Katharine Gibbs School, ripoff Piscataway New Jersey
I would like to inform ANY person who may be interested in taking classes at the Katharine Gibbs School to obtain information and then proceed with caution.
I signed up for their new Medical Assistant program, attended for 15 days and I am now responsible to pay a Stafford Loan in the amount of around $800.00 and $1,725.10 to the school.
First of all I gained absolutely NOTHING in those 15 days, as a matter of fact it was the biggest waste of my time.
When you are interested in going to the school, you get all of the attention in the world. There are people constantly calling you or answering your calls. As soon as I decided to drop, I could not get a person to call me back for almost 3 weeks.
They push you and hurry you to sign you up. They do not make you fully aware of their policies. Sure I got this big pamphlet but NOT ONE person made me aware of the print on the back of the enrollment agreement, which just so happen to be signed and shoved into my folder quicker than I could wink.
This is an email response I got when I asked for the amount that I am supposed to pay these people to be reviewed:
Patricia,
I am sorry that circumstances led you to have to withdraw from school and create this problem for you. Unfortunately, when you enrolled you signed an enrollment agreement and the tuition refund policy was described on the back of that document. This situation is much different than going to the store to buy a gallon of milk. You are purchasing an education and financing your future. It is a big investment and again, I regret that it did not work out for you.
I would be more than happy to look at the lab fee that was charged but unfortunately there is not much we can do regarding the tuition charge.
Greg Salter
Oh yeah they charged me a lab fee and all of the classes that I had were lecture. They are also extremely over priced. I am going to be attending a school offering the same degree for a fourth of the cost. And they tried to tell me that the education I would be getting there is not good and I would have trouble finding employment after graduating.
I checked the credentials of the other school, which has been teaching Allied Health programs for over 40 years, and they are just as good as Gibbs and they provide employment assistance upon graduation.
I could go on and on, but bottom line, I feel totally RIPPED OFF!
Patricia
Lebanon, New Jersey
U.S.A.
3 Updates & Rebuttals
Greg
Media,Pennsylvania,
U.S.A.
60 Minutes Reports - When you make something like this for profit it becomes a target for abuse.
#4Consumer Suggestion
Fri, August 19, 2005
FYI 60 Minutes did a report pn 8/14/05 about this SCAM with the GIBBS schools mentioned by name.
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/08/11/60minutes/main772913.shtml
Looks like it's finally out in the open. When you make something like this for profit it becomes a target for abuse. All they care about are the stockholders and the next annual report.
David
Middlesex County,New Jersey,
U.S.A.
Katharine Gibbs School Insight
#4UPDATE EX-employee responds
Thu, August 18, 2005
Sorry to hear your misfortune. I can provide a little insight.
First off, the whole KGS chain isn't making its numbers (i.e. bringing in students). Any school that has to arrange car rides for its students is in sad shape. Colleges don't do that. Besides, if you don't have adequate transportation, you shouldn't be attending school. Will a job that you apply to arrange for a car ride for you to go to work?
Retention numbers are low. KGS is constantly giving lay-offs to its employees to keep above water. This is usually when an employee is approaching his/her annual review. If you are a current student and observant, you will notice certain people in Administration get shuffled around or let go all together. In most cases, there are more computers in a classroom than they are students on the class roster.
There are two school budgets: one for the Admission Representatives and one for Education (i.e. Instructors, Deans, Financial Aid, Administration) The Ad Rep budget is abundant. The theory is that you could never have enough Ad Reps. The Education budget is based on the performance of the Ad Reps and student retention.
The Admission Representatives will say anything to make their quota and save their job. If an Ad Rep doesn't bring in 8 students for the following semester, he or she will be fired. Therefore, there is no policing the Ad Reps about the lies they may tell. Once a new semester starts if a new student drops out within the first two weeks, it is a loss for the Ad Rep. If the student drops out at anytime after two weeks, it is a loss for Education. You may notice Ad Reps will bend over backwards to get students through the first two weeks. Some have even drove students to school. Then there are times when they enroll students in the fourth week of the eleven-week semester. That is a third of a semester.
Financial Aid often times made mistakes that works against the students.
Career Services takes credit for the jobs that students already have regardless if it is in their field or not, and regardless if Career Services was instrumental in finding the student a job or not.
KGS is only focused on quick, short-term success. Based on job trends they will start up a program with no experience running it. The Piscataway campus has been trying for years to acquire Middle-States approval so that it can be independently Associate Degree granting. Currently, the school can only offer a certificate; if a student wants to obtain an Associate's degree he or she must complete his or her final semester in the Livingston campus. The Piscataway campus had to constantly withdraw their bid for degree granting status. This is because of failures on the Administration side.
It's because these problems and poor ethics that KGS is in the hole it is in now. Each new Dean inherits a pile of garbage left behind the previous Dean. The school has such a bad reputation that all it could enroll are students with learning disabilities and bi-polar disorders, thugs looking to case the place, and those who have a high school mentality that want everything handed to them without having to work for it. All of which won't make it in the work force.
The instructors are polite and knowledgeable in their fields. Unfortunately, they are being subjected to jump through hoops to attain a Master's Degree, a Middle-States requirement, in order to keep their jobs at a school that is probably on the verge of bankruptcy and won't play them what they deserve.
Students, both current and potential, need to do research and not take the all so common every school has flaws rationale.
Cherice
South Amboy,New Jersey,
U.S.A.
Same s**t happened to me
#4Consumer Comment
Mon, August 08, 2005
Where should I begin? Let's see about 3 weeks before school started on July 7th 2005 I had a ride there but a few days later he calls and says his arm is broken ,,,my admissions rep Debbie Elsweig had told me she had a ride for me until October,but I would have to get someone to take me the first couple of weeks in July.... then when the second semester came I would be on the shuttle bus..... and wouldnt have to worry about getting a ride there.. HA!!!!!!AFTER,,,,,, I enrolled I had called debbie many times to see where that ride was because I didn't have a ride anymore.. And couldnt keep asking people to take me there all the time..... Anyways,,, I talked to Bridgette Quinn and she had told me there was no shuttle bus..... Boy was I pissed....
And Debbie told me that she cant help me anymore... She didn't help to begin with.. So I live in South Amboy , but it's Old Bridge Township and its about 2-4 miles from the train.. Bridgette told me to take the train to New Brunswick.... HA, NO! The South Amboy train doesnt go to New Brunswick and even if it did I would have to take a cab from my house to the train, go all the up to Newark and come back and then I would be in New Brunswick-- But then i would get to NB and then I would have to walk from NB to piscataway at 10 at night... Everyone knows you dont walk in NB at that time of night- thats a good way to get yourself raped or killed....
So now I signed a stupid student loan form saying that the total cost was 18,000 and some change.... Now I had grants on there in the amount of 3,875..... and then the balance was 13,701....but I received a letter from the Higher Education -state of NJ saying that the gibbs school in Piscataway wasn't approved to participate in student scholarships or grants.. It made me want to cry because at the school there is a bulletin board with " scholarship" students who all just graduated high school, with their pictures up there thinking they have scholarships...It's so sad how that school is so money hungry....Those poor kids are all going to be in debt....
Ok I wanted to withdraw and cancel my loans because it was obvious I was getting there anymore--- I mean I tried everything-- tried transfering to NY cuz the bus to NY was right outside my house... but that didnt work either...
So I called, many times, Dawn Mann, ALison Malik, and Debbie from financial Aid to cancel...I left messages plenty of times and not one person got back to me...... So I got fed up and wrote a letter to four higher up people in that school, Eric Friedman, Brian Condon, and Corie something,,,, and someone else.
So on saturday I went to The Gibbs School to withdraw and signed a paper saying that I only owe them 410. and some change.. Now today ( 8/8/05) I received a letter saying that my account was in a collection agency and that I owe them 3,101.55 cents.... WRONG... d**n them,,, that school should be put out of business....!!
They try to rip people off so badly there it's not even funny....
On top of that this school has caused me so much stress and I am a month pregnant. If I lose my baby I am suing....