10:00 am and getting the same response: "Sorry, your finance manager or her boss are the only ones that can help you and they are both out of the office today." Now, I am well over a month late on the financial aid disbursements. I have bills due that count on the money that I get from student loans and grants to live as well as going to school. I am very interested in a class action suit against the university as I cannot take any more of their abuse.

At this point, I am waiting on my financial aid disbursement. I am in 2 classes that do not count toward the program I was supposed to be in, and I am about to lose my home, my car and my children have no food to eat. Can there be any more damage to my life? I was better off when I wasn't in school. This school seems like they forget that most people are trying to better their lives when they attend college at 40 years old, not make it worse. Anyone taking up the class action against UoP, please feel free to email me at my work and school at gmail account.

Today is August 6, 2009 and we are not only still waiting for our loan money but have been told numerous times that we will receive it in the next 24 to 48 hours. On Monday, August 3, 2009, we were told once again that are application was 90% filed and we would have our loan money, no later than the next business day (once again in the next 24 hours). I was shocked to find out that not only did University of Phoenix get their money to pay for my classes on the 29th of July 2009, they were paid for all 3 classes. What I don't understand is that one of the main lectures I attend to is communicating and how respecting communication is a big thing with University of Phoenix and no disrespecting would be tolerated. Yet on the other hand, they can disrespect their fellow students, by giving them the runaround and lack of communication.

Not professional at all, considering the only question I have is if University of Phoenix got paid on the 29th of July like we all were supposed to, but we are still waiting for our loan. Question being, "Where is our loan money as the application was approving both my loan and the college class payment. It was approved and the college was paid, what about us?" My husband has to tackle hard times as he is attending college and trying to find a job. As we don't have this financial loan, which was supposed to help us financially while he went to college, my husband has to find ways to work to bring an income into our home. This is effort in his college as the requirements are getting demanding from both angles: the college and the fact that we have to provide for our children and family.

The fact that no one can give us a straightforward answer allows me to believe that no one really understands what's going on and how to help. We need to receive it as we have to pay it back at the time my husband graduates. Please help somehow.

Now, I am dealing with a FA counselor who tells me that my loans will be posted on the week of 7/16/09, so I checked and nothing is posted. I emailed him and he called me and told me, "I have opened a ticket to find out what has happened, but I see in my system that your loans should be posted on the week of 7/26/09." So that week came along, I checked my account and no FA has been posted. So, I sent another email and again my FA counselor said: "Something has happened and I'm not quite sure what, but I have opened a ticket to see what has happened. It shows that your loans and FA are to be applied to your account on 8/7/09.” Well, it is August 5th, so we will see. If nothing is posted on 08/07/09, there is going to be pandemonium. Students that attend this school should never have to deal with situations such as this. Because of their stupidity, students get bills and notices from the financial aid advisors in Arizona. It is a frustrating situation.

When I attended a well known private college in Jacksonville, I never had any trouble having my FA processed in a timely manner. I think the UOP spends more time designing their website for students and spends less time helping out the many hard-working adults that are looking for a brighter future. I am in no way scared to put this school on blast! Many consumers need to be aware of the incompetence of this school and their employees. I am almost embarrassed to say that I will have obtained an AA degree from them in December!

After reviewing my transcripts, UOP has told me that I will have to take an additional 30 Upper Division units in order to obtain my BA degree because the course requirements have changed. UOP has taken 18 Upper Division units that I completed at UOP and have applied them to my G.E. electives. The 20 units I completed at the junior college was not applied even though they were UC, USC transferable credits. I can't believe this. I've completed their required courses and all G.E. units. I don't need to attend another class at UOP. All I want is my degree that I am still paying for via student loans.

This school is money hungry. I've already paid for all the completed courses at UOP and now they want me to pay for 30 more units. This is absurd! I was told I could appeal to the SAC board which I did; however, the first appeal was denied. I was told by my academic counselor that maybe I should be a little nicer in my appeal letter. I'm only allowed two appeals, so I requested some assistance from UOP Director of Enrollment. He stated he would review my case; however, I have not heard back from him.

Throughout every class that I have taken, I continued to voice my concerns over my abilities, ask questions regarding the basic knowledge that I was lacking and what I was being taught to academic counselors and instructors. The instructors wanted nothing to do with my concerns and some did not even respond. The academic counselor just kept telling me that yes, I was in the correct degree program.

I just finished the MIS degree program in July 2009 and with a 4.0 grade point average. I know nothing about computers or technology. If I was asked to change a screen saver on a computer, I do not know how. If I were asked to set up a router, I do not know how. If I were asked to run diagnostics on a computer, I do not know how. How can this be possible when I have an MIS degree and a 4.0 grade point average?

I now owe $30,000 in student loans, have a degree that is absolutely worthless, and lost a year and a half of priceless time with my husband and two young children. This university that is supposed to provide a "higher education" and help facilitate the success of its students, is only out to get money and does not care about providing a quality education. This is wrong and is a great disservice to our country and its population. In addition, this is an educational institution that is listed as an approved option for students to receive financial aid to attend. What a huge loss of government funding that is not providing the value and return on its investment that it should.

I have emailed the UOP regarding my concerns as well as my academic counselor, but of course, they do not reply to my concerns. Why should they as they already have their money.

It was obvious that this, what I call company, not University, was growing faster than it could handle and their very own management was way out of control. They had no idea what they were doing. They had the nerve to attempt to teach courses on management? There were so many screw ups, so many wrong answers, so many lies, so many problems presented to me in a very short period of time that I couldn't concentrate on my studies as was the case with so many others at that time.

Finally (I thought), someone came to my aid and told me that the University owed me $2,243 as a credit and it would be put on my account. Well, needless to say, it never appeared on my account and now, two and one half years later, three credit reports show me owing exactly $2,243 through a collection agency called Apollo, which is owned by the University of Phoenix. After countless calls, countless emails, countless mailings, notes, etc., I just couldn't achieve one inch forward with all this. Finally, I just decided to send them their $2,243 but I put on the back of the check that they had to take me off all three of the credit reporting agencies and show "Paid in Full" on them. I also said, "This check is paid without prejudice."

Well, Ms. Genie **, the account analyst, after getting the money in her hand, said she would return the check to me and wanted another check re-issued to her. I simply wrote her back and said no. I told her that if she refused payment that I would not re-issue any check and that she nor the university would ever get one red cent from me for eternity. I mean that. I am disabled. I am near a Ph.D. degree, which I don't need and I don't need them, nor the university for anything. I couldn't care less about what Apollo group says about what they think I owe them. I do not owe them one dime and when I decided to pay them anyway, they refused my money.

Therefore, I say, they get nothing now. This so called university treats students who are sincere like a number, not a student. It is money, money, money and that's all that matters to them. I got sick of it and I want all who read this to know that you are in for a ride when you deal with the University of Phoenix and it is not going to be a nice ride. It is going to be a wreck.

It has been a year since I had spoken to them and I got a letter from Sallie Mae that my Stafford Loan application had been denied. Since I had not applied for a loan to attend the University of Phoenix, it was troubling. I contacted Sallie Mae and they have no record of this loan. I am in contact with the university but I suspect they hoped with my returning to school that I wouldn't notice one more loan.

Since I knew and the college knew I did not have the funds to pay, I withdrew immediately. I filled out an official withdrawal form that had to be faxed to them, not mailed. After that, I received a check for $1750.00. This was surplus money as they explained it to me. I did not even know I had that check until four months after I received it. When I called them to ask them why I received it since I did not go to the university, they explained the above. I called both the college and Sallie Mae and both places said I had zero balance and would not accept the check back for whatever reason. I deposited that check and used it towards other bills.

When I received a payment booklet to pay it back, I went to small claims court and explained to them what happened. It was explained to me that since there was no New York State address, I could not do anything. I began to make payments for the $1750.00 that I cashed in 2005 to 2007/2008. Now, the college is saying that I did not withdraw and I took out 2 loans in June 2004 and one in November 2004 when I no longer attended the college. They also send two different promissory notes that I supposedly agreed to with two different amounts of money and the same loan date. This is clearly a scam. Now that I took legal action, the college is saying I took four classes when I only took two full classes. Furthermore, I was given a grant and the most I owe is the $1750.00 I cashed since the grant was supposed to cover what the promotion didn’t. This college has prevented me from furthering my education elsewhere. It has also affected my credit.

My courses were all completed for the 1st year. In my second year of program, my GPA was 3.86 at the time of certification and at the time of anticipated release of 6-2. On 7-2 funds were transferred to UOP. As of 7-8, funds not recorded on record and not released. Samuel ** and Stephanie stated a 14 day hold on the funds before excess funds released to student. This makes a 44 day delay. This is not "reasonable" under any court ruling that I know of. Meanwhile, I am living on credit while UOP makes interest on my loan proceeds that should have been used to pay for my room and board. This is illegal.

I was unable to work more hours to make more money and maintain my school requirements regarding participation, attendance, and my GPA average; however, UOP policies of charging students for withdrawals in class times and forcing the requirements also make withdrawing impossible until funds are available. Having to rely on credit cards and financing to pay for food, room and board when excess loan funds were to support those needs.

I have attended two other colleges and graduated with an Associate and a Bachelors degree. Never did I have any issues with receiving my loan funds. They were available at UNCC and Sandhills Community College on time, every time. UOP is using this to make money on student's borrowed funds and this is not right. We need our money to live on while we attend college. Isn't this the purpose of loan funds, to pay for school, room and board! My credit score is dropping as a result of not being able to pay on time as that money from my salary is now going for room and board and groceries. Multiple bills are late as a result of UOP's actions. UOP stated that they will charge me for the current class if I withdraw to work more hours.

Debbie later emailed me and informed me that to move forward with anything else, I had to reapply to the school and register for my next class. I am now being told that although this program switch was no fault of my own, the school is now only honoring 1 of my 19 credits. I am not being refunded anything and I still have to pay to start all over. I have basically paid for two semesters and will now have to retake two semesters over again and pay for it myself. All my financial aid is gone and I have to start my degree program all over at my own expense. I am 20,000 dollars in debt and being forced to pay for another year of graduate courses in order to obtain my degree from this university.

I have the option of withdrawing from the school and trying to see what credits would transfer, but as of right now it is showing that my GPA is low and I have hardly fulfilled any degree requirements with the University of Phoenix due to the switch they made. I based my financial aid on the agreement that I made with this university and now I have to start over again. I have called numerous people and left numerous emails and messages and I am getting nowhere and it has been almost 2 months. I am basically being forced to start all over again after I paid for these courses and was okayed to go ahead with them and not they no longer count. I should be refunded for the classes that I took so that I can either pay off my loan since they no longer count or be refunded so that I can pay for the courses that they are now saying I have to take. Either way, they should be in constant contact with me while we resolve this very expensive issue and they are not.

I got a call from Tony the next day and he said I need to send that check back. I owe them $1300! He told me they sent the money back to the government! Wait! I asked him why he personally told me that I would not owe money but in fact would receive a $100 check and now he is telling me I owe $1300! He stumbled for words and finally told me it was because I did not finish out the loan period or some **. I completed a full year. No debt should remain or they should have used the money they already had. I have attended UNLV and never had a problem. In fact, I was doing poorly one semester and dropped it completely. I thought Phoenix could do this until I searched the web and saw the thousands of people just like me who have similar stories. Please help!

Robert ** told me my tuition would be about $8000 and that I should apply for all of it in case I didn't get grant money. I figured that based on my 2007 income of $9600 to support 6 people, I would qualify for a lot in Pell. The the week of June 8, Janet ** called and told me that based on my score, I would qualify for aid and to go ahead and begin classes on June 15. I asked her what would happen if I didn't get aid, and she replied again that things looked really good for me and to go ahead and start because the first block was taken care of.

Yesterday, June 24, I received a letter stating that I got $1179 in Pell money and $8000 in student loans ($4400 is unsubsidized.). I wrote Robert an email and explained to him that I was hoping for more Pell money and that I cannot do a student loan for $8000, especially when it only covers 24 credits. I will have to apply for another $8000 in February to cover the remaining 24 credits that I need.

Robert emailed back and said that I would be penalized for dropping, since I had already started. I was able to reach him by phone today, June 25, and he put Janet ** on to help convince me that the loan money was already disbursed (without my permission) and that there would be huge penalties for dropping right now.

First of all, when a person applies for credit, they should not be forced to accept the highest amount offered. I told Janet during the week of June 8 that if I didn't get a lot in Pell, I couldn't accept the loan. She said my aid would be fine. They should not be allowing anyone to begin classes at their school without the student seeing what aid they can get.

In April, I took a leave of absence for sickness, and when I returned, I was told that I had to go through several steps to receive my grant since I withdrew. Well, I completed the steps and I was told that I should receive a check of $5,300 from my excess funds of my grant in 14 days. 14 days have passed, and I was told that I was supposed to receive it after my grades from my block post. Then again, I was told that I would receive it after my second disbursement. The lender shows that it was disbursed and I was told that the check should have been direct deposited in my account on 6/22/09 and then 6/23/09 and now, 6/24/09. I have not yet received an excess funds check, and this issue has being on-going since April.

When I first started classes, my UOP account would show all the changes being made to my account, and now, since they owe me this large sum of money, my account would not show any transactions being made; but Mayra continually tells me that she sees the changes being made on her side. I was going to hurry and apply the excess fund to my loans to avoid interest increase, and now, my loans have drawn interest. I have lost lots of sleep, waiting to check my account at midnight because I was continually told that my school account would show the changes at midnight.

I was also put on academic probation, even though they knew I was a veteran with a head injury who was working her way through this the best she could. Also, I was given the same class again that I had complained about the teacher and was never told this. I was also told If I passed this class (the one I had already taken) that I would be off academic probation if I got an A or B and on to my next class - not true. I am now being told I will have to sit out for six months until I can go to my next class. This school is poorly run. Student advisors never call you back for any complaints. They send in your paperwork late so that you get you stipend late, etc. This is a sorry school for veterans to have to go to!

My first big problem was in my critical thinking class last block. In week 4, I received an e-mail from the instructor which stated I had plagiarized a discussion question. This discussion questions were 10 points, and I had a 98% in the class. I still called my academic advisor everyday for 6 days and emailed her before even receiving a response.

After she finally got in touch with me, I was told I had to appeal to the board of academic affairs once I had received my letter. I did and did not hear anything back until I had called numerous people for many weeks. They told me they were standing by the teacher's decision and would not give me any proof of what I had been done or tell me what I had copied. There's nothing I could do. By the end of the class, I received a 97.61% as a final grade, but my participation points as well as discussion questions points were taken away which added up to 30 points. Being a A student with a 3.5 GPA, this whole situation just astonished me.

On Monday, June 16, 2009, I called my academic counselor, saying I wanted to withdraw. She then 3-wayed my financial aid advisor, and we had talked. Both of them were very rude. In the end, I backed out of filing the paperwork, because they both told me that if I withdraw, I would receive a penalty from Wells Fargo (Student Loan Lender) for not completing the 24 credits through UOP. They also stated they could not tell me how much this penalty would be and that I would not know until the whole withdrawal process was already completed but that it could be anywhere from $20 to $1,200.

Today, Wednesday, the 17th, I called Wells Fargo and was told there is no withdrawal fee from them and the withdrawal fee from Wells Fargo as a lender and that the fee must be from UOP. Needless to say, I will be withdrawing, and if there is a fee from UOP, I will not be paying it. They do not teach you anything. The instructors do not respond within the 24-hour said limit. Also, if you attend there, good luck on getting a hold of anyone. It seems like all they do is transfer you to other workers' voice mails! To add, most of their classes are not transferable! Talk about wasting over $7,000.

The third problem arose with my financial counselor first not knowing anything happening with my account. The problem was initially discovered by me in February, asking when the school would be receiving funds in my name and what those funds were going to be. After one line reply after another from my finance counselor, I asked to speak with his supervisor. To this day, I still have not had voice to voice contact with the supervisor. However, by my asking, magically it was found out that I had no Pell money coming because they did not apply for it for me (referenced above). To try to fix the problem of having no Pell Grant funds, the school, without my authorization or knowledge, returned my financial aid to lender! This was to make it look like I was under funded so the government would send Pell monies to them in my name to help cover the cost of tuition. UOP was given the Pell money and they reapplied for the loans in my name which were also granted by Citi. Brent ** called and informed me that all the funds would cover my year of tuition and we would reapply at the end of the year for the 2010 online school year; and not only would it cover the cost, I would have the extra $600 - $800 they received sent to me in June or July of 2009.

On May 15, 2009, Brent ** informed me that I would have to pay $283.00 out of pocket for a class. When I asked if we could defer payment until I received my second disbursement of aid, he said yes, but that I would have to take into consideration I would have a bill of approximately $1022.00 due by October 2009, and that we would then reapply for the next school year after that. The entire way through my bachelor's degree (November 2008 - present), I have not been correctly informed of any information regarding my finances and what the aid goes to, if I have been informed at all. Economic damage was having to renew a lease being 2 months behind in rent in January 2009 and having to let my landlords know that it would be another 2 months before they would see any money (4 months total rent due). I also had to seek assistance through the community for power and have had my water shut off once. All of this has happened over just 8 months. By having all my bills paid past due, I have two accounts now delinquent on my credit report because I was unable to meet the minimum payment due at the time (November 2008 - March 2009) and my credit score has suffered as a result.

After being reassured many times that the classes that she gave me to take were correct and necessary, I took one class and then started another one, only to find out that they were not the correct classes at all. The degree I was pursuing did not require me to take those classes. So that was a huge waste of my time. I called your campus and explained this to you at that time and told you I did not feel responsible for these charges as I was given wrong instructions and took classes that I did not need, but your advisor said I did.

With that, I will not be responsible for paying this stated amount of $1,790.00. It was a huge misrepresentation of U of P and not my intentions to take classes that were not required. I have recently been terminated from my employment, am on permanent disability, and probably will not be returning to work due to a chronic medical condition I have now. So payment isn't even an option at any point. Please have them remove this total from my credit report upon receipt of this letter.

I started classes and in my 2nd week, they told me that I was ineligible for the grant but they were looking into more possibilities. I was eligible for it the next year though. I talked to a few people that I know about this. They told me that they have heard this about them, too. They let you start classes thinking that you have help to pay for college and then you don't. I called today to withdraw after trying to get a hold of my counselors. They tell me that I have to pay them $600 for participating in 2 1/2 weeks of classes.

Nothing on the site says that I have to pay that amount if I quit. I contacted the place where my loan is and told them I wanted it canceled. It wasn't supposed to be sent out till after the 15th. To my surprise, they told me it was sent and that I would have to notify the school to send it back. Three weeks of waiting to find out if I am eligible for other assistance is crazy. They should have told me before I started classes.

Still confused, I contacted my financial counselor, Chaundra ** and asked her to explain what was going on with my account. First, she tells me she doesn't know. Then she tells me a day or so later that the last refund check was computer generated and it was supposed to be less $57.20 and that the bill for $1500 was to be kept for my records. At this point, I am extremely frustrated for a couple of reasons. First reason, I don't have a job so money is just not laying around for me to do whatever I need or want to do. The second reason is above all else my tuition should be paid out of the grants and loans that are applied to my account every quarter. There should not be any computer generated anything. There should be somebody, oh say, my financial counselor, who stays abreast of my account situation and applies the funds appropriately. To no avail, this did not occur. So to cut this story short, in order to obtain my Associates and to move on to the Bachelor's program, I have to find some way to pay this $57.20 which she now tells me are taxes associated to my move to another state.

I've been to numerous colleges and universities, and I had no problem withdrawing from a class or the institution itself. Now, all of a sudden, it seems impossible to get ahold of people and start a formal disenrollment process from the university itself. I've also withdrawn from classes from every college and university I've ever been to and have never had to pay for a class I withdrew from. My financial aid has always covered withdrawn classes, and I've been left to eventually owe financial aid back if it was paid for in the form of a loan.

A letter was sent to me several months ago which stated when UoP was getting their disbursement and when I was getting mine, and my financial aid counselor, Eileen **, even called to inform me that they had their money to cover 'x' amount of credit hours (classes). As far as I'm concerned, they already got the money to cover this course, and now, I owe the loan people back.

I'm in terrible financial straits and am on the verge of going bankrupt (been 6 months now since I've been unemployed). I don't know if I'll be able to afford to pay them anything, if they come back at me and say I owe 'x' amount of dollars. And what's worse is if I don't pay whatever they say I owe in 90 days, it goes to collections, who I hear is merciless--absolutely merciless.

My financial aid counselor said we discussed how it all works if I ever had to disenroll and what would happen if I did when we first spoke after my initial enrollment in January. That's nice, but these things need to be covered in writing in their handbook; and it's not. There's no written policy outlining withdrawal from the university and the fact you'll be stuck holding the bag and paying something to them. This is wrong!

I've read numerous things online about how they engage in unethical business practices, and it sickens me to no end. I now realize I made a horrible decision by enrolling in UoP.

I went through this nightmare process at least 8 times over 15 months with the university. Committee members and mentor signing off on the proposal and yet the university would reject. Aren’t the committee members and mentor employed by the university? I made so many requests for guidance from various individuals at the university as to what I was possibly doing wrong, but I received little to no communication from the university except for when it came time to send them more money. I grew so frustrated with literally begging someone at the university to communicate with me; I ended up writing a U.S. Senator and asking for his assistance. Lo and behold, only then did I get a call from someone in the academic advisory area. I thought, "Finally, a life-line". Wrong.

They promised yet another dissertation reviewer to review my proposal and that would fix everything. Wrong. Even after this additional reviewer who was recommended by the university approved my proposal, the university turned it down yet again for minor changes. The university's mantra was "Just make the changes but, oh, by the way, you will have to send us more money." In frustration, I withdrew from the university after 5 years. I refuse to send them another dime. After withdrawing from the university, I received an overdue bill without any explanation. I paid off my student loan in full last year, paying for any additional classes in full yet they will not tell me why I have received this bill or the almost $600 in additional late fees.

If you have suffered similar mistreatment from the University of Phoenix, please contact me. If we can work together as a group, we have a chance of getting some of our joint grievances addressed. I will gladly update you as to what our next steps might be regarding this matter. Please help me stop the University of Phoenix from continuing their mercenary tactics. This is your chance to help yourself and to help others. Thank you.

After paying the plumber to fix the leak, I then had to pay the water department. He was very rude and said "well, we're coming after you". Months later, my boss got a letter stating that I am in default. No one contacted me after that last person called. The company I work for receives government funding so if I'm in default, then I can no longer work for them. So not only did they not give me a chance to work something out, now they are coming to my employer. I have other student loans where I applied for a financial hardship and my account is currently in forbearance. Why can't these people do the same? I might lose my job if I can't work something out with this company.

Of course, I didn't pass the class even though I did the homework for the class. The reason why I couldn't transmit my homework to the teacher is not only the grid was down because of the storm in September of 2008, tech support took away any and all email support and log tests to submit the homework too. I couldn't even send my test to Dr. ** and e-mail or class site in weeks four or five of the class. Let's go forward to the result of the new policy change and not having no one around to even ask for any help. The next point of disagreement is that at no time no one from the university called or even tried to explain what was going on or tried to help me understand what happened or tried to go within the system at the university.

The financial aid office changed my financial aid program to a non-student as of 2008. It took me over three months to finally understand that I had to do a new financial aid package. Of course, it's very hard for anyone to talk to once you're not a student there any longer. Due to the non-support at the university and the non-help of tech support, I had to enroll in another university, take out another loan because of the error of tech support. I didn't get the loan that I was suppose to get because of not passing the class even though the work was done.

Literally a few hours later, I got a phone call from Phoenix (I believe her name was Kim **). She was very persistent yet nice. I expressed that I was only interested in the school, but eventually she talked me into enrolling. I know it was partly my fault for not doing enough research first, but I wanted to get a college degree and it seemed perfect since I could continue living my life the way I was while still attending college. My great grandmother passed away halfway through the enrollment process. Phoenix has a way of calling you every other hour until they get the documents they need (you know, make sure you sign off your life to them on time!). So I called Kim and told her some of the documents would be late. She was sympathetic and understanding, but I still managed to get them in on time.

Before I start to talk about the actual classes, I'm going to note something that Kim told me over the phone the first day that I talked with her. Financial aid will most likely cover everything and you won't have to pay a cent until you graduate. Alright, so first block of classes at Phoenix. I was told that I wouldn't need the books for my first classes. Wrong. I was told my financial aid would cover them. Wrong. So I just sort of winged it without the books and was still doing decently in my classes. Now literally a day before my finals were due, my internet went down. I did not own a flash drive at the time to put my work on to send it from another computer, so I did not get to turn my finals in (can't possibly go to another location and redo 2 finals in one night). I still managed to pass one of the classes without turning the final in, but failed the other.

So I got a bill for about $1,000 in the mail and I'm told I need to retake the class. What kind of college makes you pay in full for failing a class? That's part of college, especially when you have a legitimate reason. You would think they would be a bit more understanding considering you're not allowed to turn any late work in after the classes are over. I decided to keep going with the university. About halfway through my next block of classes I realized that I wasn't learning anything useful. We actually had grammar lessons that a third grader could probably complete. The teachers weren't helpful at all. They constantly missed assignments that you turned in and gave you a 0, then proceeded to not respond to your messages when you question them about it to fix it.

There was little to no classmate interaction. We had discussion questions, which were really just structured interaction. I couldn't tell you the name of one student that I was in class with while attending UoP. Let me stress this again, no teacher interaction even if you started an assignment early and needed help with it. Chances are your teacher isn't going to check their mail until the assignment is due and/or just ignore it. You're pretty much paying to teach yourself while buying their expensive books, which will more than likely come out of your pocket regardless of what they say.

So it just clicked. Why pay almost $1,000 per class if the education I was receiving was not worth it? So I told them I wanted to withdraw. A few weeks later I got a bill saying I owe roughly $2,000. Then I got another one a few weeks later saying I owe $4,000 because my financial aid was canceled (what the hell? Financial aid canceled? Whatever happened to 6 months after graduation or loans transferring to your new college?) and they're going to report me to the collection's agency if I do not pay it. My credit is going to be ruined for 7 years if I don't pay this debt and for what? So I could learn about University of Phoenix's library (which sucks)? That plagiarism is bad? That the letter "I" is capitalized in a sentence and how to number pages in Microsoft Word? Come on.

I don't know what to do. I finally found a great college (It's the Art Institute of Pittsburgh online division. It's a great school if you're looking for online education and all of my former AIP credits transferred. I wish I would have known about this before I started at UoP. It basically has everything that Phoenix does not have and you get the same degree from them whether you're taking their online classes or on-campus classes) and now I might not be able to receive any more financial aid for The Art Institute because of Phoenix. The economy is so bad and I am a full-time student. I don't have a job.

How do they expect me to summon $4,000 out of nowhere? Why do I owe UoP. Shouldn't I owe Sallie Mae? They never told me withdrawing from school would cancel all of my financial aid with Sallie Mae and that I would have to pay it back immediately. I can't believe a money-hungry company like this can even pass themselves off as a college. As someone else said, once you sign up they hold you hostage until they get their money or you'll have bad credit forever and never be able to attend another real college.

I did a bit more research and found that UoP isn't even a well credited school. Good luck finding a decent job, even if you manage to complete one of their degrees. In short, do not make the same mistake that I and tons of other people have made. Do not take classes at The University of Phoenix.

Another example is on my final capstone question about what I had learned in the class. He marked me off 17 points because he said I did not list all of the material that we had covered when I mentioned some of the stuff that I found interesting and some parts that I struggled with. Other various experiences like that happened to me in that class. But when it came to my final essay, I did follow the same format that I had for the whole class on my essay and he complimented me on how I changed my formatting style to follow proper procedures. I tried getting my academic counselor involved about this teacher and the unfair grading and I even reported him in the end of class survey.

3 weeks have gone by now and my academic counselor will not return my calls or e-mails, or she is never available. I still have not received any follow-up on the survey, as I said that I wanted to be contacted about my complaints. If I had known before I started going here what I know now, I would never have signed up. The only reason I did was because my local VA recommended it for the Voc Rehab program, and even though the VA is paying for it, I still get calls and letters from UoP about outstanding balances. I can't even get my diploma from them because they say I still owe over 2,000 dollars. I would stay away from this school if anyone is thinking of going here.

Once I said I was pregnant, he said that qualified me for a full Pell Grant that would cover all of my education needs from books to courses and that I would not have to pay a cent. He said I would even receive excess funds between every 4 blocks to use towards schooling items such as internet bills or a new computer. His exact words were "it's like getting paid to go to school." I couldn't believe it. I was so happy that I got this grant and had nothing to worry about. Whenever I came across paperwork I didn't understand, I asked questions and his exact words were "It's nothing, don't worry about it." He took advantage of me and lied when I questioned.

So at this point, I am advised I do have a loan and that I have already accumulated $15,000.00 in a student loan that must be paid back. This is not right. The University of Phoenix's Enrollment Department never notified me of a loan or the process of the loan and stated in their so-called notes that they did walk me through it. Well they didn't. They are liars and this has to be stopped. Something has to be done and not just some kind of employee training. I would suggest not applying to this university because no matter who you go through, they are all trained to meet a quota and skip the financial part. Someone please help!

The damage this has done to me as a student has put me in debt if I cannot obtain what I was promised "no cost to me" and is affecting my studies. I have been completely stressed out during my courses and they don't care. Since my degree is already paid for, I have no choice but to continue with them and have the choice to leave when I am done which I will do.

I have seen so many people drop out because they just couldn't keep up. You have to be disciplined to be an online student. This is a great school for working adults that are dedicated to continuing their education.

The kicker is that they have a statement in the help section of their website stating they no longer even require exit interviews. In addition, they have an electronic form where you give them your bank account information for a refund via electronic transfer (which I did). Now, I am told that only applies for the upcoming financial aid year, not for my balance. In short, they are holding $3,500.00 of money I am obligated to pay for while causing me to have to pay out of pocket for my nursing tuition. Way to support students right? I have to pay out of pocket for my summer tuition at another college because they won't issue my refund.

I advised them it’s the course that I didn’t want. I need to go back to the first choice HR. I was told not to drop the class due to financial aid till I was transferred to the HR program on ground. I’ve done so. I was even advised that I will have none of the 3 or 6 credits already earned transferred. I was alright with that, meaning I will have to attend longer. After all was said and done, they couldn’t get me from online to ground campus. The funds from financial aid were not applied to the classes and were sent back, as they said, minus some fee that I still am unsure of.

Now, I am receiving Apollo Group demand letters for $2,004.00 and collection groups. I tried to just go attend another university, and when the excess funds come through for the new school, pay on the balance. That didn’t work because the new school needs the transcript from my BS to place me in the Master’s program. UOP states they are not releasing the transcript as long as I owe the two grand. Now, because they didn’t handle the funds and class schedule accordingly, I can’t continue my education. If anyone knows of a possible way that I can force them to release the program that is not with fees owed, please please help. I am really ready to return to school.

I am stuck paying for my classes now and I called her supervisor, Kristina, and she did not return the calls either. They can't tell me where all the money went to and it does not show where it went either. I don't refer this college to anyone and I will finish out what I owe and move on to another school at the end of the year. The curriculum is a joke and you don't learn anything. They have stupid learning teams and you depend on other students for a grade. This school is all about the money from the government and needs a wake-up call from some government agency.

The instructors require downloads of software onto student (my business as well) systems that is not a part of the software agreement that was signed. In the Stats class, we were required to download Megastat as it was needed for the class, but this program is not in the computer software agreement and the students need to know ahead of time so they have the opportunity to download and troubleshoot it before any classes that require it begins. Megastat has caused a lot of problems using it and is not a Microsoft product, which means Microsoft does not support it and because of the problems it has caused a lot of downtime for me as it continues to crash my office products. The instructor gave no instructions on its use, troubleshooting and incorrect downloading instructions as well.

This last class was way too much work. Every week, so far, we have written assignments, up to 20 word problems, weekly summaries, 10 substantial postings a week, not to mention the team work - twice as much as the other classes and this type of structure is more than 20 hours a week. This is extremely difficult on working folks who already have a heavy workload and could be working two jobs to pay the bills and it causes havoc with making ends meet, which UOP isn't covering when classes take up so much more additional time than expected.

UOP has already cost me $20,000 in student loans with another $20,000 approved for the last set of classes. UOP has also cost me monies in lost businesses, downtime, and other types of expenses, which they are not covering. I cannot work on my clients’ needs when I am putting 40 hours a week into classes that instructors (so far two classes have been this way) have set up for class work overload and one instructor included a software download that caused down time for me and the use of ALEKS, which refuses to agree with my operating system and causes even more problems.

I do understand the nature of UOP courses and yes the majority have a heavy work load and I have gotten through those classes within the 20 hours a week that have been allocated for them. But in at least two to three of these classes so far, the workloads are much heavier than the other classes requiring more hours that I don't have.

Before I start again and finish up, which I would really like to do and get my Masters, I need to know what classes are left? Which classes require this extra type of workload? A class with extra workload needs to be scheduled near the end so that I can adjust my personal workloads more effectively to give that additional time to those classes. Right now, I don't know when these heavy hitting classes, like the one I am currently in, are coming up and they are causing havoc with me paying my bills and causing additional stress trying to deal with the problems they are causing.

On May 8, 2009, my area was hit with an inland hurricane shutting down the complete city. I called my instructor twice on May 8 and to this date my instructor has never called me back about staying up on classes or getting an extension for completion of the classes. I have talked to Greg **, my advisor, on May 11 giving him the same information. I did not get my electric back on until May 13, 2009 and I left another message with Greg ** letting him know that the instructor still has not called me back and that I knew that I would be failed due to the destruction that the hurricane had caused and that I still did not have Internet at home and that if UOP continues to not try to resolve this issue so I can finish that class, that they are essentially punishing me for a natural disaster caused by a storm. I also have left an email with my advisor and just got off the phone with him May 14, 2009 at 1:33 pm, and it was clear that they were going to do nothing until after the class was over. He was asking me to drive through a disaster area to get to a town that had Internet access and refused to recognize the dangers of doing this.

Here is what the head of Dept for Criminal Justice had said to me: "First things first. You stated you received an AA degree from UPhoenix. This means you have a lot of CJ courses that are not transferable. Although UPhoenix is an accredited college, you will still need to complete your general education requirements in order to take your upper division (last 2 years) classes for your bachelor's degree and beyond. So you will need to get your transcripts to admissions here at BC and have them looked at to determine which classes will count toward your two year AAS-dt (direct transfer) degree."

They have a place online that you can check to see what University has credits that can be transferred to BC and if it still applies, I have a total of 1 course (3 credits) that would be transferable. The people in the Psych Dept at my local college (they are a 4-year university that works in partnership with the community college) if the same would happen if I was to go master's through a traditional university since UoP does not offer what I want at the master's level. At this time I am still awaiting their reply, but I can only imagine that if my AA is not transferable to get me into a bachelor program, then the same will hold true if I completed my bachelor program through UoP.

As you can imagine, I was livid. This system is unfair and a major scam. I did exactly what my counselor suggested and was not told that I would be on a new version when I returned to school. I have sent out two appeals so far explaining my situation and both have been denied. I will not stand for this. I will keep fighting until I get what I worked very hard for. If anyone knows of a class action lawsuit, I want to be a part of spreading the word of the true UOP.

What should have been easy and a quick problem to fix stretched out over 2 years. Needless to say, during all this, I'd lost my job but they wouldn't reimburse me anyway for a D. So I am on the hook financially for $1,200.00 and have an incorrect grade. But worst of all, I was unemployed and my account sent to collections. I realized even though I was still disputing the grade, that I would be held liable and I really wanted to continue my studies at a different school. I made arrangements with the collection agency who, at one point, deducted 3 times the agreed upon amount from my checking account, sending it into a tailspin. I was able to recoup the overage and some of the fees, but refuse to let them touch my checking account.

I got into a different school, but after a few classes, they said they had to see my official transcripts from UOP. It had been a while and there wasn't any closure on my outstanding issue, so I called them up. The academic advisor finally got back to me. The financial advisor has yet to call me and had changed, yet again. I was asked to write a letter outlining my complaint. I was assured this was a higher level and more formal complaint than what I'd previously filed. In the meantime, I am not able to go to class; I am not able to finish the degree I have worked so hard for and I was given a letter saying it was the final answer and they weren't changing my grade even though I had provided them with emails and screen shots, the returned, graded assignments with comments from the instructor, etc. Two years later and I got nothing.

I have finished 2+ years at UOP online and have just registered for the BA program, investing 2 more years. I believe in this school and I know from experience that it is a good school willing to work with people as long as procedures and deadlines are followed. In order to take a break for a hardship, you must contact the advisor immediately, fill out a request to withdraw, and send in the request for approval. If there is good reason for your request, they will grant a break with prorated credit towards the current course.

I have had to take 3 breaks due to life's hardships. I was able to withdraw each time. The only fees I had to pay were prorated for time in the class. This is explained in the policy handbook and is understandable. I have checked out local college campuses, enrolled in one, and quickly returned for the BA program. Other colleges have even harder policies and are more difficult to enroll in, schedule, and get straight answers from concerning expectations and tuition fees.

Overall, I love my UOP online experience. I know from this experience that all of these negative comments are from whiners who think that they should be treated with kid gloves because they failed to read and understand their responsibilities. A person's life, including education, is their responsibility. Putting negative comments out there because a business did not bend all of the rules for a person is a bad practice and just goes to show the rest of us what type of person you are. Take responsibility for yourself, and your decisions to follow procedures, or not. Every aspect of UOP procedures and policy is clearly stated and easy to find. You just have to look.

I failed one of my classes and ended having to retake it. Well, sure enough that will cost you $1,000 out-of-pocket, even though they said that my financial aid would cover it. Turns out that because I failed the class, they had to send back half of my financial aid. What in the hell is that about? So I took the class again and did my best to apply as much as my time as possible to passing it. Keep in mind I have a full time salary job that requires me to work as needed. So what I did was reuse some of the previous material that I submitted to the previous class to the new class. And of course the work I had submitted before that was graded exceptionally well by the first teacher was graded horribly by the second. In the end, the instructor ended up failing me by literally just about 10 points. I called my academic counselor and tried to dispute the issue and he said that all grading was left up to the teachers. He didn't even care that I was upset. He basically wanted to know if I wanted to continue, and if not, would I like to be transferred to the financial adviser to pay off my now hugely growing debt.

In the end, I am now in debt about $15,000 and have only made 15 credits towards general education. I beg anyone who has taken the time to read this: please do not consider joining this school. The worst part about it is I took the time to research the school and as well read all of these complaints, and I still went through with it because I was looking for an easy way out. The end result was an empty bank account, 15 credits, no additional knowledge of business (except to stay away from UOP) and a lifetime of regret.

This class was a joke. I have learned more about business by reading internet blogs and forums than I learned in this class. Also, I was sold a bag of goods by my advisor, telling me how simple it is to go back to school. I have been waiting over a month for them to process my transcripts so I know what classes I need to take. All the classes are set up by your academic advisor, but I have never really known how many classes I still have before I complete my education. Also, their library is a joke. I was told by their advisor that my classes and course materials would be paid for but if you want to look up anything in the library, you have to pay for all your reference materials.

I am currently going through a bankruptcy and I am living off about $600 a month. How am I supposed to pay for all of these items? I cannot even complete my class without these course materials. I feel like the university has taken advantage of me and worse yet, put an even larger financial strain on me when I am already in a tough financial position. My entire experience with them has been a complete waste of time and money. I would not recommend the University of Phoenix to anyone.

While we encourage all students to work with their local campus directly, the University also has a department dedicated to handling student complaints. The Office of Dispute Management (ODM) is responsible for all student and faculty grievances and appeals. Our goal is to resolve and bring closure to escalated student issues either by correcting a problem for a student or providing the student with sufficient detail as to why the University took a particular action or made a particular decision. If you would like to pursue a complaint with ODM, please contact our office using one of the methods listed below.

Phoenix, AZ 85040

Email address: UofPhoenix@phoenix.edu; Phone: 602-557-5566; Fax: 480-557-2275

They then came back and said they couldn't find the certification, and for me to call my lender. I called my lender and they said it was on ELM. I then called my counselor back and they gave me the number of the processing center. The processing center said that they did not have access to ELM because all they did was review the information and then send it back for certification, that I needed to call my counselor back, which I did. The request for information continued. I called my counselor every day. She put in several "heat tickets" to try to find out what the hold up might be, but we never received an answer. At the time the loan would have been originated, my account balance was zero. I should have received the entire loan at that time.

In the mean time, between various computer crashes which can be detrimental to an online student, work and personal stresses, there were problems with my classes. Following the advice of my counselor, we would drop the class and give it another go in a couple of weeks. In December, her manager finally began to work with me on my case. When I came back from Christmas break, I found out that my financial aid counselor was no longer with UOP. Still awaiting certification and waiting on numerous answers on "heat tickets," I decided not to continue accumulating tuition until they were able to resolve the issue. I let them know that the credit portion of my plus loan would expire in the middle of February, so we were in a time crunch.

Nothing was resolved and the credit deadline came and went. At this point, I was told that I needed to reapply, enroll in another class and they would get my loans on my account. Stupidly, I did as I was instructed. The first portion of my plus loan hit my account in late March - 7 months after it was originally supposed to hit. However, I did not receive any of these funds because by this point, I had accumulated more tuition and so the plus went toward the balance. It is now the end of April and the second portion has hit. Of course, that is not the end of the story. Due to the misrepresentation that there was no need for prior knowledge, I got a C in my first class. This immediately put me on academic probation.

It is now April and even though I have steadily improved my grades, it has not been enough to get my GPA up to a 3.0. I am sitting at a 2.8 so I am going to be allowed to take one more class, then I have to sit out for 6 months. This now affects the rest of my financial aid. Originally, I would have received the plus loan free and clear, and then my second disbursement would have gone on and taken care of the remainder of my tuition that had been incurred. Now I am being told that after this class, I will not have earned all of my financial aid so the majority of the funds I would have received are going to be sent back to the lender. This leaves me with less than 25% of my original plus loan and having to repay funds back to the university, following my next disbursement.

It is unending and still, the university is not willing to own up to the fact that their financial aid office didn't do their job in the first place to get the original plus loan certified, so I am ultimately the one who just has to deal with the outcome of their shortcomings.

Two weeks after attending my class, she called to notify me that I now have to be under the new version of the program and would have to take 24 more units! Since the new policy took in effect on April 1, 2009 and I attended the first class on April 6, 2009, according to her, I would fall under the new version. I understand the fact that policies change. However, I was re-assured by the counselor that I was approved to come back under the older version and complete the last 6 units I have left to complete my degree. I believe that the proper and ethical protocol should have been the counselor advising me to hold off until she evaluated my transcript (which she only did yesterday, April 22, 2009) prior to me re-enrolling. If I had known ahead of time that I would be continuing under the new program, I would have had a choice whether to continue attending UOP or going somewhere else. I believe that the university misrepresented itself by using a bait and switch tactic, luring me to register and later on telling me that I need to take extra classes.

They are taking advantage of the fact that I am eager to graduate or they even think that I am desperate. When I asked the counselor exactly how many units I need to take under the new program, she said she hasn't evaluated my transcript, which is lame because most universities would do this prior to enrolling any student! The counselor also asked me to write a SAC appeal explaining as to why I stopped attending school for a few years. I sent her the letter but it will take 3-6 weeks to even get a response and there is no assurance that they will approve the appeal. So by the time I even get an answer, I would have finished the 2 classes and they have taken the money, since I am paying out of pocket.

I dropped the online class which started 2 days ago because I don't believe that I should be paying $1,500 for an online class which potentially will not even be counted towards my degree. And like the thousands of students out there, I cannot get a straight answer from the counselor. She said that she was not notified about the change until two days later it has taken into effect! That sounds ridiculous and scary at the same time because the university apparently does not communicate well with their staff. I am seeking assistance on this matter. If anyone of you out there who has a good legal attorney, please let me know. Thank you.

When I refused, he locked me out of class. The Financial Manager, Chad **, told me in order to receive an invoice, I must post attendance in the classroom. I told him I could not post attendance because I have been locked out of class. He said, of course, because I refused to pay for the class. I told him that I need an invoice and a receipt before I pay for class. He said no problem, I can give him my credit card number and he will post the payment as a credit to my account and then at the end of the month, I will receive an invoice. I refused. I needed to see what I was paying for. He then said that I will not be able to attend class because he is not allowed to send out invoices.

Considering they posted my Pell Grant, I don't see how they can say my financial aid is being reviewed. It's a crock they are just holding my money. I called my lender and was told that nothing is wrong on their part. They mailed my money to the school on April 15th and today is April 21st and still has not posted to my account. My financial aid is in review is all my counselor will say to me. I told her that her other financial aid agent said she needs to file some kind of research request to find out why it's in review and she would not even do that. She gave me a number to processing and said to call them for answers because it is out of her hand. I called them and was told they have done all the processing they need to do. They said they would document that she said to call them, but I needed to call her again to file an information request to find out why my loan is on hold especially, since the fact that my Pell Grant was posted shows that my financial aid is fine.

Ironically, when my financial aid agent sent me the email after I called all day Monday and Tuesday, she accidentally sent me an email intended for someone else that was inquiring about her disbursement being held which leads me to believe that they are not only doing this to me but to many more. I think this is an illegal ploy to hold our disbursements for their own gain which is wrong and I really think it is illegal and being done on a grand scale. I just don't know how to find out how many of us this is being done to. If there is a lawsuit in the making, please include me.

For those who do not wish to work very hard for their degree, then this is not the school for you. I learned a substantial amount that will benefit me in my future endeavors and I have to state that it does take at least 50-60 hours per week per class. It is not an easy A and anyone who feels that this school is not of quality needs to refer to another school. It angers me to read about those who did not do what was expected. After all, this is a University and not HS. For the professor or the individual who stated they were a professor, I doubt that this is the case. As I found, most had the qualifications to teach the classes. There was only one that I questioned as to their intentions, qualified yes, but their attitude was poor.

UOP is a great place for those who wish to work hard and obtain an education. For those who wish for a degree that is bought, then google something else. These are just my thoughts as a UOP Graduate Student Class of 2009 and yes, I am over the age of 40.

In any event, I don't think it takes a brain surgeon to figure out that these so-called complaints are not necessarily complaints against what the school did; rather, these complaints are individually lodged because these people did not do what was expected of them. They thought an online course would be easy and when they figured out that it was just like any other college (no excuses, do what is expected of you), they decided to complain about the school instead of accepting responsibility for their own actions! Come on people, nothing in life is easy and it doesn't come for free! If you are going to be grown up enough to register for school (and financial aid), you better be smart enough to realize that you will be expected to be responsible for your actions!

I seriously cannot believe some of the lame excuses I have read about how awful UOP is and these people should be embarrassed by their remarks. I, too, had some difficulties (primarily with the learning teams), but I worked through those problems without blaming the school. Life is not damn picnic and crap happens to each of us every day. But rules are rules and we must learn to comply with them. Seriously, if the school made different rules for each person who experienced difficulties in his/her life (headaches, life problems, whatever), I would seriously question its validity! What UOP did (re: almost all of the complaints) was to follow their own guidelines and enforce their rules. The same thing that any school or college would do! UOP was very good for and worked my butt off to make the grade! I've just recently accepted a position at a local college teaching part-time and I will continue on with my full-time job as well. I completed my master’s degree so that I could move up the proverbial ladder in the federal system, which I will now be able to do, thanks to UOP. My point is you people need to accept responsibility for your actions and stop blaming the school for your mishaps and/or failures.

I would wholeheartedly recommend the educational leadership doctoral program through the University of Phoenix. However, aspiring students should be ready to work hard and put in lots of hours. The upside is that classes are led by dedicated and positive professionals who really get to know their students and you have a great class of students behind you helping you to meet your goals. Additionally, my financial counselor, Shanea, my enrollment counselor and my academic advisors check on me and have provided all assistance at the drop of a hat.

I am sincerely sorry for having left you hanging like that on our team presentation. The situation is this. I was given 0 points for the first paper. She said she never received it, so I figured so what I'll take that. It's only 10 points. I was given 0 points out of 15 for my second paper I did in that class and saw no point in staying if I was to only get a mere 75% if I aced the rest. Even though I turned in the paper a day before the due date, I didn't get a grade until the day of the next class, one week later plus one day. The reason she gave me zero points was because she said I had 18% plagiarism on my paper. I ran it and it only had 14%. That is the first problem. The second is that the majority of the plagiarism came from my usage of the questions in the assignment in the introduction of my paper. When did people start copywriting questions?

So I take it that every question put in text has to be quoted or cited. This is unacceptable. The rest of the remaining 3% came in improper citing so all in all, maybe there was 1% of actual plagiarism; and that, I will say that I dropped the ball on it due to not putting the webpage in the reference. I used 3 web pages and referenced them minus the one which was WikiAnswers.com. Technically, I gave credit where credit is due but due to APA formatting issues, I was given nothing in return for my efforts. I felt compelled to leave quickly and quietly without disturbing the class. That's just how I was raised, to be a gentleman. That is just the logical side, LOL. My emotional side wanted to yell and scream. I am going to attach my paper in original condition so you can run it in the checker or read it if you like. I wish you both the best of luck in the rest of the classes.

I may just pop in to sign the attendance so I retain my student rights to write a report on her when the class is over, just in case I am not compensated by UOP for my distress and loss of funds or allowed to retake the class under another professor. She still should have your respect as your professor as I still respect her degree as PHD, RN and as a professor at UoP. Please don't misunderstand my email. If the presentation on week 3 is affected by my absence, please feel free to let me know and I will take it up with the Academic Board for UoP or other appropriate persons and have it rectified. This kind of terrorism needs to stop!

I was not given this information so I had to blindly plead my case; which took them 3 months to get an answer for me and again I had 10 days to appeal. I had a lot of questions which my advisor or anyone at the school could answer and I was not able to call the people to get the answers. I have finally given up on fighting the case through the school but I'm trying to notify anyone and everyone of the injustice this school does. Not only was I not given time and documentation, I was not given a liaison or contacts to someone who could guide me through the process or someone who had answers about the process when being charged.

I guess I am being charged with violating the unauthorized assistance part of academic integrity but I still don't specifically know as the school has never told me. I worked in a study group on 2 homework assignments so we could help each other learn the material. The teacher did not state she did or did not allow this type of interaction in her syllabus or at any time until she said we were being charged. We were told while some teachers allow this, she didn't. The school therefore has made me believe that getting a tutor or asking other students for help is unauthorized assistance and I am not allowed to do this (which I asked a teacher before and they said, "No help from a tutor, student or ANYONE!").

I can't believe that I can't go to other resources to actually learn which is why I am going to school. I don't recommend anyone go to this school as the policies, procedures, and processes this school has in place can be twisted in many ways that they only will twist it to make it work for them and the school is unwilling to accept when they are wrong or even make changes to make it better for students and teachers, make the policies clear and specific so there is no misunderstanding of the policies. If the school is going to leave it up to the teachers, then teachers should have to clearly state if they allow things or not as we are students, not mind readers!

In both instances, they gave me ample time to recover and even sent me a refund check because I missed a class. Although I may have an odd ball for an instructor who asks for a bit more than the syllabus, my time here has been pleasant. I believe I have earned my bachelor's degree just as diligently as if I had attended a traditional college.

I have not had any problems with this school, yet. I have just received my associate's and am moving forward to get my bachelor's. I have had one academic counselor that was always available and one financial advisor and both my counselor and financial advisor called me to congratulate me on my year's anniversary. I ended up with a wonderful team. As a matter of fact, I was late on an assignment due to a hectic work week and contacted my professor to get a one-day extension. I got it! No penalties! He understood and said he always gives a one-time free pass. As you can see, it is difficult for me to relate to all of your bad experiences. I do wish all of you the best and hope you find resolution.

By the way, I attended a "real school" by which I assume people mean being in a classroom setting the traditional way and there is "no difference." You are expected to turn in your assignments on time and complete your final on the day it is given. In addition, if the site is down, it typically is not down for long. Every site needs to be updated periodically and typically there is a place on the bottom of the page letting us know the times and date they will be working on the site. This has not interfered with my work being turned in on time.

Sallie Mae will not say who they dealt with or their reasons. University of Phoenix says it is Sallie Mae's origination fees that are causing the discrepancy. I have spent numerous hours on the phone and email trying to straighten this matter out. Now, I am not only unable to continue my education with University of Phoenix until I pay them $6,781.60, but also owe Sallie Mae $3,330. Something isn't adding up, and I am not getting the degree I am being asked to pay for.

My academic counselor, Kayla, emailed me on 10/06/2008 and said to me, "Save the rest of the money from that check. Send back $3772. After you have been out of attendance for 29 days, the processing center will start process of canceling funds. They might send back some since you completed 6 out of 8 classes. However, they might not. I can let you know once it is completed. I would just recommend saving the rest of the funds from that check just in case." Well I guess there are some technical difficulties in her writing, because I understand her email to mean one thing; in speaking to her it is something different.

To date, I have returned $3300. I received a call from collections sometime in January informing me of a balance of $2125. I somewhat dismissed it since I knew I had already paid $3300 and that I had a balance of $477, so I thought it was just an error. I received another call a week ago informing me of the balance. What I discovered is that the University, even though they were given a month's notice both in writing and orally that I will be withdrawing from the school applied half of the amount of the money from Financial Aid to my account and returned the other half back to the lender. The total cost of the class is $3772. I was under the impression that since I had already completed the class and that I did not drop out or failed the class, the entire amount would be paid for. I am wrong.

They are now telling me that I am stuck with $2125.00. I know that I will have to pay it since I received the service. However, I do feel that the way they handled the situation was unreasonable and not in the best interest of the student whether past or present. Why would you apply half of the money to the class and send back half to Financial Aid for a class that has been completed? Why wasn't I informed that if I do not complete the remaining two classes, there will be out of pocket expenses? Why weren't the full amount of $3772 applied to the class and the difference of $478 returned to Financial Aid, since that would have been the remainder to cover for the two classes that I did not take?

In these difficult times when we are facing a sluggish economy, when jobs are unsure, where do they think one can find that lump sum to pay at once? I do not have disposable funds at this time and when questioned why I wasn't offered a payment plan, my counselor said that she tried contacting me by phone and I did not return her call. My instructor knew very well that the best method of contacting me was via email; she never tried to. My account was sent to collections. I am attending another school and I am aware that I would not be able to receive my transcript until that balance is paid. It would appear that once you decide that the University is not right for you, you are held hostage.

Anyway, you have saved me a lot of money. I do see how they get folks in: they tell you you're covered, but the catch is you start classes before your financial is cleared (I was told at least 90 days) so you rack up money, and then you don't get the aid they said you would get. I was also told that I would get back for supplies, etc., about $2,300. They told me my tuition would only be $18,000 for a Master's program, but based on their tuition costs posted at their website, I was actually looking at $25,920 for 36 hours. This also caused some concern for me. I hope that some of these folks who have posted do file suit.

I lucked out. Your site, and reading what others have gone through at UOP, saved me money. I'm 56 and was going back to school to advance in my company. I'll take my chances on advancement without spending the money, especially at UOP. University of Phoenix is extremely unethical. Ironically, the first class they signed me up for talks about ethics. They need to take their own classes.

It was later that week that I contacted UOP to make them aware of my emergency. I was told that the instructor called all the shots and to contact her (which I already had at this point). Between the grief and the traveling up and down the east coast to attend to finances and memorials, the instructor and I connected by telephone.

I simply asked the instructor what my options were. She indicated that she did not grant any extensions nor would she accept any late assignments, including the paper that was in draft form from week 4. I then asked if I should withdraw from the course because I would receive a zero for the paper and then zero for the remainder of week 5 when I was attending to funeral arrangements. She said, and I quote, "We all have little hiccups in life - you can pull this through. You are almost done." Even though I was somewhat surprised by her comment, I told her I would give it my best and that my family and I were still in shock over the suicide. I then made sure to tell my academic counselor all the details and proceeded to do the best I could to finish the course.

While in NY, to attend one of the two memorial services, I only attended the service and spent the remainder of the weekend in my hotel room, working on my schoolwork. I did not spend time with any of my family while in NY. Some 3 weeks after the course ended, I checked my grade. The instructor gave me a D, UOP put me on academic probation, and the entire cost of the class was to be paid out of my pocket. This is after I was told that I could pull it through. I did what my instructor told me to do and she gave me a D. I do not expect to receive any special treatment regarding the rules. I do have a problem with an instructor giving a student incorrect instruction regarding that student's grades, when she was really setting me up to fail. I was grieving and she took advantage of that.

Bottom line, I cannot get anywhere with the school. The Office of Dispute Management could not so much as provide me with the Dean of Student's name! What is the point of having a number to call when there is a dispute and their office does not handle that matter. I am referred to my academic counselor's supervisor's name and her reply was that she... did not have the Dean's contact info to be able to give... to me.

I do not have time to continue to get the runaround from UOP. As a paying student, I am entitled to this information and I expect the school's cooperation! I am not letting this one slip through the cracks. Of all the things to do to a person who is still grieving!

A few days later, I received a letter from my financial counselor stating that I withdrew from that same class after making attendance and that I am liable for out-of-pocket cost. Now I'm stuck in the middle with no scheduled classes for this block waiting to see what happens next. This school says it is for working adults, but there are so many papers to write that require research that I would have been better off attending a real school. I work odd hours, at least 50+ hours per week. My enrollment counselor told me that this would be no problem and that this school would allow me to work the long hours and get my degree in Criminal Justice at the same time.

I'm beginning to find that almost impossible especially now that I'm getting further behind making this whole online ordeal even longer since I was dropped two weeks before the class ended. I was strongly advised against this school by a lot of people but enrolled anyway. If anyone is considering UOP, please think twice, I only wanted to better my education and now I have this problem and I don't know what I'm going to have to go through to get this resolved. If I drop out of this school now, I am stuck with thousands of dollars in student loans and tuition.

Then Christmas break came along which was two weeks long. I traveled back to West Virginia to visit family and I had limited cell phone service and no internet. I received a call during that time that my transcript from a previous school was on hold and I need to complete a form until it was resolved. I called my enrollment counselor and informed her that I was out of town and would take care of it once I got back. I forgot about the form and had started back to class. My enrollment counselor called and left me a message just checking up on me and told me if I had any questions to call. Well, I have no questions; their system is pretty simple for me to understand.

The next day she left a message stating that it was unacceptable for me to withdraw from my classes and that I would be responsible for the full tuition. I called her back and told her she must have me confused with someone else because I have not requested to be withdrawn. She told me that she just said that to get me to call her since I was not communicating with them which is unacceptable. She told me that my academic counselor and my financial counselor had called and left me several messages and I had not called anyone. First of all, no one ever called me but my enrollment counselor and I had no questions so why would I call her and waste her time and mine? So after a heated discussion, she reminded me of the form and I completed it on the spot.

A few weeks later, my father passed away in West Virginia and I immediately emailed and called my enrollment counselor (the only person I have talked to so far) about what was going on and my concern for submitting my assignments since I would be traveling and staying in West Virginia for 2 weeks. She responded to my email and her first comment was that I could not withdraw from the classes because I would have to pay for them. Again, I never said anything about withdrawing, I just asked for what my options were since I was in a panic.

While in West Virginia, I was able to get dial-up internet service to post my assignments. Well, needless to say, that dial-up doesn't work well with their service. So the only thing I was doing was posting my assignments and not taking part in the class discussion. My enrollment counselor called me and told me that I had not posted anything regarding the class discussion. Again, I explained my situation. She started telling me that I was not committed to completing my classes. I got upset and brought up the issues that I have had and I asked why she constantly told me that I could not withdraw from the classes. She tells me that she has to tell me because our calls are recorded.

As of this point, she has never informed me that our calls were being recorded and I never consented to that. So I asked her why she had not told me this prior, that it was a legal issue. She told me that this was just another excuse and that I was not committed to completing my educational goals. I asked to speak to her supervisor and she transferred me immediately. Imagine my surprise when her supervisor told me that there was no reason for her to be speaking to me about failing the classes and that she would never speak to me like that again. Also, I told her about the previous issue about others calling me. She looked up my notes and told me that no one had ever called except my enrollment counselor. So my enrollment counselor lied to me about the previous issue to cover her own skin.

Now, I have completed the first block of courses which was a total waste of time for me and I have resolved the issue with my transcript and wanted to have it evaluated toward my program. This was very important because I have completed some of the classes already that were coming up. I told them that I had attended two different schools in the past and they only wanted to request one of the transcripts. After 3 long weeks, I logged into the system and had seen that they had posted the credits. I had 35 from my previous school.

Well, they only evaluated 14 and none of them were applied to my program of study. I emailed about this to my academic counselor and my enrollment counselor. My enrollment counselor responded that the academic counselor is the one that will handle this issue. I called him and after about 10 minutes of trying to get him to understand what has happened, he told me he did not know why none of the credits transferred and he believed that "some" should. I told him that it was not acceptable to me that out of 35 only 8 or so would be transferred. He asked me what particular classes was I looking to have transferred and I told him all. He told me that no matter what school I went to, I could not transfer all my credits. So to test his argument, I went to Sacramento State with some unofficial transcripts and the admissions counselor reviewed them and told me that all of my credits but one would transfer to my degree choice.

Being that I am in the National Guard, I am going to inform my military commanders of this school and its practices and hopefully have it blacklisted because they are only concerned with earning money and not the needs of the student or the education of their students.

So I ended up speaking to about 25 different people getting the situation straightened out and was finally able to get to redo the class when the new session began. Okay, great! Well, I am in class for at least 2 sessions; all was well. And I need another leave, this time for emergency purposes...and it happens again! I fail a class before my break is even halfway over. So this time, I was extremely mad and spoke to the highest official that I could get hold of and explained the situation. They pull up my records and, lo and behold, this entire time I was enrolled at UOP, my Montgomery GI bill was never touched. They took out several student loans and grants to pay for my schooling. What the hell? What was the point of speaking to a military advisor? I have been calling UOP daily for weeks now with not one return call. My lawyer will be getting involved and I will never enroll with another online school ever again.

For the most part, the school is fairly good; it's no Harvard education, and it is pricey. I need convenience at this point of my life. If I would have stayed in college like I was suppose to in my late teens/early twenty, I wouldn't be paying such a high price for an education today. I would not have to deal with the stress of going to work and being a responsible parent while going to school. I am paying the price now. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Oh and how does that saying go? The world doesn't owe you anything. How true is that?

I am willing to finish out this block, but I want to finish it online and have this 6-week block refunded to me in full, which is $1,895. I will continue to take the class, but online only. I have written emails expressing my concern, and I am being misinformed and treated like a second-class citizen. I know my rights and I am trying to locate the CEO of Apollo Group.

I am losing out financially due to the lack of service I have received up to this point. Since I have not learned anything in the first 2 classes, I want to switch to online at no charge and have fees for this first 6-week block WAIVED due to the lack of organization by the instructor, the slow pace of the class, and the lack of correct information being given to the students in the class. Too much confusion and wasting time.

For instance, I was told that two textbooks would not be required for the first course and, therefore, I would not have to pay for them. However, the textbooks were required and I could not do one of the assignments without them. The reason this bothered me so much is that my husband attends CTU Online, another private college where tuition for an associate degree is nearly half of what UoP charges at only $250 per credit. While my husband does pay a $55 monthly fee, the cost of all of his books and materials are covered.

At nearly $500 per credit with UoP, why should I have to worry about books and other expenses? I realized that I better step back and further research what I was getting into. So I decided to withdraw from UoP after just four days. Unlike traditional college, there is no drop period where you can withdraw from a course without charges. While UoP was trying to convince me to stay in the program, they also informed me that I will be charged $375 just for those four days. This confirmed my decision to get out ASAP. Online colleges like CTU tell you exactly what you're going to pay up front. UoP doesn't tell you about specific charges until you're already on the hook for the money. For the same money that UoP is charging, I can attend a reputable university like Penn State and not have to worry about them constantly trying to profit from me.

I've learned my lesson: there are no short cuts. If there are, there's usually a price to pay. Yes, it will take longer to get my degree but it's much better to do it through a reputable university.

Then there is the issue with my enrollment counselor who never returns my call unless I contact his supervisor. I was attending University of Phoenix (UOP) when someone from the university informed the VA I was no longer attending the university. Well, to make a long story short, my counselor forgot to tell me I was dropped from the university causing me to appeal the VA for mistaken enrollment, something I believe my counselor should be doing since I was dropped. Then there is the issue with online offline courses. I am now on a leave of absence for I don't know how long and I don't know my graduation date. My counselor stated I could take an online course without a break and now he tells me while on a break that he did not know how to enroll me in online courses. As of today, I am just sitting and waiting to hear back from my counselor who never returns my phone calls and in hopes of still graduating.

I do wish I did more homework on the school itself. My course cost me more every nine weeks. At first, $855 per course and now all the way up to $980 per course. The books cost $65 each course. I am 19. I have been living in my own apartment since I was 17. I hate that there are standards saying that I should be a dependent student until 24, not even recognizing the circumstances. Not to mention I get less aid for being considered a dependent student.

I am attending an online school program since 2007 and I am destined to graduate by Sept. 2009. The thing with this is they keep failing me so, that they can get more federal dollars towards their school. The first time that I was failed, the instructor said that I did not meet the requirements of the class. I tried to contact the in house people so that they would look into the matter and find that I was right. They never did anything, so here we go again with the instructor not responding to me, not helping me with the class work and now she decides to fail me because I did not have access to the work. How is this supposed to work?

Recently, I was assigned to a Financial Aid counselor, but still no academic is on account. I called the main number and was treated rudely and still not given an academic counselor. I am paying for this. My money goes to have these services and it is not well spent at all. I spoke to a lady that I told I have been contacting the financial aid man on my account and sent over 6 emails to him. I also told her I have not heard from him in over 3 weeks, and no answers to my emails. He responded on the 16th of January and told me that if I had any more questions for him that I could ask. He won't answer me. I am THOROUGHLY FRUSTRATED at this point. They pass the buck to one person and another. I have had friends sign up and now wish I would not have. I am tired of being told one thing and they are doing another!!!

It was extremely time consuming and I hogged the computer at the library trying to post all this. That is, IF I could get into the library before it closed. There was really not much I could do about the "participation" portion and I started failing for bad attendance (have to "participate" 6 times a week) and even the assignments typed up were not good enough for they HAD to be typed in Microsoft Word and sent to their Outlook inbox in an attachment only.

So I requested a temporary leave of absence until I could get back home after the job was complete. My counselor said that would be fine; I just had to clear it with my professors. I sent an email to the professors, via Yahoo of course since I did not have much of a choice. And I received no reply back from either one. When I came back home in September, I had a letter in my mail box on behalf of University Of Phoenix, saying they wanted the full amount of my student loan of $2,625.00 or it will be sent to a collection agency. When I called my counselor back to ask why, he stated, (coldly I may add now that I am no longer a student my best interest is not at stake) that it was the deciding factor of the professors and they did not approve of my leave of absence and "dropped me failing" instead of "withdrawal passing" and if I were to check my OUTLOOK inbox, I would have read the denial of withdrawal and the copy of my request, and they are saying I quit participating in JULY and it is now my responsibility to pay the loan back in full. It isn't as if I wanted to quit. I wanted to finish, but I needed a computer and the professors cared more about being paid than actually assisting a student who was clearly having a difficult time.

My first question to my financial aid advisor was will my financial aid continue without having to start paying it back right of way. She had told me that I was okay and everything will be fine. Then I asked if it is okay if I start my graduate work right after my undergraduate work. She stated there will be no problems. Well, now we have a problem and she sent it to me in an email, not a professional courtesy to call and set up a meeting. I am prepared to take this all the way to the top of the chain of command in the university's financial aid department. Those of us struggling out here to make it in the world should never give up.

Out of four classes for the second half of the academic year, I had completed one class, receiving a non-passing grade in another class, withdrew from the third class, and did not attend the fourth due to monies owed to UOP - monies I was not aware I owed. It was determined that I owed $3,555. To my surprise, I come to learn that the monies I had paid, which I assumed were towards the failed and dropped class was in actuality for tuition that my financial aid had not covered. My classes totaled to $6,480 and financial aid had only covered $4,860. No one had even bothered telling me this until I started questioning why I owed $3,555.

For those of us who depend on financial aid to cover the cost of classes, this is something I should have been told. I would have not enrolled if I had known that I would be short $1,620 each period of the academic year. So, if you rely fully on financial aid paying for your classes, make sure that everything has been explained to you. I am now left with a $3,555 debt. I am returning back to a traditional school which offers classes online. UOP won't release my transcripts until I pay the balance off, but it doesn't matter because none of the credits are transferable.

One last thing, UOP has its own internal collection agency; and the person I spoke with to arrange payments and the person I spoke to was extremely rude. My advice to all ask questions, make sure you keep in touch with your academic counselor and that he/she is communicating back. Most important, make your financial aid counselor explain everything to you regarding your financial aid. Don't be surprised as I was.

First things first: University of Phoenix is a FOR PROFIT private university. What that means: it's a private institution that is set up like a business organization. So when you are paying for your education, it costs more, but in return you receive more, including people who actually care and hold you accountable... That doesn't mean it will be easy and they will help you get out of school because of migraines or a broken arm. It is still school and like any university you have to deal with the consequences of not completing your homework or assignments.

Secondly, yes, in the real world when you work in teams you will have people you don't like or are not as smart as you. But you have to deal. If you complain to your boss about it you think they will care? No. They aren't your babysitter nor will they look at you in a positive light if you complain all the time. Figure it out; make it work.

Thirdly, school loans with any institution are not going to just let you drop out of school and not pay your loans back. The loans are not through the university. They are through the Board of Education AKA the government or a private loan agency; they want their money back. Once you commit to an educational program, the government gives you the courtesy of not paying on your loans until 6 months after you leave school; otherwise payments will be required.

Fourthly, if you are doing your associates, that means general education requirements. This is required for accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission and the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. If you just want to study something specific like X-ray tech, go ahead. Go to a certificate trade school. There, you won't have to do general education and, in addition, you won't have your degree, but it will all be about the subject not English or Math.

If you ask me, most of these complaints are simply of ignorance and stupidity. Try going to community college or a state school and see what help you get... none! Try telling the instructor about your migraine... They don't care. Try getting out of your financial loan without paying or dropping out of school and keeping the grant you received from the state... It won't happen.

I'm currently attending the MBA program at the University of Phoenix and I was pleasantly surprised at the level of customer service I received at the campus, as well as the Instructors' level of experience and knowledge in their industry. I had taken community college classes while I was in high school, attended a traditional state college for my bachelors and now University of Phoenix for my MBA. It is a night and day difference. In addition, taking classes one night a week is much more realistic than quitting my full time job to go back to the state school system to get my MBA. If you ask me, I think that the complainers here would rather complain about their life in general than do something about it. Hopefully, one day, you will take some responsibility for your own life. Good luck to those who pursue and complete their degrees. It's not easy.

I spoke with my counselors and told them that the professors changed the requirements for posting online every class. Most of the professors are not even qualified to teach the classes that I was taking. I also told them that in order to stay in school, I needed all the financial aid I could get so I didn't have to come out of pocket. But they make you fill out paperwork that says if financial aid doesn't cover, then I am responsible. However, I have applied for enough loans through Citibank that should have taken me through school. But I didn't know that the school has the right to certify only for what they feel you need.

My Pell disbursement to the school was on January 15, 2009. All of this money was to be sent to me in excess because, as I stated previously, my loans covered all of my expenses! The university took 6 business days to supposedly release my Pell to me. The school states that my excess was mailed out on January 23, 2009. It has now been 14 business days, and I still have not received my excess funds check. I have contacted both the financial aid processing center as well as my local campus financial aid counselor regarding the matter. I have received no answers as to where my funds could be. I have also spoken with USPS, and they stated that the longest it would take for any mail to come from Phoenix to Savannah is 10 days. I received a print out regarding my Pell disbursement around the time I should have received the check as well.

This printout has always been in the same envelop with my excess funds check since I began the school in 2005. And yes, I have all of the envelopes and check stubs in a file at home. I asked the university why I received the print out and no check this time, and their answer was they don't always mail them out together. The date on the print out was January 23, 2009, and this is the same date they claim they mailed out my excess funds check. I have since received mail from the school dated February 5 with no problems, but still have yet to receive my check. The only assistance the school has suggested is to conduct a stop payment on the check they claim they mailed out, investigate and then process my excess again. The timeline they gave me on this was another month long wait. I am a single parent that relies on excess funds to handle other school expenses and some living expenses.

The school is handling the matter in a manner that screams unimportant! I would think that the school would rush the matter and release my funds to me in a manner that screamed urgent. They do not seem to value their students, and I see that I am not the only one experiencing problems with the financial aid process. Something must be done! The students should not have to suffer because the University refuses to incorporate a processing system that works. I am struggling to get supplies needed for school, as well as make ends meet. I am receiving no speedy assistance from the school and no answers as to where my money is. This is causing a great deal of stress and hardship. With the economy being the way it is, something must be done about the way this school treats and handles financial aid processing for their students.

Now, it’s February, and I get a call from my new financial advisor saying my loan amounts are $23,000! What do I do now? They originally assured me that I qualified for everything, and the checks I received from them were for extra money to use towards school supplies. When I first received a check from them, I called and asked what to do with it. They told me to use it for school supplies. Once again, I asked if I had any loans and if I do, I will not have to pay anything back, right? They repeatedly told me everything was covered, and I do not have to pay anything back since I am a single mother. I do not even make enough to pay this amount back in however many years they want me to. I was totally misled, and now, I have realized my cousin went through the same situation. They say the things you want to hear when you are in desperate need of trying to help your life improve. Now, I do not know how I am going to afford anything for my daughter because I have major money to pay back. I will not get a good paying job with my degree because the economy is crap. The only thing happening are people getting laid off.

So today is Feb. 9th and I still have no report as to what is going on with my money or where the heck it is. I would assume that the monies would be rushed because I have been waiting for over one month! This happened in Sept. as well and it seems as though I have to do the work of the finance counselors because they can't do their own freaking jobs. If I wasn't more than 1/2 way through my program, I wouldn't even try to finish; but I am kind of stuck where I am.

They really need to do something with their financial aid department because the counselors can't do their jobs without being watched over like a hawk by the students. Then you go to their supervisors or persons above them, and you get ridiculed and reprimanded for doing so. Well wouldn't one think that if they were doing their job that the students wouldn't have to do it? I hope this gets resolved soon. I will be posting again with the outcome.

Ultimately, I failed this class. As you know, this affects financial aid. What was disturbing is that I was moved into the next level of this class when I had not passed the first. I again communicated with my academic counselor, resulting in again no response. I came to learn that I was withdrawn from the class in my third week of class, resulting in payment of both the failed class and partial payment of the class I had requested to be withdrawn from. Not having the money, I had to arrange for payments.

At the time I was making my last payment, I found that now I owed another $3,555 (refund to lender). What I don't understand it what I am paying for. Since my withdrawal, I had not taken any other classes nor was I scheduled to take any, as I had an outstanding balance due. UoP doesn't let you move on to the next class if you owe them money. It is my understanding that if there is a 90-day break in attendance, UoP must refund the lender monies advanced. What I don't understand is why they are billing me for money returned for classes that I have and will not be taking. This should only reduce the amount I owe my lender and I should not be owing UoP anything. The last message I received from my financial counselor was that she would need to talk to her manager. I've yet to hear from them. They have been paid for the classes I have taken.

Now to this day, I'm still struggling to get answers as to why I am still dealing with a debt why my money has been returned to the lender recently and where the second loan I had to take has gone. UOP claims to have never received it although when contacted, the loan company told me the disbursement was sent out and received by UOP on 11/17/2008. I should have received my degree by now and have been struggling with this and seeking answers more than I have actually attended class at UOP. The initial problem has started a snowball effect for the rest.

Five days before the end of my class, I started calling and emailing Jaime and my academic counselor. Finally, at the very last moment, Jaime returned my calls and stated that I was denied any assistance and since I do not have an unsubsidized loan, they were not going to even consider me for anything else. This seems ethically wrong in two points - one, the lies and the last part, where I was not only told no but because I choose not to owe someone interest on a loan that accrues starting immediately (not after graduation), but they would not even try because of that. I pay my bills and owe them nothing; so this is how they treat a cash paying customer!

I realized upon starting my first 2 courses that something was not quite right. I was in a course where the other students could not even construct a basic sentence in English. I questioned both my enrollment and academic advisor if there was any way I could transfer out and obtain credit. "Oh yes, you can take your CLEPs and they would apply," I was told. This, dear readers, was not the case. Theoretically, I could take 22 of the 34 CLEPs offered, giving me the possibility of 132 course credits. UoP only takes 15 total credits. And then, I come to find out, this sad, sub-par course is a requirement and credits cannot be used to place out of it. I already took English 101 and Essay writing at a real higher learning institute. Why are my credits that I was told would transfer not applying to this?

But here is my major beef besides being placed in a class with the kids who start fires and have to have their mittens pinned to their coats and blatantly plagiarize my work, but first give me the feedback that they don't understand the "big words" I use.

The Financial advisor told me that I have received my disbursements for my Pell Grant and I should be receiving the check on the 22nd. Then it became the 26th. I still haven't received it. This is the money I would have used to take my CLEPs and place out of this god forbidden hell dump known as Axia Online/UoP. I called a total of 7 times, with none of my calls being returned.

I decided that enough was enough and spent exactly 6 hours digging on every UoP student site trying to find the withdraw paperwork. I filled it out and dated it for that day, which put me at exactly 12 days of enrollment. I contacted all advisors on where and to whom I should send this paperwork. I called both my loan guarantor and the Student Federal Aid offices and had them stop the disbursements, as well as explained to them what was going on.

It was then that I received a very nasty email from the financial advisor stating that I would have to pay my entire loan and grant back to UoP and they would come after me if I didn't. She never addressed my question as to where and whom to send my withdraw paperwork. Her statements also contradicted what the loan guarantor and Federal Student Aid told me, as well as contradicted UoP's own policies, which are on their website. She also stated that the 5 higher learning institutions I spoke with (Universite De Montreal, McGill College, Harvard Extension School, University of Michigan and Mott Community College) were all completely wrong in the any and all information they gave me concerning the ability for me to transfer my degree program to any one of those universities. Hmm, so an Ivy League college lies to their prospective students? I think not, madam.

After using UoP's own policies against them, as well as the information given to me by the loan guarantor and S.F.A., I was able to finally get her to call me back. She began by attempting to make a threat and refusing to answer any questions I had, which I quickly quelled, and got her to state that I would not have to repay anything. She tried to tell me that I had received the overpayment check (I had and have not) and that I would have to pay that back, but I burst her bubble by requesting a stop payment and return of funds order on it, which I also distinctly wrote on the withdraw paperwork. She finally and begrudgingly, after having to ask 8 times, gave the fax number and department to send the paperwork to.

I will continue to be in limbo until I receive some confirmation from UoP that all is cancelled and returned to its proper place. If not, I would love to join the currently pending class action lawsuit against them.

I highly suggest to anyone and everyone dealing with them that you record all phone calls with them, as well as insist that correspondence be through your personal email address only. Take screen shots of your account invoices with them, because those seem to have a tendency to change, flux and disappear at will.

You have to be 120% pro-active and impeccable in your information, research and language to get anywhere with UoP. Their job is to enroll as many bodies as possible for profit, as they are a for profit corporation (I choose to call them what they are, not what they are masquerading to be). It is a sad situation when a Federal Student Aid representative tells you specifically to lodge a federal complaint. And I plan on doing just that if they do not hold up to the integrity of their word.

There's a lot more I could write here, but I think I have stated enough and the volume of complaints against them speaks for itself. If I hadn't been lied to and deceived from the get-go, I would not have even bothered in enrolling in the first place. I'd love for an attorney who takes joy in nailing the disgusting abuse of power by a corporation to contact me.

The worst consequence for me was just the added stress and disappointment when I was getting ready to attend my last (Capstone) class ever that evening, and received in the mail the same day, a letter stating one of the tests I'd taken for credit hours had been disqualified and I would have to earn 3 more credit hours, which meant I wasn't finishing that evening, but had to add more time and effort and money to my process. I did it, but was very upset. The test I had taken was for upper level credits - I had written a life experience essay for a similar topic and been given lower level credits. My advisor assured me before I studied for the upper level credit test that I would be given credit if I passed, as it was a more detailed and complex level of learning and understanding than the essay I'd submitted for lower level credits.

The moral of the story is when earning a degree there will always be glitches, disappointments, and drawbacks. I've known people who attended other schools who also had to jump through hoops with eccentric professors and wade through piles of paperwork just to get through some process that could be much simpler. The accounting, especially when student loans are involved, sometimes gets messed up. Changes are made and not everyone who needs to know has been informed.

This is the world of academia today - and it's big business for UOP and other universities that appeal to working adults. My suggestion to those who are disgruntled is to stop feeling victimized, and get a hold of someone who can help you get your degree and move on. Stop blaming UOP for your failure to endure a process that for most students is filled with tedious, frustrating nonsense all enmeshed with learning that is so valuable. The education I received has served me very well, and I knew I would get out of my experience at UOP what I put into it.

The Maitland, Florida campus was reasonably well-organized and, though wasn't always perfect, provided a learning atmosphere that was truly an educational experience that has helped improve my managerial skills. UOP is not a diploma mill. So many students have worked very hard to earn our degrees. It is, however, riddled, like so many large businesses, with discrepancies. Those inconsistencies affect the students and instructors especially. My suggestion to UOP is to get on the ball and practice what you teach your manager majors - plan, organize, implement, and revise when necessary.

Get on track within your own organization and stop the student and instructor bashes of UOP by operating an efficient educational institution that equals your high standards set for your instructors and students. You're making the big bucks that the students are spending - start putting it to better use! Hire top-notch managers and better curriculum developers that are committed to being on the same page as the instructors, who seem to get the worst deal of all sometimes.

To the complainers, stop demeaning a school that has graduated thousands of reasonably happy students, who have spent several years, hard-earned money, and a tremendous amount of energy and are not complaining, but working in their field and going on for even more education. Learning is what UOP is about. Disgruntled students, have you learned complaining isn't the answer? Proactive, positive attitudes, words, and behaviors are what will remedy your situation.

Even my enrollment counselor had me to believe that I could use my first disbursement check to pay the balance from CTU so that my transcripts could be released. He has now since departed from the University. This is now giving me the impression that my enrollment counselor did not care at all about me enrolling and finishing my education at UOP. He just wanted his enrollment bonus. My financial aid advisor, Sonya **, now is telling me after four weeks into my second class that they won't release the funds until all documents have been received. This has put me in a very awkward and discouraging position and I am very frustrated about this. I was under the impression that she was here to help me with my financial aid options and whatever she could do to help me, but she is not.

I have called and left messages for the financial aid manager on 1/12/09 and 1/13/09 and she has not returned my calls. I have e-mailed my financial aid advisor, Sonja **, on 1/13/08 and she has not responded to my e-mail as of this date. I take my education seriously and I thought that University of Phoenix's mission and purpose was to provide students access to higher education opportunities. Sonja ** called me and expressed to me that everything was taken care of with my financial aid and not to worry about it (those were her exact words) because I had just received a bill from UOP. I am wondering also what happened to the loan disbursement that should have paid for my two classes that I took.

I have brought this to the attention of three instructors, only to be told that the teams need to “work out their differences”. The concern here is that I suspect that some instructors are “pencil whipping” these assignments and are giving good grades just because an individual tries. This practice, if true, is unfair to those who really give each assignment 100%. If I can tolerate another year of this nonsense and graduate, I will look elsewhere to continue my lifelong journey of education.

The consequences are simple. I spend more time correcting others' mistakes which in turn takes away from my ability to study and complete assignments. Also, my GPA and integrity is in jeopardy as the current team I am assigned to work with is submitting rough drafts that are plagiarized. I have pointed this fact out, but the others do not seem to have the same work ethic or integrity that I possess. I do not know where else to turn.

I cannot transfer my units taken which were A's to a new school. I have been stuck. UOP will not give an employer my GPA either. They are withholding my GPA, and transcripts. It is very difficult for me to raise my daughter as a single parent without a degree since most employers want to see that. This bad credit report from UOP has caused the inability to request credit for cars, home, etc. for me.

I question the validity of UoP before I decided to go and went against my gut instincts. I should have never gone there. Everyone makes A's, so honestly how on target can they be?

I had great teachers for my first block of two classes and I was getting straight A's on my assignments. Having a great experience with the first block, I went on to the next block which also went very well. By about half way through my fourth block, I kind of stopped and thought about what type of classes I was taking. I was attending UOP for my associates in Health Care Administration, and I had taken three English classes, and a history class - nothing to do with medicine! I finished that block and waited to see what my next classes would be.

The next classes were about ambulatory care and environmental science. I realize science is important when going into the medical field, but throughout the whole class, the only thing we learned and wrote about was global warming and what we thought the world would be like in 2050. After the first two weeks of class, I had a huge family emergency and ended up moving. Unfortunately, I do not have a computer to go with me.

I talked to my counselors at the UOP and they had made sort of a deal with me. They said I would not be billed for any classes as long as I wrote a letter to some woman (I cannot remember her name), someone being on the high end of UOP. Anyway, the letter was explain my situation and my personal business that went on in my family and that if she approved it, then I would not be charged with that block and I would be able to return to retake those classes as soon as my family emergency was resolved. I was told my letter had been approved.

I came back to school about one and a half months later and I had bills sky high from the school, and a million emails and they never stopped calling me while I was away. My question is, why, if I have a student loan and my loan sent payment for those classes, am I being charged by the school themselves? This was three months ago, and I have still not been able to resolve this problem, and they are still sending me bills, and I have not seen anything from my loan agency. Now what?

We are now at the point that they want a letter from the IRS or an amended tax return because they are disputing my filing status. There is no reason for me to refile my taxes with an amended return. It was filed correctly and properly. I have documentation from a professional tax preparer, which they asked for and said would be sufficient, stating same. Suddenly, it isn't good enough and they need more again. I am currently not enrolled in classes. I have been withdrawn from my second block of classes twice now because of the almost $2,000 balance I am carrying at the University which I refuse to pay until this process is completed. (When it is complete, the funding should pay for it supposedly.)

I'm angry and frustrated that they are dragging this out and playing games with my ability to continue my education. I don't know what to do at this point because I'm not sure how to go about getting that letter from the IRS and I don't have reason to file the amended return. This financial aid process is seemingly more and more bogus to me. I started to go to a different online university and I'm beginning to wish I had. I do have to say my Intake, Academic and Financial counselors have been helpful and have tried to help expedite the process as much as they can but apparently, the problems I am having are handled by someone other than them. I think UoP needs to take a look at whoever is handling it and fix what's broken.

So, I called UoP to get that information that I couldn't find on the website. I just wanted to know how long the program would take. Someone named Adam ** picked up the phone. He began to ask me questions, and I thought it wouldn't take that long because it seemed as if he was just verifying information what they already had. He asked for my name, address, contact number, and email address. Then he asked what college credits I already had. I told him I already graduated with a Bachelor degree. He asked in what, and I told him.

I then told him I was interested in the masters degree program in HA and I just wanted to inquire about it, and he continued to ask more questions. This time though, I felt they were even more unnecessary. He asked where I graduated from, what my GPA was, what previous jobs I've had, was I still working, where and why not (I got laid off as a tech at a health care center), and he even asked, "Why are you interested in health care?" That's like asking someone, "Why are you interested in art?" One can't help what he or she is interested in.

The whole conversation from beginning to end was informal and unprofessional. He kept saying, "Mmmkay," and "Cool, cool." It got more stupid and pointless nearing the end of our conversation. He was just annoying and nosy. I felt like all he wanted was my personal information. Then I said, "Why do we have to go through all of this information? This is all irrelevant. I'm just inquiring about a program and before I express any interest in the school, I want information. How would I know if I actually want to go to this school if I don't have the information I need? You don't need my information. It's unnecessary for you. It would be a waste of our time if I express no interest after you give me the information. All I want to know is how long the program would take."

And so, he finally gave me the answer, but I wasn't pleased with the representation of the school at all. So before he could say anything more, I immediately said, "Okay thank you. Bye." I hung up and thought to myself, "Yeah, right. Like I'm going to that scam school to throw my time and money away." That school is not legit at all. Scam! This Adam ** was like an annoying telemarketer or store employee.

One or two days passed. I received a phone call from UoP again. I picked up just to tell them that I was no longer interested so that they never call me again. However, he asked, "Why aren't you interested anymore?" I recognized this man's voice because of the "cool, cool" and "mmmkay." It was that Adam ** again. I answered him, "I am just no longer interested." He urged the same question. I said angrily, "Why does it matter why I am not interested? Do you need to know for your university's statistics? Are you filling out a survey? Why do you need to know? All you need to know is that I am not interested anymore." Then he said, "I'm just trying to guide you in the right direction. Is your education valuable to you?"

I said, "I know that my education is valuable to me. I know what direction I want to go in. I called the school trying to get information so I can learn about the school and I didn't like what I learned. I even remember our previous conversation when you kept asking me irrelevant questions, urging for answers. Now I am telling you that I am no longer interested in the school. I don't need to give you a reason why. (Now that I think of it, I should have said it was because of him, lol). And also I don't need you to guide me in the right direction. I know what I want and don't want, and I don't need you - someone I don't even know - to tell me what is right for me."

He asked the same question except he added, "Is it because you enrolled into another school?" Extremely annoyed and hoping it would shut him up and never call again, I answered, "Yes. I enrolled in another school." I only said that because maybe I thought he would back off and never call again. However, with the nerve of him, he asked, "What school?" I answered, "It doesn't matter what school. Again, why do you need to know? Is it for the university's statistics? Or is it for a survey?" He said, "No. I just want to know." At that point, I was furious! I asked, "What's your name again?" He said, "Adam ** (if that's even his real name)." I said, "Adam **, don't ever contact me again! I am not interested in that school! Take me off of the phone list, email list, and any other contact list!" He hung up.

As a result, it seems as though this school, University of Phoenix, just wants your money. I've read some of the complaints above and they all exhibit some kind of anger and regret toward the school. I'm glad I didn't enroll as unfortunately some who've expressed they're rip-offs have. I already knew that this school was a scam from the very first conversation.

Their representatives are not admissions counselors. They are salesmen. This Adam ** guy was an incompetent salesmen. These salesmen might try to get you by making you feel guilty by asking, "Isn't your education valuable to you?" Well, I just wanted to ask him, "Did you stop at high school?" In my head, I was thinking, I graduated with honors bc of my over-the-top GPA; I have taken many leadership roles in student organizations, have given my time for voluntary work since high school all throughout college, and have actually managed to fit in a part-time job during all my years of college without it interfering with my grades, and you need to make me feel guilty about my education? This guy was a joke!

This school is a joke! It's probably not even a real accredited school! I read in a previous complaint that a university at New York would not even accept a degree from this school. Also, I keep seeing complaints about how people are getting overcharged. And I've read complaints about how professors don't get back to them. And then there are complaints of how people couldn't connect online to finish an assignment/test/quiz due to natural disasters (electricity outage bc of a flood or hurricane) and the school didn't care that the students couldn't log in! So they got bad grades and had to retake the class meaning pay even more money! Ridiculous!

So, unless you enjoy being ripped off and wasting your time, then enroll in the University of Phoenix. Otherwise, apply to a real school who knows how to speak to students over the phone.

This created much stress for me, which affected my work and I fell short of the 3.00 guideline they required by .13. (I had a 2.87 cumulative including the C for the first course. If that course was not included in the consideration process, I was above the 3.0 requirement.) I appealed, requesting to be able to submit the paper for the first course that was late for grade. It was denied. There is no exception to the policies for major life events or emergencies. ADA accommodation is the only exception that anything will be made on and that is only if they were made prior to an event happening. Even with ADA coverage, you are still expected to give 100% to online contributions and group work, regardless of how incapacitated the disability makes you. Now, I have invested money and time that I cannot transfer toward an MBA program at another university and a suspension from school on my record from the University of Phoenix for circumstance that literally were beyond my control. Due to the financial and time investment, I am considering reapplying in April.

I do have an additional concern about how long the re-admittance process may take after experiencing the amount of time it takes to go through the appeal process at Phoenix. The time it takes for the reapplication process may not make the program the best option for me afterwards. I will have to see how well the administration works with me on that. In any instance, I am going to research how to appeal to Phoenix to change this policy which puts students with unexpected circumstances at risk. I would like to say, as far as the classes, I do believe they are effective. It is just when an emergency arises, there is no flex or consideration for the student, which is highly concerning.

Today I found out that the school had decided to review my transcripts and I now need 15 units to graduate. I found this out by looking at the website - not a single person from UPO contacted me, ever. Today, a coworker who is a friend and fellow student came over to work on an assignment and we decided to compare transcripts - although several of our classes are the same, our credits were applied so that we each had several classes added to the program. Most universities have an across the board transcript eval process - but University of Phoenix evals transcripts so they can get the most money from you and then changes them over a year later to make sure you won’t complete your degree without paying several thousand dollars extra.

They now expect an unrealistic amount of work in only 5 weeks. They expect students to complete approximately 10 papers. In addition, I will be expected to grade and return all these papers within 1 week of their submission. I don't mean to sound lazy. But what professor would ever assign papers at the rate of 2 a week especially to working adults who have so much else going on in their lives? This simply is stupid, but I can only guess that the university believes this is necessary in order to change their image.

In addition, the university had some severe server problems causing the online classrooms to go down this fall. All the due dates for one week's assignments were pushed back as a result of this. Nevertheless, I got an email from a senior faculty liaison asking why I didn't turn in my feedback on time. I responded to him and also provided a list of complaints about how UOP was running things. His only response was that it was okay that my feedback was late because of the tech difficulties - thus completely ignoring everything else that I wrote. It is wonderful to see that UOP values the comments of the faculty so much.

As you can see from this money-grubbing institution, they are also much too cheap to do anything like paying a decent wage for the faculty. They are instead too concerned about buying naming rights of NFL stadiums. Now they have this new initiative to be a phoenix. My advice is to save yourself a ton of money, or go to a real college. You'll find that employers really will look more favorably on you with a degree from a real school. I also have discovered that it doesn't even make sense to put UOP on my resume as other colleges simply dismiss them as a fake school who will hire anyone.

I was due a $4,000 refund that I never received due to a missing FASFA signature. When in fact, I signed the FASFA and it was processed since August. The funds were sent to the school in September. They held my funds then sent them back to the provider in October. All of this happened without my knowledge. Their rational was that I dropped the class so I lost my money. I didn't drop the class until October. So why didn't I receive the funds as soon as they received them in September?

Now eight years later, I'm informed that I owe $12,000 and charged for an education (product/service) that I never received. I would have thought that the UoP returned that money to the lender as no service was provided on their part, past the first six-week class session. I'm willing to pay for that, but feel that UoP should be held responsible for the remainder of those funds. That, quite simply, is theft.

Instead they are telling me I have to pay the full $975 for the entire course. And to make this even better, I had previously gotten a private loan from Sallie Mae that I needed for personal reasons. I'm 23 making minimum wage on 2-3 days a week and pregnant. They just cut the last check of 2k and even had the gall on the phone to say I have 2k to pay for this class. I not so calmly explained to him that the money is for other obligations otherwise I would never have borrowed it, therefore they would not see a penny of it. Not lying to me and deceiving me as they did. I'm sick of them!

I got a letter in the mail on December 23 that said amount distributed to student $0.00. I spoke with a financial aid counselor who could not really help me because my own counselor is hardly ever available and no one else can seem to deal with her cases. This fill-in counselor told me that they usually hold any last distribution until 29 days after all courses are completed. This does not sound legal and everything they print says that the credits will be given to the student. If I am taking out loans to fund my education and expenses during school, what is the purpose of holding the money until I am done with school?

I am in week 2 of my last five-week class. I have 3 weeks to go and I need the money that is due to me now, not when they decide they want to give it to me. I am going to call the loan company and get their take on this because it does not seem right. I am also going to call the student aid commission to get further info. It is too bad because I wanted to jump right into my Master program but I will not be doing it at University of Phoenix if I conclude that their practices are not just.

They want us student to pay them in a timely matter, then we shouldn't have to sit and wait for them to calculate a refund and cut a check to us... It should not take more than a few days after it received for them to calculate and do refund check for the amount and get it out in the mail. I have had nothing but pure hell out of the Financial Aid Counselor and get nothing but the runaround every time I call or ask anything... They want their money in a timely fashion from work. Then they get bonus. On top of that, how would they like it if they had to wait up to 14 days to get their pay check and bonus to paid... I am very sure they wouldn't like. I think I will be finding myself another online school to attend to finish out my HCA degree. I am done with the runaround with this school. Then My FC told me once the check was cut, he was going to see if they could overnight to me so I would have it before Christmas. Like that is really going to happen so I am not looking for my refund to get here until Dec 30 or later which really sucks.

A couple days later I was informed that I was auto-dropped from the class and I will have to take it again, when I only had 3 more assignments and that was THEIR fault. When they informed me, I told them what happened. They said they would see what they could do and they would get back to me, never did. Today (Dec 9th 2008) they called me saying about me starting my algebra class in Feb. I told her what happened and she said there is nothing they could do. I will have to take the class again AND pay the $1000. I told her to please have someone else call me.

Tonight is my first DQ for my new (and last set of classes BESIDES the algebra I have to take again.) I tried to get the online books and it wouldn't let me, now it is doing the same thing it was doing. I have tried to get in there and get it done for 2 hours now. Now it will be docked 10% and I have stayed up way to late and I have a very busy day tomorrow.

They were trying to do everything they could to not mention that minor detail. I have now spoken with two financial advisers to get me into my final two classes and finish with an associates with them. They proceeded to put me in the wrong math class and now this will set me back from graduating and they'll probably try to get me to pay for their mistake. I cannot believe that I have wasted over $13,000 of my dollars on this school with a complete lack of credibility.

I was always being told something different. Never the same, the latest one has tore my family apart. I am an almost straight A student, I work hard to get the grades I get, no days off, no breaks and the class prices are insane. First few months, you get your books online that you can download and keep... This last semester, I took a science class, I didn't get to keep any of the book because it was all online and internet based and couldn't be kept or saved, but I paid for it anyway. My ethics class went fine. Well last semester, I took COM220 and I made it through the semester to finals,.I was hanging on to a C+ and would have walked away with a B- at least in my finals..

Well that's when the problem began to get even bigger, not to mention the grant and loan they pulled out to cover classes I was told at first would be covered. So I do my final assignment, I turn it in, the teacher claimed that because the plagiarizer checker said it was 12% plagiarized that she was not even going to read my paper and straight turned it in to the board. Well I checked the work and checked it again, words like the word (the) were considered plagiarized. Now I know that my grammar was not the best and I had forgotten to use quotation marks twice, but in those two times I had made sure as well that the names of the authors were in the paragraphs as well.

Well needless to say I fought it, and refused to take a full F for a grammar error that they claim was plagiarized and which is a criminal act. Then it comes to time that they finally got my check ready to send out, I get half of it instead of all of it, and they tell me that I have to pay for the class again and had me scheduled for the class already before they had even given me a chance to fight it or even submit the final decision to me. I told them no way would I take that class again, I was fighting it and refused to lay down and take it and get my good grades smeared over something I didn't do. To this day, I still have not been answered. I wrote a letter the first time around and was told no way in hell would the grade be changed, and that this person was the last and final word on it and that I could not fight it any longer.

I never got a chance to fight it to begin with. I was only allowed to submit a paper. How do I know they even bothered to read it? My teacher refused to change the grade or even read the paper. Now they tell me I have to pay for the class and the book , which I have already. And until it is resolved, I can do two things, I can pay for the book and the class again, and lose over 1,000 dollars and never get it back because I would be taking an extra class basically, or wait and get to take no more classes till it is resolved, if ever. This is what I have dealt with and so much more since after the first semester. The incompetency of this school is insane and they have already maxed out my loans and all to tell me that each class costs almost 1,000 dollars, for a 9 week class, and that's not including the book.

It doesn't cost that much for each class at an online campus college when you take 5 classes a semester. No one will talk to me about it, no one will give me any information. They all tell me the same thing; it's out of their hands, but they can't tell me whose hands it's in now.

I have had excellent enrollment counselors who have called me to check up on me, make sure I'm posting attendance, and answered any questions I have had as well keep me motivated through out my schooling. I have had many instances where the financial counselor doesn't return my call or takes days, sometimes weeks, to return my call. However, this is a minor annoyance since my enrollment counselor will do the things I need and follow up. I have recommended people to UOP and they are happily enrolled in college with no complaints.

Students who thought they were going to log on to a computer and receive a degree were in for a rude awakening. They (the students) thought the online degree was going to be easy, so most complained about other minor things to belittle the university. Students need to study very hard and submit the required research papers to be successful. Many students were not up for that type of training, so they dropped out. Those of us who are persistent will have a success story to tell.

I'm tired of listening to them that say that you cannot get a quality education from the UOP. The school is ideal for students who work very busy hours, manage families, run companies, or just want to learn. If it were not for schools like the UOP, where would these students attend? Who has time to manage families and attend school physically for hours each week? Let's face it; the invention of the UOP was a phenomenal idea. It has revolutionized the way one is taught as did the Google creators when they discovered a new way to search for information.

UOP has problems like every other educational institution. 300,000 students cannot all be wrong in their decisions. I consider myself to be a very open-minded individual. I can identity students who are trying to get a free ride and those who want an education. Believe me; the school will expose those students who are not there for a serious education because they cannot keep up with the more focused students and will eventually drop out.

So keep in mind when degrading the UOP, this school has built a level of confidence in students who want to succeed in life. Everyone cannot go to private universities due to their personal responsibilities. If you cannot attract the number of students you need to impress your stockholders or create a successful program to compete with the UOP, then you should give the leaders of the UOP the credit they deserve. We are the university that is innovative and transformational and that's what is attracting over 300,000 students.

Task Stream is a personal portfolio of the work I had to complete with the college. I had the head of internship placement the class before and he never stated that I posted on the wrong account before. Why all of the sudden am I being told this now? I find this to be another technical issue on the University side and I should not be penalized for this. I would appreciate any assistance you may give to me. I am a minority being a woman whose rights are clearly being violated against. How can they justify their rules when there is no one who represents students and their rights? They only provide an academic counselor who has no power to represent our complaints. They can only issue a grade dispute and then it is out of their hands.

Now they want me to state everything once again and say they need this with a wet signature. When do their games stop and will professionalism begin? I would like to continue my education and this university has it on hold. I contacted counsel here in Michigan and clearly students are at the mercy of the University and students have no one to represent them. I feel that this harassment against my constitutional rights for fair representation when clearly there is not any fair rights for students.

In closing, I am asking for representation and the right to obtain the degree that which was paid by a federal loan. I can state the other 2 incidents as well and I have proof of all them. First was a measurements class when the instructor would not even give me an opportunity to explain my opinions. She failed me and I took a class in between before retaking the class. I received an “A” from the next instructor. Next was the Financial Aid department sent me an extra $7068.00 with my excess funds from my federal loans. They wanted my personal information so they could retrieve the funds from my personal checking account. I sent the money back and I am still waiting for the postage money when I sent the check back to them in July by certified mail. I faxed them the total amount when I sent the check back. The final two incidents are my final class grade and Task Stream which I have mentioned above.

Economically speaking, I am $40,000 in debt with a student loan and I have nothing to show for it. They waited for the last class to play dirty pool against a woman trying to better her economic status. Physical damage is the mental anguish that they are causing me to go through. There needs to be a limit on how universities can call the shots against their students.

Of the total funds received - $5850, I had only two classes left which was clearly posted on my program summary. The cost of tuition for these two courses was $3550, this left a credit balance of $2300. Very basic math. I called and emailed my fourth financial counselor since beginning the program asking when the credit of $2300 would either be returned to the lender or sent to me. Should be soon I was told. I heard this same response for a few MONTHS. Financial Aid was very busy, etc. I couldn't imagine the delay in such a basic transaction and keep in mind this entire time, I am paying interest on the $2300.00 while they are earning interest keeping it in their account.

I finished my last class with them Sept 29th. Still, the credit remained on my account. By the end of October, I was more than frustrated and felt the manner in which my funds were becoming unethical and possibly illegal? Not until Nov 11 did they return the funds to the lender, in the amount of $2625.00. Why that amount is beyond me. Now they are asking for the difference of $325 from me! First I had an extra $2300 and now because they can't get their crap together, I am supposed to pay them a balance. This does not include the fact that I never received a student aid report for the disbursement showing what I was eligible for, which should have included a Pell Grant that I never received or heard a single word about. When I email my financial aid counselor, he never addresses that question. I intend to take this matter up with whomever I believe needs to be aware of UOP's financial aid practices.

One overly pushy UOP sales rep contacted me by phone before 8 a.m. this morning! They are not abiding by my wishes to quit contacting me. With the economy in such a lousy state, I suspect these folks are desperate for students and end up hounding each and every person who inquires about their programs. Enough is enough. Their tactics are to dangle bait in front of each potential student and hope that we bite so that they can reel us in to an extremely expensive and not always effective or useful degree program. I'd say run the other direction. There are plenty more qualified, accessible and professional degree programs around. Don't jump at the first degree opportunity. Investigate your options. Good Luck.

Shortly after all that transpired, I receive a bill from collections stating I owe $1700.00. I informed the financial department and the collections department that I would not pay for classes that have already been paid for by my company, and that I would not continue schooling with them or any of their associates. My wife, however, continued with the degree program with Phoenix for more than a year after my complications with them, until today (11/11/2008). She had failed a class and was told she had to pay for this class because the federal loan would not cover a failed class. Not having $975.00 to just shell out, my wife asked her financial counselor what she could do. He said that he would put in for a loan for her to cover the cost and she would be able to make payments after she graduated, like with the federal loan.

Well, that was two weeks ago, today, she gets a e-mail from a new (and this is the 4th counselor so far in less than two years) financial counselor that she could not continue classes until this payment was made. My wife phoned him and asked him about the loan the last counselor applied her for, and this counselor knew nothing about it, then told her that the bank the loan was for went under, and she cannot continue her classes next week and must pay the $975.00.

I went on to my next classes - getting A's of course, still fighting with my counselors until I finally had enough and 'fired' them, getting another 'team'. But I found I still was not getting the waiver from Jared **, my new financial counselor. Nor was I getting anywhere with my loan limit increase. Eventually I found I had to get very sharp with them on the phone and via e-mail regarding these issues. But this was not hard to do as I was becoming SO disgusted in my classes with the quality of teaching I was paying for!

I had ONE "real" class with ONE person who deserved to be called a teacher. But they skirt that by calling them "facilitators" not teachers! But that is not the real issue. I was in what should have been UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES with people (no personal offense to them) who had no business being there - they could scarcely compose complete sentences, let alone string 4 or 5 of them together. My last class was called "Essentials of College Writing" and I will spare you the details of my issues with that "facilitator! " Suffice to say that was the last straw and I had enough. I dropped out in the middle of the class. I chose to enroll in Regent University. However here I am three months later unable to attend Regent because UOP refused to send my transcripts, then refused to respond to my requests, then listed me as "Not in good standing"?!?!

First, they stole the $1500 (approx) I was promised by the financial counselor for the first class I failed due to their inept academic counseling. Then, that cost of living loan increase, when it FINALLY came through I get a letter from them saying I'm not getting any of it?!?! Well, my new financial counselor announces rather matter-of-factly, "oh, tuition has gone up." SO THEY KEPT MY LIVING EXPENSES MONEY FROM MY STUDENT LOAN?!?! For the first half the year was half the $2000, so they got $1000!! OF MY MONEY!!

To date I am still fighting to get written confirmation of my waiver they 'claim' I received, but even with UOP having their own 'division' of people you have to talk to at Sallie Mae, I still don't understand what happened. This is what I know - the way I see it, UOP ripped me off for $2500, had me in ridiculous classes with high school equivalent students, taught by about the same level "facilitators." BUT NOW THEY ARE BILLING ME FOR $1000?!?!

A couple of weeks went by and there was still no check in my mailbox. I wrote to him several more times, rather frantic, because I was counting on that money and had bills that were either coming due or overdue. I kept being reassured that it was being taken care of and I should have my money soon. It never came. By the time my classes had ended, not only had I NOT gotten my disbursement, it turned out that the school hadn't processed my application at ALL. So now, in addition to having other debts that I was unable to pay, I owed the school $2,015!! I was told that my application had, basically, been forgotten about.

I was also told that the debt would be written off by the school because it was their fault this had occurred. Well, my last day of classes was October 19th. Today's date is November 7th and my account summary still shows a balance of $2015. I can't even get a copy of the diploma I earned until that's zeroed-out! I'm supposed to be taking classes with U of P for my Bachelor degree (can't start those until this dilemma is resolved). I'm considering withdrawing now, though. Especially after seeing this website and the long list of complaints... How can I expect anyone to take my degree seriously when it comes from an organization that can't manage something this basic??

I adore my academic counselor and my financial aid counselor is a nice guy, too, but I'm rapidly losing respect for the school they work for. It's especially frustrating that this happened at the end. I'm supposed to be happy about graduating college and all I can think about is how ticked off I am!

My advisor assured me that if I decided after taking classes that I didn't want to continue University of Phoenix all of the credits that I had earned would transfer to any school or University as long as I was sticking with a career in Human Services. So I signed up, and held a 4.0 GPA the entire time I was going to University of Phoenix. Upon enrolling, I was told that they would get me the student loans and financial aid that I needed and they would help me through this process. I got all of the paperwork done for financial aid with no help from my advisor and was still waiting on the loans all while accumulating a balance with UoP.

When I asked why there was still a balance on my online statement, I was told that the loans just hadn't been applied yet but they would come so not to worry about it. So I continued going to school. In my learning teams I started to become suspicious when many of my fellow team members seemed to lack the ability to even write an essay much offer assistance in completing a decent project. All but one team member didn't know what they were doing so the two of us finished the projects almost on our own so as to save our grade. I felt like I was doing everything by myself and my team members were just along for the ride.

However I was determined to finish school with my 4.0 so that I could have the career that I wanted. Come to find out after receiving letters from the loan companies, I didn't qualify to receive any loans and definitely not in the amount I needed to pay for school. At the end of my 5th class, I asked my financial advisor if I should just take a break before starting the next class to make sure that I could get that paid before it racked up as I was on a budget and couldn't afford another class added on. She told me not to worry about it, that I was scheduled for the next class and might as well take it and learn. She also said that since I had a 4.0, I would qualify for a school scholarship and she would email me the application.

After that meeting, I called back because I never received an email, and never heard anything back. At the end of my class, my financial advisor finally was magically able to find me... to inform me that I was suspended until everything was paid. She said that she would contact the University about my scholarship and to sit tight. Again she told me no worries. That was the last time I ever heard a word from UoP. I called, emailed my advisors, nothing. Until of course I was contacted by Corporate because I was in their collections for $3400. For the 3 classes that my financial aid hadn't covered.

Am I the only one that thinks this didn't add up? I was told that 15 classes would be $10,500 but 3 classes alone were $3400. When I tried to ask what to do to get this resolved, the lady in collections was extremely condescending and told me that I would need to pay the full balance. I asked if there was a way to make payments and she said that was unacceptable - I would need to pay the full balance and had 15 days to do it or they would sell my account, Which they did. As for my credits that I did get that should have transferred, I was told by 3 local colleges and universities that they do not accept credits from UoP. One advisor told me that she dealt with this a lot and I probably got scammed along with many other people that wasted their time at this school.

In the meantime she instructed me to just disregard my bills. I of course did as she instructed. I later find out (when I mentioned that I wanted to withdraw from the university for personal reasons... and was informed that I didn't have my priorities straight), that I actually owed the university just under $4000 for only 2 classes (one in which I hadn't completed yet), and that I owed them the money immediately or it would be sent to collections. I attempted to explain to them what I had been told on other occasions by 2 other people, and requested to be withdrawn immediately as I had informed them also at the beginning that I did not want to attend their university if I would not be receiving financial aid. Since then (about a week ago), I have noticed that I have not been withdrawn as I can still access the class, and have not received an answer back from either the academic advisor or the financial aid advisor, in which they were so quick to address my problem when they thought that I would still be attending their university.

Well it didn't take long for me to get Sallie Mae's # and I called them. I talked to one of their loan specialists and she said their story was nonsense. The school has complete control over disbursements. When I called to speak to a financial aid manager, Robin, she was supposed to call but didn't. I asked for a copy of the code that said Federal Stafford Loan wouldn't allow... I was denied. It seems they flat out lied to me. Maybe to make sure I was in the next class? That would be really stupid as I only have 2 classes left after this one. I will have earned my MBA then. I'm not at all irresponsible in paying them and currently have a 3.9 GPA. This sounds very suspicious.

Furthermore, I believe I have been in classes where the instructors are knowledgeable. They have given me constructive criticism and direction. I do believe the tuition is high compared to local colleges, however, the cost of tuition offsets the convenience of online learning. I will be receiving my A.S. in Business in February, although, I do not believe I will be continuing on for my B.S. with U of Ph. I am not fond of the learning teams and am looking for a more cost effective approach for my last two years of school. Regardless of where I will be attending school in the future, I believe my time spent at U of Ph has not been wasted and that I have mattered to the staff.

I then contacted the Bank to see if they had received any information or documents from UOP and they said that they were still waiting for the school to submit my information after waiting two months. The financial aid department (Debbie **), who is quite unhelpful, claims that the school's policy is to have students attend at least three classes before financial aid is completed. This policy, in my opinion, is so that UOP can bill students and continue to get money from them for each class!

The financial aid counselor never responded to my last email asking her why they never sent my documents to the Bank for processing. And the Enrollment Counselor, Chase **, was helpful at the beginning, but after I told him that I had withdrawn from the school, he tried to pressure me to continue with my second class. He told me that even if I got a C grade in the second class, that'll be OK, because I got an A in the first class.

He was only concerned about me logging in to the second class,so that I would then be charged for that second week of the second class also. He also told me that the University may charge me for the complete second class, even though I only attended one week, because that's their policy. I told him that I received an email from Financial Aid stating that I would owe for the first class that I completed and the first week of the second class.

He also said that he thinks that's incorrect. I've got the email as proof and I plan on taking legal action against UOP if I receive a bill outside of what I'm supposed to pay. This school is a total scam and they are out to get people's money at any cost possible. I have never heard of a school that admits students prior to getting financial aid in order. UOP basically lets students hang themselves without them even knowing it.

To date, they are still billing me for classes I did not attend or sign up for. The attorney service has run out. I am seeking a refund for the difference in what I agreed to have charged to my credit card and the charge that occurred in the amount of $198. I also need them to stop billing me as this may result in damage to my credit report. Of course its stressful and annoying to not be getting anywhere, but I am just looking for any help to just get some answers.

Yesterday I receive a call from Sherry in the collections department. She states that I owe a balance of $2,888.90 and it is due immediately. In addition to being very rude during the entire course of the conversation, she told me that I had incurred extra fees over 1,000 dollars in extra fees, yet she would not tell me why or what for. I then explained to her what Alicia had told me about paying in steady amounts until the balance was paid and she told me that the financial advisor had no idea what goes on in the collections department and she was giving me false information.

When I explained to Sherry that I do not have almost 3,000 dollars just lying around, she suggested I apply for a credit card to pay my balance or start begging family and friends for the money. I gave her an amount of money that I could pay immediately and then make a monthly payment every month. She then told me that was not acceptable and that the amount was due in full. She also told me that they had sent me a bill in the mail in July and received no response. Having gotten nothing from them, I asked her how exactly I could have responded. She replied with "Unfortunately, that is your problem." She then informed me that I had 48 hours to contact her back with payment or they would proceed with legal action against me. She gave me her contact information and hung up.

After thinking for a few minutes about how I was going to deal with this woman and get her to understand that I realize I am responsible for the bill and have full intention of paying it, I decide to call her back and speak with a supervisor. I was hoping to speak with someone who was not so rude and to understand my financial situation (I am a single mom living far below the poverty line). Well, I attempted to contact Sherry again at the phone number she provided only to hear the message that the number has been disconnected!!

If I don't take the class, I lose my financial aid and have to start making payments immediately. I was also told by the sales guy that I could easily transfer credits from my former master's program to this program. I spent months waiting for an answer about which classes I'd be allowed to waive. I finally called and was told only classes in which I earned an 'A' would qualify to get the course waived. Yet 4 of the 6 transcripts I submitted were for courses in which I DID earn an 'A'. So I still don't know why I can't transfer credits. This wouldn't be quite the financial strain if I could actually work and earn an income. However, as others here have noted, I cannot afford to take anything for granted when it comes to Learning Teams and so I have to be prepared to do all the work myself.

In my first five classes, about 75% of the students could not construct simple sentences, let alone be trusted with master's level assignments. I had to re-write an entire assignment for a teammate because it was unintelligible. Finally, despite competitive tuition (higher than any other school I considered), UoP seems to have chronic server problems. Of course, these only occur near the end of the academic week, when students are trying to log on to submit their assignments! Thankfully, at least two of my instructors have been understanding about the problem, but not all of them are. You'd think that with the money UoP is charging, it could afford a better server or at least an IT person to keep it running.

I had some issues with a teacher that kept giving me a bad grade due to my assignments not being turned in on time. They were in on time and I spent many hours on the phone with tech support that gave me a ticket number to give to the teacher and to tell the teacher it was on the teacher server end. Well about 2-3 weeks later that got cleared up, then I started my other classes three weeks into the classes we had I believe 2 teachers and in my work and trying to understand the work and the teacher not responding to my question. She started giving me bad grades.

And the calls to my advisor Michelle, that half the time never got returned when I finally did hear from Michelle. I at that time told her I wanted to withdraw from school, she urged me to hang on I only had X amount of weeks left in class and because I had signed into class they couldn't drop me. As she was busy reassuring me that things would get better (they did not, they got worse). I wanted to change from Health Care Administration to Pharmacy, if I decided to stay in school. She sent me an enrollment form and told me as soon as she got it back she would enter it into the computer. And it would change immediately to reflect the Pharmacy tendencies. When it was getting time to start more classes, I contacted Michelle ** several times and I had not heard back from her so I did contact Dan ** in finance and request a withdrawal form, he faxed me a form.

I signed, dated and mailed the form back with a letter informing him why I was withdrawing from school. I received a call from Michelle ** stating they were dropping me from class because of lack of participation. I sent her an e-mail back asking her if I was missing something, that I had withdrawn from school and that I owed no money as my founder had paid and I had also taken copies of all financials on the site (I did all that the day I withdrawn from class) ** was aware of that. Then I started getting the letters from Dan **, when I received the letter from Dan, I wrote him back and I also contacted my founder via mail and asked them both Dan and the founder for a breakdown and dates of all monies paid.

I had not yet received anything from the school except a letter from a Ms **. They are now threatening to send me to collections if I do not pay $1,823.12 by October 20th 2008. As I told my Scott in my letter today October 14th 2008, if she sends me to collections before I get the statements I will contact the Attorney Generals office for unfair practices and whom ever else I can contact. In my opinion University of Phoenix is bad, bad news and I have never in my life been lied to so much as certain individuals at the school. I do have all documentation and all from my correspondence with them. There is more but,..........................