Complaint Review: Penn Foster - Scranton Pennsylvania

Instructors??? What instructors??? I never had any and about the work... Its easy as pie a child can do it... Thats what made me look into it more.... Nothing comes in life easy.... Especially a HSD.... Honestly you have once in a life time to achieve it if you don't go get a GED.... Don't waste your time on this havoc... This has been nothing but a headache to me my credit score is ruined because I have a 1400???? Maybe 1600.... Dollar debt from this joint.... Worst mistake of my life I cannot stress that enough people... BTW your responses are lame they are all copy & pasted obviously :) Least mine are coming from actual experience and feelings your just saying what they pay you to say... :) Adios :)

Let me explain, when you pay tuition you are paying for the maintenance of the school, the salary of the instructors and staff the cost of developing the program. That's why tuition at large universities can be tens of thousands of dollars. You are paying for the athletic fields, the building maintenance etc... At Penn Foster we are able to offer very inexpensive programs because we do not have campuses to maintain or athletic programs to finance.

In ANY school no matter if its online or brick and mortar you have a responsibility to pay your tuition. You are signing an agreement that you are paying x amount of dollars for services rendered. If you use SOME of those services you must pay for them. If you don't complete your program that is your decision. Our services have already been rendered and you are required to pay them or a percentage of them if you cancel.  (15%, 25%, 50% 100%) You signed a legally binding agreement.

Which states that you have read and understand the terms of agreement. The terms are written on your enrollment form and meet the standards of our accrediting bodies. If you did not read the terms then you should not have signed the agreement.  This is not something unique to Penn Foster. Its how all schools work. If you do not withdraw by a specific date you are responsible for a portion of your tuition. If you owed $1500 + dollars than you must have completed a decent percentage of the program or never officially withdrew. 

Again I will state our High School is FULLY accredited. REGIONALLY, NATIONALLY & Licensed by the State of Pennsylvania.  It is up to the receiving institution to accept our credits. Some colleges still do not accept online high school diplomas but I assure you this will change as 27% of all high school students are now taking at least one course online. Some students may prefer to get their GED and that is their decision BUT many students prefer to earn their diploma and agree that it is more appealing to employers than a GED.

We currently have over 43,000 High School students enrolled in our program and are the LARGEST high school in the US. Our students have gone on to attend hundreds of colleges and universities, entered the Military and found gainful employment.

I'm sorry that you feel this way about the school but your statements are simply not truthful. This site is anonymous so I cannot look up your account but I assure you if you contacted us before being sent to collections we could have helped you out with payments or cancellation. 

How can someone owe a debt when the schooling wasnt ever finished???? Oh thats right because you put in tiny fine print where no one can see that no matter what you gotta pay for this garbage anyways and canceling??? FORGET it... you get 7 days to cancel... Enough time to really decide right???? LOL!!!! Your school is a joke.... A real joke... PEOPLE GO GET YOUR GED AND GO TO A REAL COLLEGE WITH REAL BOOKS ABD REAL PEOPLE NOT A DIPLOMA MILL.... Not with books with their name on it hell you cant even get rid of the books to other people cause their made ONLY for their joke... I mean school.... :) I'm in debt on my credit because of this joke... I wanna help others ot make the same mistake as I did... NEVER AGAIN!!!!!!

Hello, I wanted to reply to your post to correct some misinformation. 

Penn Foster is in no way a "diploma mill". We are the oldest provider of distance education in the world and have been in business for over 100 years. We have graduated over 13 million students. 

Penn Foster High School & Career School are both Nationally & Regionally accredited. Penn Foster College is Nationally accredited. 

Links to our accreditation: 
http://www.pennfoster.edu/accreditation.html
http://www.pennfostercollege.edu/accreditation.html

Whats the difference between National & Regional Accreditation?

The major difference between regional and national accrediting agencies lies in the type of institutions that they evaluate and accredit. Regional agencies are responsible for accrediting public colleges and universities and major private, nonprofit institutions. National agencies accredit private, proprietary schools and specialty institutions such as correspondence schools.

The transferability of Penn Foster College credits is solely at the discretion of the receiving institution. To help students transfer credits, many of Penn Foster College courses have been recommended for college and university credit by ACE/College Credit Recommendation Service.* The American Council on Education, the major coordinating body for all the nation's higher education institutions, seeks to provide leadership and a unifying voice on key higher education issues and to influence public policy through advocacy, research, and program initiatives. For more information, visit the ACE CREDIT website at www.acenet.edu.

Here is a list of colleges that have accepted our credits in the past http://www.pennfostercollege.edu/transfer-credit.html

Just as any school requires you pay your tuition owed we require students to pay theirs. If you never officially withdrew from a community college or university you would also be liable for tuition owed. If you took loans out to pay this tuition and did not pay them back the government would take it out of your paychecks until the debt was paid back. If you do not cancel before the cancellation period you will owe a portion of your tuition. If you owe $1500 I would assume you did not officially withdrawal because if you had cancelled formally you would not have owed a full semesters tuition. More likely you would have owed 25 - 50%. It is the students responsibility to READ their enrollment agreement and follow the cancellation terms accordingly. It is also the responsibility of the student to research their educational needs of the profession they wish to enter or the schools they wish to transfer to in the future. This research should be done BEFORE a student enrolls in any school. 

Penn Foster attempts to collect student debt for up to 6 months. After that period the debt is transferred to a collections agency. If you do not attempt to contact Penn Foster to make payment terms before that 6 months is up then we can no longer assist you. You will have to make terms with the collection agency.