To all students considering this college - be advised they are designed for earning a profit!
Yes, I to was taken for a fool and started my first payment with a pre-enrollment and processing fee of $50.00 on 10/14/2009. Then I was told that I could accept a rollup on my loans for cost of living expense to assist with my personal expenses while attending.and I agreed. Later upon signing and after I had actually started attending they assessed the staffing fee of 7 x $100.00 to be paid each month and was not given notice until I was already 2 months late. I was told if I did not make this payment in a timely manner that I would not receive my cost of living check. They stated they would hold this check until all payments were rendered including the delivery of your books as well, because most of the time the books didnt arrive to the on campus book store before classes began. At one point we were attending up to 2-1/2 weeks before some of our books arrived. WOW! This is only a very small part of the misleading behavior within the financial areas that I encountered while attending.
By January of 2010 they were aggressively pursuing my loan money with futile attempts to coerce me to sign the documents for disbursement of funds, funds to be paid to them. Once signed you are locked and no way out. So, I deferred to a later time and began to investigate the expenses.and well found that I was taking a hit for more money. The increased amount was nearly $3400.00 and was claimed to be the end result of my taxed earnings from my previous year. I just could not seem to find were they calculated this and how the numbers just did not match up. Eventually after demanding a full break down of all expenses (in writing and nearly three months later) I discovered the true nature of the increase. It was a tuition cost increase -and well there you have it. Although they denied any knowledge of this increase they just simply stated that my out of pocket expenses could be taken from my cost of living expenses total and I will be paying nearly $180.00 above the staffing fee as well( this is a total of nearly $280.00 out of pocket cash per month). Whats really amazing is after comparing all expense ledgers I realized that the extra cost assessed for my next term was almost equal to the exact dollar I was receiving for my cost of living. This is pretty shaky finance in my opinion..
Soto make a long story short I refused signing of the increase and disbursement documents and completed my first term. I had accumulated 40.5 credit hours with a GPA of (3.44) and a debt of approximately $10,000.00. Mind you people thinking this is great. Well, these credits are useless anywhere and everywhere. Not one single college in the whole continental US will honor these credits that I am aware of nor would they recognize my GPA score. At one point I thought maybe Phoenix College might give me a break and give credit for approximately half of this earned credit debt but, after completing the enrollment and before signing they recused the verbal promissory offer as well
Bryan College will absolutely take your money and leave you hanging in the wind with no future. I am writing this because I am a successful self-motivated established business man in the community to which I live. I have operated legally and licensed since 2005 and I am approximately 45 years of age. I really have nothing to lose by dropping other than a bruised ego and some cash. I just do not wish to see any young people or newly graduated high school students make the same mistakes I have.
Note: Just to set the record straight and to not confuse the business part of this school with the teaching area. I have to say the classroom/online instructors and the IT department managers were professional and motivated in the field to which they teach and work. What a pleasure to have shared time with them. Its really too bad we had to meet under such stressful financial circumstances.