Lynda
Satellite Beach,#2UPDATE EX-employee responds
Tue, June 30, 2009
Nothing in this report surprises me. I attended Phillips Junior College, Melbourne, FL from 9/88 - 5/81 and was awarded two A.S. degrees, With Honors. I went to work for the Admissions Department right after graduation, and my eyes were opened. A lot of things PJC did were VERY shady, and probably some of them were illegal. Students didn't pay per semester; they paid for the entire two-year course. If a student sat in three classes in the beginning of the semester, they were liable for the entire program. The admissions reps were commissioned salespeople. I have personal knowledge of at least one rep who recruited HOMELESS PEOPLE, signed them up for college classes, then went and picked them up for the first 3 nights of school so that the student would be liable, the school would get paid via student loans and/or grants, and the admissions rep would get their commission. At one point, PJC owned 126 schools, but with many different names. I quit after about 4 weeks; I just couldn't take the lies any more. I believe several class actions were started against them. It is very difficult to find any info about them online that is of any use. At some point they went out of business, and other schools, such as Corinthian Colleges, Everest College, et. al., immediately sprang up on those campuses. When I say IMMEDIATELY, I mean the very next DAY. Oddly enough, they still had the same instructors...perhaps even MORE strange, even though the schools disavowed any connection between themselves and PJC ("No, we're just in the same BUILDING"), the admissions reps told the students that they could, in fact, audit some classes that they had paid for at PJC but now wanted to update due to new technologies. Be very, very wary of any private school you investigate. When they tell you that their credits will transfer to any educational institution, check with the Department of Education first. When they say "fully accredited," investigate that as well, because the schools that don't qualify for normal accreditation have their own accrediting system, and it is inferior, since you cannot take those credits anyplace else except to another school that belongs to that accrediting system. I will tell you this much...out of all the people that I graduated with, I have YET to find anyone who is actually working in their PJC degree field. The local employers just didn't want us. They knew there was something very wrong with how PJC did things.