Complaint Review: American Commercial College - Internet

1st issue:

American Commercial College is a proprietary college. This means it is for-profit. Their main goal is to process as much Title IV money. (Pell Grants and student loans)They also need to to meet 90/10 federal requirements. This means 10 percent of their funding needs to be none government financial aid. That is why they charge the administrative fee which can be paid after you recieve you refund. (expense money) Technically still coming out of your financial aid. Thats one issue you may have. They do this to help get within the 90/10 percentage. Most propriatery colleges have this fee.

2nd issue:

If you do not have a High School Diploma or GED you are not elgible for Title IV or financial aid. If you recieved your diploma online, certain schools (Dorothy Perkins or Masters ISD) you may be elgible for a full refund and be excused from paying your federal loans. These high school diplomas may be intended for job reasons and not education. You may have also been admitted without a diploma and never recieved it. The school is accountable for verifying your diploma and you would be entitled to the refund. Many times, the school just wants you to become enrolled and they do not verify.

3rd issue:

Legally the financial aid officer is the only person who can discuss Federal aid, pell grants, student loans, and expense checks. If a Director, Admissions rep, secretary or anybody other than the financial aid officer explains this, they are not following federal laws. ACC alledgedly allows the financial aid to be processed by the financial aid officer, but the Director or admissions rep explains and sells the financial aid and tuition. If this is true in your case, you may be entitled to a refund.

4th issue:

A students Pin number for FAFSA is your electronic signature. It is illegal for the financial aid officer to set this up for you. ACC has done this in the for many years. When they processed your FAFSA, did they ask you to set up your pin number and ask you for your secret questions? This gives them access to make corrections and change data. However, they should not set this up for you as it is a private number for you to set up.

5th Issue:

Placement rates they told you may not be accurate. If they told you placement rates are 70 to 90 percent, more than likeley they are not right. However, these numbers can be confirmed by the Texas workforce commission.

6th issue:

Some complaints have been that the Externship sites do not provide the training ACC promised. Some of the sites may be entirely medical secretarial or no lab training.

7th Issue:

Many instructors do not have the training or experience to teach classes. The pay for instructors is very low and the quality of instructors suffers for this reason. If your class has several subjects being taught at once due to lack of staffing or other reasons, the state guidelines are not being followed. This happens a lot due to scheduling problems and the lack of qualified instructors to teach.

These are a few issues that you might have. It is important to say that there are many more issues you may have. These are common issues that you can address to the Department of Education, Texas Workforce Commission Phone Number (((redacted))), VA department if you are VA, DARS or ACICS.

You may also want to seek legal advice. An attorney with Career College Experience is recommended. Dallas has several that deal with Career colleges. I believe Julie Johnson is handling several cases dealing with career colleges. Her number is (((redacted))). I would start with the Texas Workforce Commission (((redacted))) hope that helps.

According to Cable 7 in Odessa, Seven students filed a lawsuit Against American Commercial College on November 19th.