Complaint Review: Empire Beauty School - Nationwide

Two weeks into my enrollment at Empire I knew I did not like the atmosphere, for the first two weeks I kept to myself mianly because the teacher carried herself in a" rude, mean, unprofessional, and "on a power trip" of some sort because she would be very sarcastic and nasty to student whilst giving attitude for simple things.

One thing I don't like about empire is they don't tell you what to expect, everything they tell you before you enroll is a lie. once you sign that contract things change quickly, two weeks we went without our "professional" salon jackets that were considered part of our uniform but some students including myself were sent home, (lost hours) because we didn't have "proper white shoes" my issue with that was it was only week two, after all the money we put into enrollment we barely had enough to get to get there. not to mention once again the school didn't even provide us with our jackets or rolling bags to bring our kits home, we didn't even have lockers to store our things in. . . (WHERE IS THIS $18,000 A STUDENT MONEY GOING EXACTLY )

EVERYTHING I've learned so far (not much as it is) I taught myself with practice, the help of YouTube and because of the thing I knew already. There are no demos teachers literally just tells us to do it and refers us to the page the assignment is on. 

The time she does demonstrate she almost always doesn't know what she is doing and have no issue voicing it freely. So I almost always feel like I'm paying 18,000 to get a pretty tablet I could have gotten on my own for cheaper and teaching myself. I literally feel as if I'm teaching the class most of the time because the other students come to me for help more than they ask the teacher, they even say things like "if Aquillah doesn't say it looks nice, it doesn't look nice." good for me but terrible for the school reputation. 

unlike all the other females there, I've gotten a degree and have been to high end colleges so I know what to expect from a good school, most of the girls are straight out of high school and they have no idea. When you try to speak up you get threatened to be terminated, sent home for the smallest of things and even escorted out by police for a 18,000 school YOUR paying out of pocket for. (happen to me)

Empire loves to throw the word professionalism around freely in which they don't have a pinch of, the teachers curse like sailors but once a student is caught she/he gets kicked out, the teachers gossip about students and each other openly and freely, they are late coming from breaks, and caught being very unrully in front of customers. I've personal caught every teacher curse a million times day, and I get it where all adult but my problem is if cursing is a issue everyone should be punished the same. The receptionist gossips to customers about the students and curses infront of the customers all the time, very professional right? A teacher even pulled me to the side and told me another teacher admitted to "not liking me" and is trying to get me kicked out, she even went as far to tell me to have a meeting with corporate and if needed she would be a witness to all the recovering issues.

Recently they started a new rule if you are caught punching in, in the morning with your coat on (in the winter time) you will be deducted one hour even if you were on time ,or even sent home. I KNOW, because it happen to me and i was even escorted out by police. The director showed me a copy of the "policies" and it didnt show me any proof of this new rule.

I literally felt as if i had to beg for the number of the regional director, because he spurred comments at me such as "oh you need something from me now, go home. . . if you go home you can find it online" in which thats what i had to do . Even then i asked for him to speak to me with respect and i was talked over, threatened with termenation and humilated to say the least.

Even speaking with the director he took the side of his employee and said i should have left, meanwhile i was not "disruputive or verbally abusive" i did not get my hours back and felt like how can he make the decision of me to go home over something so small when im paying $18000 to be there everyday. it's gotten so bad that a few days later the director admitted to me that not only is this NOT a real rule, and that they haven't been enforcing it until now but the only reason they are trying to make this a "thing" now is because state board inspectors are coming soon and they can be fined so it's basically to save their own behinds. The whole time in his office he basically bribed me with extra little things around the school so i would agree with the "rule", and not make the issue bigger.

The biggest issue of all is the fact that the administration as well as directors brought it to our attention that once we complete our hours we can not take our pratical and written test to get our license (even thought thats our ultimate goal) because of some mishaps on their end with the testing centers. So this means we cant work and make a living and is ultimatelg messing with our livelihood because we still have to pay our tution even month which leads me to the question once again . . . THEN WHERES IS THIS $18,000 PER STUDENT MONEY GOING TOWARDS?! What makes it even more questionable is financial aid doesn't know a thing so they are just getting our money, collecting it as we speak. It's been going on since September 2014, that's 300 students from just the New Jersey area every 3 weeks, you do the math on how many students are affected.

The bloomfield campus is small, so small and unprofessional that ive walked past prior to enrolling and didnt even know it was a school, it only has three class rooms and we dont have a cafeteria or lunchroom we all have to cram in the seniors locker room which leaves some of us with no room at all and have to eat at outside shops, and make it back within 30 minutes. Once again what are they doing with all the momey we put forth.

When our refund checks come they dont give them out on the scheduled day, they pretty much give them out whenever they want. Teachers pick favoritism, there was one in incident where two students were sent home for the rest of the day because of an aguerment the teacher secretly told one of the girls to come back at 4:30 so she wouldnt lose any hours for the day.

Its a POLICY that if a student threatens a teacher or classmate she must be terminated immediately, welp lets just say another teachers favortism saved her. Another girl who was pregnant was threaten and bullied by two students and administration didnt do anything about it until the pregnant girl stated she was going to get her mother involved , in which she was punished because of her "threat"

I'm not even going to talk about the fact that this school is making money off of us on the salon floor that we aren't getting paid for, and doing services that the school doesn't even teach which is COMPLETELY against the law. But I think everyone gets the point of how Empire/The Hair Design School school operating.  Something clearly needs to be done! 

I wish too sue this school and many people even begged to be witnesses so that just goes to show you how bad it truly is.