Complaint Review: Keiser Career College - Jacksonville Florida

 Well let me start by explaining that this incident took place a few years back when I was 20 and a lot more naive to the things people are capable of. A cousin recently got swindled in a similar situation with a different school up in Wisconsin which led me to filing this report today in order to help anybody who has been victimized by Keiser Career College. I was wait-listed at the local state college for their registered nursing program and in order to avoid waiting up to two years to be accepted, I was willing to pay the extra expenses to earn my degree faster through a private college. A friend had strongly recommended "Keiser University", so one day I went to apply and ended up at the wrong school.

Before you decide that I'm a complete bonehead, let me clarify that Keiser University and Keiser Career College are two completely unaffiliated schools that happened to be located right next to one another. I ended up at Keiser Career College where I submitted an application for their nursing program. It turns out that KCC only offers certifications for LPN's instead of RN degrees (unlike Keiser University) and what they don't tell you is that the LPN certification (to basically feed & clean nursing home residents) is a useless waste of time if you're planning on becoming an RN. Here's where the story gets interesting. The admissions councilor was a SNAKE. I had no idea people in the educational field could be capable of conning their prospective students the way she conned me.

She killed me with kindness and had me feeling so good about applying to the school despite the ~$20,000 tuition. She was like a really good used car salesman. She explained to me that an LPN certification is a necessary requirement for their "bridge program" to becoming an RN. I didn't know any better until talking with some friends who are nurses (thankfully just in the nick of time), but that statement was a boldfaced LIE! An LPN certification IS NOT a prerequisite to becoming an RN. I did more investigating before the first semester started, which is when I learned that Keiser Career College does not even offer an RN degree and has absolutely no affiliation with Keiser University next door (who does offer an RN degree). This Admissions Councilor was aware of my ignorance and took complete advantage of it.

So when I realized that I had made a huge mistake by enrolling with the wrong freaking school, I called the admissions office and spoke with this woman again, who made me feel like a terrible person for letting her down. This is speculation, but I think we can all agree at this point that Keiser Career College pays its admissions staff in commission. HOW FREAKING SHADY IS THAT?! So her supervisor (some faculty dean who looked & talked even more like a used car salesman) had me schedule a "follow-up interview" with the both of them after I explained to him that I was led to believe that I was in some sort of a "bridge program" to become an RN. The interview was his attempt to keep me from withdrawing from the program (because they hadn't received my $20,000 in student loans yet).

As soon as we sat down, the first thing she said was "I never said this was a bridge program". That was the real eye opener for me because I had never even heard of a bridge program until it came from her mouth, so once again she straight up lied to my face and made me feel like the biggest fool for letting someone take advantage of me like that. I realized that this woman is a career-driven sociopath just trying to make money off of young peoples' stupidity, and apparently at this point she was trying to save her job. So after that, I told her supervisor that there was no chance in hell that I will ever be a student there. Get this though! A few weeks later I received a voicemail from another woman who took the sociopath lady's place as the admissions councilor.

She apologized for the situation and explained that the other woman no longer works there. So this new woman called me and left voicemails up to two times a week for over 3 months trying to get me to reapply to that nightmare of a school, until one day I finally had enough and answered the phone and told her that if they ever called me again I'd be filing a police report. So that's my story. And if there's any advice I can give people looking to earn a degree, just go to a reputable university or community college and stay the hell away from those private schools. Come to find out most of their degrees aren't even legitimate.