Complaint Review: University Of Phoenix Online

I writing this out of anger, so please excuse my grammer.

In addition, I hate to bash any educational institutions, but I just find it in my heart to write this to warn all potential UOP students, about this unethical and deceptive behaviour adversting, recurriment of UOP.

Anyways, on January of this year, I was spammed by University of Phoenix offering online distance course with offer of tutition wavier for my first course and textbook material. Since I hated those spammers, I took UOP for a ride, let alone I love learning. Two days later I got call from a conuciler from UOP, and she urged me to apply for the Canada-Ontario OSAP Government Financial Aid, which I refused, and I told her that was not necessary, and instead I give her a MasterCard that is about to expired in one month. Strangly enough, they do not ask me to send them a proof I identity for check if my Social Insurance Number or address is valid. (P.S. I used my uncle's address and fake Social Insurance Number generated by a online site). They only ask me by MasterCard or urged me to applied Financial Aid.

At this time, I was already a second year student enrolled in Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Marketing and Minoring in Anthrolopology at the University of Toronto. I had no plan to transfer, nor I inform UOP of my current status.

So I decided to b.s. the counciler to belief that I used to enrolled in oversea university for two years, and I will have a copy of transcript within a month for them. As a result, I was allowed in to enrolled in a third year Accounting course.

Next is what I found shocking... absolutely shocking. I tooked their 3rd accounting ACC440 course, and it was even easier than our first year MGT120H accounting here at the University of Toronto. Even worse, it was so easy, I think just about everyone got a A... This lead me to think UOP had no quality control, basically if you can hold a folk, you can get a A. At U of T, we don't have best program on earth, but at least they only hand out A(s) to only A students, our courses are hard, really hard, and class average are normally 68% to 69% (C+).

Two days after I finished this course, I called up counciler, who unfortunately no longer worked there. I told new counciler that I no intention to enrolled any further at UOP, given what I felt about the quality of their program. She then demanded that I paid for my first course before I was allowed to withdrawal. By now, my credit card had already expired and I wasn't ready hand anything over this evil institution nor given them my real Social Insurance Number. Instead arged for 30 minutes straight on the phone with this b*tch and eventually she offered me another course free of charge provided I do not drop out. I must say, I never this much pressure in my life, so decided to give them another doubt (I dont' know why am I even bother wasting my time).

So, I decide to use my next credit on different topic Marketing, my favorite. MKT463, holly micro, this course I think is half as hard as our MGT252, btw I worked my a*s*off and got 61% on that course. But guess what, MKT463, I got A+, without barely touching the textbook.

Again, I demand a withdrawal, except this time for real, for already 20 minutes I wouldn't no for answer and eventually again she allowed me to cancel my enrollment provided I paid for the courses I had taken. Guess what, I said YES, send me the invoice since I told them my new MasterCard is on way in the mail. Now, I am sure they are on their way in the mail. Don't worry guys, these idoits get a penny off me, since the credit card I used belong to my uncle and his address and a bogus birthday and SSN. Thanks Uncle Jeff for allowing me use your expired CC and to mess around with his evil corporation.

Now, here is my commments:
First, if you are serious of getting a degree go to a real college, and get it. UOP have no quality control, like i said, if you can hold a fork, you can get a A. Both of the course I took, I got A+ (just to let you know guys, I haven't got a A for very long time at U of T), in fact most of my grades are either Cs. Secondly, the counciler are more like gold diggers, if you are going to take courses with them, do not allow them to hold of a government financial aid... i just don't trust them.

Guys, I am not saying my school are superior than other schools, but I personally believe any school is better than UOP. Its just make me sick that some people can get a Bachelor degree this easy without having to work to hard for it, let alone getting As. For me and my friends, our business school (Rotman School of Management/ University of Toronto). We worked really hard and most get low Cs. Just to let you know that our professor could get into serious trouble if he/she hands out to many As, our class average must be C, no exceptions. Its just not fair. In addition, at least our tutition are only $9,000 per year and get access to real counciler. Lastly, believe me, after going thru their program myself, you can count that I believe would never hired anyone from this school. In my opinion, their degree are worth just as much as the paper that they printed on!

In the end, I must say since I only did 2 courses with this institution, I can not say that all their program sucked, but as far as business, I will give them a failing grade.

So, my advice to anyone choosing a college is to do your investigation and don't believe anyone. After all, you have live with your decision, not them.

Here is link their Business Program:
http://www.uopxonline.com/programs.asp

Here is also a link to our Commerce Program:
http://www.utoronto.ca/commerce/dm.htm

"After attending the University of Phoenix for about a year, I feel like I have been scammed. Not only do all the class cost a lot of money - in which I was informed that my federal loan would pay for most of it (It doesn't)."

Angie If you had read and acknowledged the Shortfall in funding policy, this would have been made very clear to you.

"The school raised the tuition. They told me I would only have to pay four thousand and the federal loan would pay the rest of it."

All schools raise their tuition almost every year. This is the nature of the economy and operating costs. The tuition last year was $465/credit up until about July. They raised it a whole $10 to $475/credit. That doesn't seem like a geat deal to me.

"The first year so far I have been taking english classes on how to write papers."

Did you have previous English credits to transfer in and waive out of those credits? If not then I don't think you can complain about it. If you feel taking these classes was beneath you, you could have always taken a CLEP to meet the credit and proficiency requirement.

"Every class is pretty much the same only you have to buy different books."

The format is supposed to remain the same so students don't have to re-learn how to take classes.

"(Class books always range between 50 to 100 dollars - sometimes you have to buy two or three.)"

Online books are delivered via rEsource which is like a subscription to the books for a cost of $70 per class. Due to copyright restrictions, certain books are not available online. In any case there is not a single class that requires more than one book.

"If you don't have a credit card, then it's hard to buy the used books from their online store."

Well I am not going to get into the reasons as to why you do not have a credit card, but they also take debit as well. I also want to add that if you were on financial aid then the MAJORITY of your books would have been paid by financial aid. The physical books you may have had to purchase (very few) can be purchased far enough ahead of time so long as you do not procrastinate and wait until the day before you start class.

"I never got to pick any of my classes and most of them I felt I didn't need."

If you were intelligent enough to test out of them then you should have tried to CLEP that coursework. Unless you have the credits to meet those requirements then you have to take those courses. Welcome to College!

"The staff and instructors are not helpful and seem unknowledgable themselves. I had an instructor ignore me for the whole five week class - never answered my questions when posted to the newsgroup or answer any of my emails."

I can't agree with this at all. I have had some good instructors and some really bad ones. Even if I can't get an answer from the instructor I have always had one of my peers answer me in the newsgroup.

"When I asked the advisor to response to this situation -she informed me that it would take several weeks for the investigative team to do any research on my problem. The class was almost over at that point."

I agree that they take a long time to review cases.

"Most of your grade is based on your study group. If your group doesn't work then you receive a bad grade even if you did the work."

I have taken about 14 classes with UOP and I have never had my group assignments count for more than 35% of my grade.

"I had one study group that did not want to work at all. I turned the project in on my own and was told since I did not particpate with the other students, I would receive a failing grade."

In the cases where I have had a group that was not participating then I took action and did the assignment on my own. Yes it was a great deal of work but it was worth it since part of my grade depended on it. I have always been able to get full credit as long as I turned the assignment in and explained the lack of participation to my instructor.

"I also was told that I would only have to attend class one or two days a week. Which would have been perfect for me because I work long hours. All the instructors require you to attend five days a week."

The requirements even since I started back in August 2004 have always been 4 days of participation. I have never been required to log in at certain times or for a set amount of time. This is clearly stated in the syllabus. 4 days is not a great deal to ask especially if you only need to log in for a few hours each day. It sounds to me like you need to manage your time better.

"I had many instructors change the due date of projects at the last minute."

I have had this a few times but in every single instance the instructiors have always accomodated us by changing the due date.

"For class partipation, you had to post two response to other class members a day. The requirement for these responses would have to be between 250 to 750 words. Many times, you had to quote from the text books. The instructors would never post questions for you to answer - class partipation was always based on what other class mates posted. It made it very difficult to follow the guidelines if other students did not post anything of signifcant value."

My instructors have always posted discussion questions. Even in my Math classes we were given discussion questions and even problems of the day that would count towards participation. Significant value is a relative matter. Your definition of significant may differ from others. In any case I have never been required to post upwards of 750 words for a response. This may be for the discussion questions but responses for participation are generally about 50-100 word responses and they have to be substantive. Read the syllabus.

"The last straw was when my finacial advisor told me that this next class I was taking would all be covered by my federal loan - turns out that I again had problems with the instructor and was not allowed to drop the class."

Refer to the shortfall in funding policy and the Academic policy.

"So I completed it and then wrote a letter that I did not want to attend any more classes."

This is entirely up to you if you want to drop. However you have to keep in mind that when you apply for financial aid you have to complete 24 credits within one year to maintain full time status and therefore rate the money you were given. If you decide not to meet the obligations then the school is required by the DOE to send back the money.

"A new financial advisor called - I'm assuming the old one got fired? This is the third finacial advisor that I have had.(There's a huge staff turnover)"

Or maybe he got promoted?
----------------------------------------------
"The new guy called to inform me that I own 1,200 dollar for the last class. I said I was told it would be covered by my federal loan. He replied that it would not since I was dropping out of the school and that I needed to pay it asap."

This probably happened due to you not meeting your 24 credit obligation. Read the policies you acknowledged and take responsibility for your actions.

Hi Angie,

I had the exact situation happen to me at the UoP. Contact Atty,. General Goddard's office at http://www.azag.gov and file a formal complaint with them. I did and they are investigating. If their office gets enough complaints.

As far as you needing to get a grip, contact the Atty, General and you will be getting a grip. Paople do not know the crap that they will go through once they try to withdraw.

I even have my account on the credit bureaus now for money that was apparently sent back to the Dept of education almost two years ago, but the Dept. of Education had no record of the UoP sending back anything, that I do not owe anything.

This institution is great, as long as you comply with their policies. And one more thing, they have up tpo 120 days to request federal money for students, however, their policy is only 29 days, I bet they didn't even follow theor own guidelines and request the funding.

In my instance, my loans were rejected by the UoP THREE times while I was a student and they never caught it, now they want me to pay...For what? A dysfunctional employee???

Do yourself and others like us a favor and file a formal complaint with the Atty. General. Please...

Angie, I am sorry you had such a bad experience at Phoenix. I don't think it was one that you couldn't have had anywhere though. I attended phoenix, and my experience with financial aid and classes was not a hassle at all. Some people have good experiences and some may have bad, but I don't see that as any reason to attack the whole institution because you are frustrated. Some of your points, were not valid. you stated that most of your grades came from the team work, not so. Some of your grades came from teamwork, others from individual assigment,posted weekly, and daily posts for participation, and then you had your discussion questions. I don't think it is fair that you let people believe that the University of Phoenix grades are based solely on team interaction. Please be more honest next time.

Angie,
First of all, you had full access to your account with UoP the entire time you were a student there, and should have been able to keep track of what your expenses were. Second, a credit card is NOT required to buy your books, you can use a money order. Your next comment that caught me as unusual was " had an instructor ignore me for the whole five week class - never answered my questions when posted to the newsgroup or answer any of my emails. When I asked the advisor to response to this situation -she informed me that it would take several weeks for the investigative team to do any research on my problem. " Now, I have been a student at UoP for over two years now, and ther eis a complaints department that will contact the facilitator, and they are required to reply to the student within 48 hours. If the class is about to end the situation can be handled the same day. My question is why did you wait until the last week of class to complain. If you were having troubles throughout the whole class, then I find it interesting tha tyou did not complain sooner.

As for you attendance to class, if you read in the handbook it states the requirements for classes. This might teach you a lesson in reading the handbook.

I also find it hard to believe that there were no questions for you to respond to. I have yet to EVER have a class without discussion questions. Besides this, why not start your own questions. Take a piece of information and ask a question on what someone's thoughts were to it.
UoP is an accredited college,therefore your credits should transfer.

I have been in classes with little participation and this is when you get creative. I have also been in classes where the facilitator was pretty unattentive, and this is when you take the initiative to do it yourself. This si a college that is for adults, not little children and maybe you are not ready for the real world lifestyle where if you want it done do it yourself.

Honestly, I think that although you did have a bad experience, you are very yuong in maturity. To say that you attended UoP for as long as you did and you did not learn anything, I feel is a bold faced lie. So you learned nothing about APA format, or how to use a newsgroup, or how to write a paper over 250 words. If you found the staff to be rude why did you stay there as long as you did, and why did you sign up in the first place if initially the staff was rude.

Finally, UoP does not award ANY financial aid money to their students, the money you recieved was from a private lending institution and when you signed the Master Promissary Note, you agreed that if you dropped the classes all together that your student loans would be immediately due. I must say that i feel as though you have scammed the University by what you have said, in fact it is slander. Apparently UoP did fail to teach you one thing, to check your facts before you type.

I would just like to make you aware that COUNSELORS ARE NOT PAID UPON ANY FORM OF COMMISSION!!!! The Department of Education would shut down any educational institution if anyone was being paid on commission for anything!!! If you don't believe it, do some research on the Dept. of Ed's website!!! Thank you!

Life does not make significance easy to attain. Wanting and earning are NOT the same things. There are a few rules that have been accredited to Bill Gates that somehow seem appropriate to most of these complaints:

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

It's sounds as though you need to get a grip. I have been a UOP student for over one year. I attend their FlexNet Program, which is partially online and partially classroom experience. I am fortunate as I am with an incredible group of intelligent people. I prefer this experience as as a person approaching 50, with all due respect, would prefer to not be in class with forty 18 & 19 year olds after putting in a 10 or 12 hour day at work. I have had experiences that have been very positive and some not so hot, but that's life. I feel overall that the expense is worth the convenience and the quality of education is very comparable to other programs in my specialty area. The principle component and and the attraction to education geared to mature adults is that there is much expectation of independent study and accountability to the learning experience. In newsgroup classroom conversation that goes a bit dry, it takes a bit of creative and critical thinking on the part of every student to make it a productive learning environment. It is all not the responsibility of the professor. And as far as your comment regarding instructors, UOP prides themselves as having instructors that actively work in the profession of study. Does that mean that there are sometimes folks that aren't the greatest at teaching...perhaps. I for one value the wealth of real world experience over someone who has incredible intellect and no common sense in the real world. Take your pick. It's a free country. You were a willing participant, and it sounds like you need a few classes in taking accountability for your actions and choices. I personally commend UOP for their progressive approach to online education.

I did take a MBA Certificate course through Tulane University. It was pretty good if you can get to the first day of class. After the university changed my password just before the class began and three days to get it straight I was able to log on an start the training. It is a course based on 30 hours of lectures and a final quiz. A student can retake the same quiz as many times as it takes to get 80%. I started and finished the course over the 4th of July holiday. I just do not think that the MBA Certificate holds any weight.

To the poster of this, it sounds like you were misinformed of a few things and I'm sorry to hear you had alot of time and money wasted. I agree that U Of P is too expensive and I wish a competitive, reputable college would open up and take away some of their students.

My boyfriend attends U Of P but does not take the online courses, he goes 4 hours a week at night. He appears to like it and is almost done with his degree. It is alot of work he has chapters out of books to read, an individual presentation and a group presentation to do weekly. His classes are small and he has seems to like most of his instructors. U Of P recruiting practices though are like a meat market. They have hundreds of "admissions counsellors" who are just really die hard sales reps who are paid on a commission scale depending how many students they get to enroll. The turnover is HUGE. My friend worked for them for about 6 months and hated it and when she quit she took a few people with her.

U of P just had another hike in tuition and of course the admission counsellors tell people more and more companies are offering tuition reimbursement however there is usually a limit. I work for a Fortune 500 company and we only cover $2500.00 a year. My boyfriend works for PepsiCo also Fortune 500 and they cover $5000 a year. In a 2 year degree program, that only covers 6 classes at 50%, per year. Better than nothing I suppose.

It sounds to me like you are having a normal university experience. I have attended the University of Victoria and the University of Calgary here in Canada.

You say:

"Every class is pretty much the same only you have to buy different books. (Class books always range between 50 to 100 dollars - sometimes you have to buy two or three.)"

That's the way things go in university. My classmates and I are often told to buy $100 textbooks that we'll never even open. More textbooks usually mean a more varied cirriculum- which enhances your education. Don't forget that you can sell back most of your books at the end of the semester to make about half the money back.

You say:

"If you don't have a credit card, then it's hard to buy the used books from their online store."

This is just part of life. Either borrow a credit card from a friend or- here's a crazy idea- get a credit card of your own! It's a good idea to start establishing your credit rating now.

You say:

"I never got to pick any of my classes and most of them I felt I didn't need."

As at English major trying to get into the BCom program at the University of Calgary I had to take all sorts of courses that I wasn't interested in- Astronomy for example. I had to sit in a lecture hall for 3 hours a week listening to our prof talk about black holes and solar systems and The Big Bang. I didn't need the class, but the university considered it to be part of a well-rounded education to include some science credits (and since Computer Science was mandatory, it didn't count as our science requirements). That's why I transferred to UVic- I preferred the format of the program there.

You say:

"Most of your grade is based on your study group. If your group doesn't work then you receive a bad grade even if you did the work. I had one study group that did not want to work at all. I turned the project in on my own and was told since I did not particpate with the other students, I would receive a failing grade."

We had group projects in my Intro to Management class AND in my Business Law class, worth about 35% of our grade in each. I hated doing them to- I remember being up at 2:00 am the day before our COM paper was due, typing up the 21 pages my group had JUST emailed to me, and then trying to find the sources for all their quotes myself since they didn't email it to me, all while one guy in my group was out at the bar and hadn't even emailed me his portion of the paper yet. This is the way the real world works though- you have to be part of the team and you have to learn to work as a group.

...

It sounds to me like your problem isn't with the University of Phoenix, but rather university in general. It doesn't sound to me like you're ready for this level of higher education yet.

Lloyd... you should really consider Grand Valley for your MBA. They have an excellent program that, like UofP, is designed for working adults. Not to start another debate here, but I think you would find a GVSU MBA more marketable than one from UofP, and it might be alot cheaper for you.

The class offerings at GVSU are flexible enough for me to have completed my BA in four years while working full time and raising three kids (with the help of my wife, who also worked full time). The GVSU education is highly respected. My GVSU degree has gotten me into a good law school, and I'm not even black!

Best of luck to you Lloyd

I do somewhat agree the the University of Phoenix On-line Program needs better customer service and better control with their instruction. As a BSM student, I have found that the classes are not geared to the text book nor to the homework assignment. The classroom activity is a method to receive the perspective of the teacher not the subject of the class. Because we are adults, it is our resposibility to read what the text has to say and gather from that what we feel is the requirement. Unlike the learning behaivors of shool childern, which require the teacher to read the text to them and teach them what the text says, as adults it becomes our responsibility to read, write, and learn the subject. So, if UOP students are wanting to be read to inorder to understand then this type of education is out of their league and should be avoided. I find myself rather relaxed to learn on my own; the UOP just points me in the direction I should go. As a matter of fact I am purcuing my masters degree (MBA) through the UOP because there was not another suitable institution I could find.