Complaint Review: University Of Phoenix Online

I once thought the program was great. Until they threatened to have me (not expelled mind you) arrested for asking questions. This came about due to mocking in the class room of children of rape. (have the evidence). Then discovering they were falsely identifying themselves, (proved that too), then when I showed them they were falsely identifying themselves (got it) they sent me if you ever have contact we will have you arrested. (cough cough) They now have my local police telephone number, the number to the FBI, and a few others. Just in case they want to file charges. These descripancies, (get real Those suggesting they are on the up and up, not everyone is ignorant) should file federal charges. The power is in the numbers. Apparently there are a lot of numbers here. I think the FBI investigating their real files, (not the comments here of course) but the REAL files and transactions, well if UOP has nothing to hide, they would welcome the documentation. Oh. By the Way, Mike. I did file with the FBI. Have a great educational evening.

the university of phoinex is great I attend and have no problems since I keep records and receipts to prove my transaction. Next time keep records and receipts and I guarantee you wont have this problem

Please be more specific why you are predigests. I'm guessing you have spent hours going over the UOP programs and the vigor of them. Are you educated? Here is some good news for you Mike... this site is a testament to how hard UOP's degrees are to accomplish.. Check out all the whiney drop-outs on here... obviously this should send a red flag your way that the program is difficult and very hard to finish.

Do you know what accreditation is?

I think the best solution would be to stop attending for-profit academies. It took me a long time to realize that sacrificing a credible education for the convenience of adapting to my work and deployment schedule is no longer worth the effort. Especially after reading the comments from employees who offer unwarranted insults and poor defenses of their shady institution, I will not be attending UoP ever again. I am tired of the lies, the missing financial aid, and the poor relationships between advisors and their students.

Sorry to advise, but you are right. As an employer, I will not consider Phoenix Online University as legitimate education.

It helps to spread your story so others can avoid your situation in the future.

"Think about it, two of the most admired CEO's of huge corporations, Michael Dell and Bill Gates (the latter being the most wealthy man in this country) DID NOT GRADUATE COLLEGE!"

Ok, you're saying university degrees are unneccasary???? I'm guessing you don't work in the UNIVERSITY of Phoenix's public relations department....

As to education quality, the fact that Intel will no longer fund employee educations at the school should say a lot. Here's what some education professionals say about UOP's MBA program (about 1/3 of the schools revenue???)....

"Their business degree is an M.B.A. Lite" said Henry M. Levin, a professor of higher education at Teachers College at Columbia University. I've looked at their course materials. It's a very low level of instruction.

And the President of the AACSB, the premier business accreditation agency, says this about the UOP...

They're smart enough to understand their chances of approval would be low,Mr. Fernandes said. They have a lot of come-and-go faculty. We like institutions where the faculty is stable and can ensure that students are being educated by somebody who knows what they're doing.

All brick & morter colleges and community colleges offer on line classes now at reasonable state tuition rates. If everyone would just stop this Bull$#*& of attending these rip off places of higher education, you would not be getting yourselves in a financial bind, or having these rip off companies trying to ruin your credit. Then UOP, AXIA, STRAYER, CAPELLA, and who ever else Jon Doe for profit schools will close up shop and be gone for good!

These on line schools are a 100% rip off. I have taken a few on line classes through one of my local community college's and I am satisfied to know that its 100% accredited and transferable to any 4 year university, no questions asked.

Please everyone, stop giving yourself a heartache

who said,

"When one considers how difficult it is to get 30 good employees to staff a McDonalds, and keep every customer completely happy at all times, then one might concede that finding 30,000 perfect employees to keep over 320,000 students happy at all times, is an eternal, but perhaps hopeless task."

Folks paid by the UOP keep coming here trying to convince us the never ending problems at the school come from "a few bad apples," rather than UOP company policies, procedures, and management. There's plenty of evidence showing the later is probably the case. For example, take these excerpts from a US Dept of Education report on UOP recruiting issues (the school settled this for nearly 10 MILLION dollars...)

--"Recruiters at both On Ground and On Line stated that they are pressured by management to enroll students who are not qualified."

--"At both the On Ground and On Line campuses, a number of recruiters stated that the allocation of fresh leads and floor time was both an intimidation and reward tool to manipulate them into more aggressive and/or UNETHICAL tactics." (Emphasis added)

Or this, from the Corporate Director of Enrollment,

"--According to some recruiters, while the Corporate Director of Enrollment stresses the big dollars that come with high enrollments, he characterizes the compensation plan for recruiters as "smoke and mirrors" so that UOP can "fly under the radar" of the Department." (of Education)

So if one of the top guys in a huge corporation talks about "flying under the radar" of the government agency meant to protect students, will rank and file employees be more or less likely to act ethically?

Your education is what you make of it. Besides you know that Bill Gates DROPPED OUT of Harvard.

If public institutions are all what they are cracked up to be (remember that Ivy League schools are the "creme a la creme" of public institutions so to speak) why is it that most CEO's are not affiliated with Ivy League schools.

"Wanted: CEO, no Ivy required......

A study by executive search firm Spencer Stuart found that the percentage of CEOs at Fortune 500 companies who were educated at Ivy League schools declined from 16% in 1998 to 11% in 2004. Even the Harvard MBA shows signs of erosion. Among large-company CEOs who have MBAs, 28% received their degrees at Harvard, according to the 1998 study. By 2004, that had slipped to 23%.

A survey by the Wharton School at the Ivy League's University of Pennsylvania indicates the trend extends back 25 years. In 1980, 14% of CEOs at Fortune 100 companies received their undergraduate degrees from an Ivy League school. By 2001, 10% of CEOs received undergraduate degrees at one of the eight Ivies: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania and Yale. The percentage of CEOs with undergraduate degrees from public colleges and universities shot up from 32% in 1980 to 48% in 2001.........

Perhaps the ultimate slap on Ivies: Michael Dell for the first time passed Bill Gates as the most admired executive, selected last month by entrepreneurs at the Inc. 500 conference. Neither Dell nor Gates graduated from college, but at least Harvard could take a measure of pride in counting Gates among its dropouts. Dell dropped out from the University of Texas."

Colleges attended by CEOs hired at Fortune 1000 firms in 2004, 2005

Click on this link (or copy and paste in your browser) for an interesting chart:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2005-04-07-ceo-colleges.htm

Source: Burson-Marsteller and USA TODAY research
Article located at http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-04-06-cover-ceos_x.htm

Think about it, two of the most admired CEO's of huge corporations, Michael Dell and Bill Gates (the latter being the most wealthy man in this country) DID NOT GRADUATE COLLEGE!

When one considers how difficult it is to get 30 good employees to staff a McDonalds, and keep every customer completely happy at all times, then one might concede that finding 30,000 perfect employees to keep over 320,000 students happy at all times, is an eternal, but perhaps hopeless task.

I was a student before working at UoP, and I'm a student while I work at UoP. I have had wonderful counselors, and bad ones, fantastic teachers, and lazy ones. People are people. Likewise, I've enrolled many bright and enthusiastic hardworking students. I've also enrolled students who will never get a job beyond the scope of Walmart or McDonalds. Many just don't have the intellect or more often the drive to succeed. I cannot tell you how often people give up as soon as they try to tackle their first assignment. It's a sad commentary on what many Americans have become: lazy and whiney.

UoP is a great university for most students. However, not all will be happy, and at times UoP will be to blame...but often the person you see staring in the mirror is the one you should be holding accountable.

You get out of anything what you put into it. UoP doesn't just give away diplomas. You have to do the work. Yes, enrollment counselors can be salesy. UoP is a for-profit private school. The largest in the nation. Your local community college would be glad to treat you like faceless cattle if that is your preference, since they get paid by us taxpayers just to enroll you. They don't care if you ever show up for class. Every counselor I know wants every student to succeed and attain their goals.

If you are one of the millions looking to lay the blame for the miseries of your life on everyone else, then by all means, rage at big business. Charge those windmills.

UoP graduates are people just like you and me. A degree only means you toughed out school, and it is not a measure of your value as a person. It is merely an educational tool to improve your life. So when you look in the mirror, is UoP the cause of your misery, or merely a convenient target for your own personal shame at what you have yet failed to achieve?

The comments posted here are predominantly emotionally charged rants.

It's amazing how the posters here claim to be more intelligent and more ethical than the entire UOP, the Department of Education, the US Attorney General and every lawyer in existence.

If you desire to bring suit against the University, first read your contract and find them in violation of some part of it. Convince a lawyer. Good luck.

If you want a class-action suit, be prepared to demonstrate that the University of Phoenix deliberately (as policy) violated the laws of the US or rights of the students (imagined hurts don't count).

If you want a free education, tough.

If you want a good education, stop whining and study.

If you want a first class education, get adopted by Bill Gates and cough up a half a mill to go to Harvard.

I have had so many financial counselors and advisors. When I get another one, it seems like they do not know what the last person told me and I feel I have been ripped off also. I would like to file a lawsuit but do not know the first step. I have one more class to go and don't know if I should pay the last out of pocket fee or transfer somewhere else.

I have had so many financial counselors and advisors. When I get another one, it seems like they do not know what the last person told me and I feel I have been ripped off also. I would like to file a lawsuit but do not know the first step. I have one more class to go and don't know if I should pay the last out of pocket fee or transfer somewhere else.

I have had so many financial counselors and advisors. When I get another one, it seems like they do not know what the last person told me and I feel I have been ripped off also. I would like to file a lawsuit but do not know the first step. I have one more class to go and don't know if I should pay the last out of pocket fee or transfer somewhere else.

I have had so many financial counselors and advisors. When I get another one, it seems like they do not know what the last person told me and I feel I have been ripped off also. I would like to file a lawsuit but do not know the first step. I have one more class to go and don't know if I should pay the last out of pocket fee or transfer somewhere else.

The UOP guy said you cannot say who took your money, thats true. The problem with his position, taking into account the seemingly never ending complaints on this website and others, the lawsuits, reports by journalists, the U.S. Department of Education etc etc, is that people do assume the worst after a while. We are all careful about where to spend our money, so when we see, over and over, students who appear ENRAGED by the way they are treated, and support to many these scenarios by the media, lawsuits, and a government agency, it becomes easy to assume the worst....

It's a reputation thing....

Lenora,

When you post a point of view on a public website then you are making a persuasive argument. As such, you should be prepared to defend you opinions as you have. However, you cannot expect to gain complete support by supposition. Your claim that "if you are lying then so are all the other students posting" is a common fallacy used to garner credibility by mass association. Those of us familiar with red herrings know not to take these type of statements seriously.

Unless you go the NSLDS website (nslds.ed.gov) and get confirmation of how the money was distributed then cannot claim that UOP took the money. It is equally preposterous to state that a CEO simply took your money. Your lender can claim anything they want. The ultimate authority on disbursement information is NSLDS. Check it out and then post an update.

It seems to me that I am being called a liar. And I guess all the other hundreds if not thousands of students that have filed a report on this website are lying too? I guess the news stations that have aired the stories of lawsuits that were against UOP and how UOP has been in trouble numerous times...I guess that's all a lie too?

You are not going to sit here and tell me what happened. You are not me, you are not the loan company. My loan company specifically sent me a letter stating that my disbursement for school was sent off to UOP. UOP denied receiving the money. Why would my loan company lie about sending money, when UOP is always in trouble when it comes to finances? Why do the Financial Aid Counselors lie to their students if nothing is going on? My Financial Counselor has called me on the phone telling me I owe this amount, and then all of a sudden, the next day, the amount changes. It gets larger and larger. For what reason? I know I didn't take the money because the company doesn't send you the money personally, they send it to the school.
Whatever amount is left over, is sent to you in the form of a check. If I'm lying, then so are all the other hundreds of students.

A previous poster said,

"I would imagine that you have received an update regarding where your money went. Could you post this rather than have us believe that a $750M/year company is lying about where your disbursement really went?"

Not only is this poster saying the UOP did her wrong, but none other than the U.S. Department of Education seems to support her contention that the UOP's business practices are questionable. The recent front page article on the UOP in the New York Times quoted the USDOE report on UOP recruiting, saying it, "systematically operates in a duplicitous manner." In regular language, this means they had a plan to be deliberatively deceptive.

It's just not hard for folks to believe the UOP is up to no good....

First of all, I am not trying to get anyone to believe that a $750 million dollar a year company took my money. I know they did. All they do is plan and plot and try to figure out how they will make more money off of students every day. The loan company I got my loan from said they sent my check to the school to pay for my classes. Not only that, but this loan company is well known in the United States. It's not some internet loan company that no one has ever heard of. They are very popular, close to Bank of America. I am not going to mention who they are for their protection. The school claims they never received it. I called my loan company back and they said that was not true. They said they had confirmation that the school had gotten the money.

UOP is constantly getting into trouble for financial situations. This loan company I am dealing with, not one time have they been in any kind of trouble, so don't try to tell me that I am trying to get people to believe something that I know for a fact is already TRUE. UOP is a rip-off. If you knew how many lawsuits they have against them, you wouldn't be saying anything.

They send students checks in the mail for money they owe them, and then they turn around and send a BILL in the mail for the same amount. They done that to me as well. They sent me a bill in the mail for money I was to get back from my student aid, and turned right around and sent a bill for the exact amount. What's the point in sending a bill for the amount they sent the check in, instead of keeping the check and paying what I owe? Sounds shady to me. Thousands of students have had that happen to them. I joined a forum for UOP and there are complaints out the arse about them. UOP is not what a lot of people thought they would be. UOP is a rip-off and the CEO has been in more trouble than we can count.

"It probably went into the CEO's pocket."

Since it is a publicly held company, it probably went into your neighbors pocket. But same thing :)

I would imagine that you have received an update regarding where your money went. Could you post this rather than have us believe that a $750M/year company is lying about where your disbursement really went?

You might try telling your story elsewhere as a way of getting the word out. Maybe you could write your congressman, a local tv or newspaper journalist, or maybe the Craigslist Education board.....

you may find interesting. It sounds so MUCH like your situation.

"This is where Tyrone Jacobs ran into trouble. Hundreds of miles from where he sat in Little Rock, a counselor in that nondescript office park in Phoenix told him he would lose his financial aid if he postponed his classes. Technically, according to federal law and company policy, Jacobs could drop out between semesters, re-enroll later and receive the same financial aid. But the high-pressure enrollment counselor talked him into staying, and what followed was an exercise in frustration, as Jacobs battled a company that seemed more committed to collecting tuition than providing him with an education.

"They were pressuring me to stay in the class, they were giving me false promises," Jacobs said.

In a series of phone conversations with various counselors, Jacobs was told he could catch up on his work--even though three of the nine weeks of classes had passed. Teachers gave him conflicting information, and because of Axia regulations his enrollment counselor couldn't talk to his teachers and help broker solutions. In fact, no one he talked to seemed to talk to anyone else.

"There's been a lot of lying," Jacobs said. "They do one thing and tell me something else. There's no trusting this college."

It's hard to give so much time and effort only to face brutal dissapointment.

The following is a quote from "The Nation" online magazine, printed March 2006. It describes UOP sales tactics. It's clear there's nothing "counselor like" in the way the UOP makes its employees focus so strictly on obtaining sales. Think about it, if you are a UOP employee and you need to pay the bills, are you going to make sure you fully educate the student, or are you going to cut corners and keep your family well fed?

"The complex once housed a special selling area known as the Red Room-- part corporate stockade and part boiler room. The Red Room served as a detention area of sorts for Phoenix's underperforming enrollment counselors.

In an investigation of Phoenix's recruiting practices in 2003, investigators in the Education Department's financial aid division heard that recruiters who failed to meet goals were sent to labor behind glass walls, "counseling" students to enroll from a room barren except for folding tables and banks of telephones. No breaks. No vacations. And if they continued to fail, no job.

A recruiter could earn $750 for each student enrolled. Management pressured employees to enroll as many students as possible, and to do "whatever it takes." If a prospective student could find a better or cheaper option at a local community college, recruiters kept it to themselves.

Employees told investigators they learned that only one thing mattered at Phoenix: getting "asses in classes." Federal law, however, mandates that college enrollment counselors not be paid a bounty per student, to insure that counselors do what is best for the student, rather than for themselves or the company."

So if there is that much pressure by the UOP upon its "enrollment counselors" to make the sale, or face humiliation or termination, how can prospective students possibly be confident they will be treated fairly?