(IWU) This was the worst experience I've had with a

How this student rated the school

Educational Quality	F	Faculty Accessibility	D
Useful Schoolwork	D+	Excess Competition	D+
Academic Success	D	Creativity/ Innovation	F
Individual Value	D-	University Resource Use	C
Campus Aesthetics/ Beauty	C	Friendliness	C
Campus Maintenance	C	Social Life	C
Surrounding City	C	Extra Curriculars	C
Safety	C

Describes the student body as: Friendly, Closeminded Describes the faculty as: Friendly, Unhelpful

Male

Quite Bright

Lowest Rating Educational Quality	F

Highest Rating University Resource Use	C

He cares more about Educational Quality than the average student.

Date: Feb 29 2012
Major: Business - Management and Administration (This Major's Salary over time)
This was the worst experience I've had with a university (I've attended a couple others.)

Before enrolling in their online program, you must first understand a few things that are likely different than a "brick and mortar" school.

Their academic year calendar starts the day of your first class. Additionally, your FAFSA calendar starts the first day of your first class. Therefore, each students individual academic calendar and loan disbursement calendar is unique. This is different than universities who have a set academic calendar (i.e. academic year 2011-2012).

The academic year starts the day of your first class and ends after the completion of a requisite amount of credit hours earned, and not by time period. For example, my "cohort" division (group of students on the same academic calendar) had a time period of 14 months for completion of the requisite amount of credit hours earned. Additionally, costs for classwork and credit hours earned do not follow logically, resulting in "front-loading" the academic year with costs.

The Stafford loan disbursement is divided equally in two. This results in not having enough loans for the first half of the year to cover costs, while loan amounts for the second half of the year are usually in excess of the costs for class. You do not have control over this with your schedule (unless you want to pay a $100 re-registration fee), but you are expected to know this and know that you will need to pay this amount out of pocket regardless if your upcoming loan disbursements will cover the costs.

Upon withdrawal from the program, your loan disbursements will be recalculated based on the percentage of the time-period you were enrolled during your unique academic calendar. However, the costs may not be evenly distributed, due to the front loading. Therefore, if the time period you were in rolled was 33% of the academic calendar, but your costs during that time period were 45% of your disbursed loan amount, they will return 67% of the loan disbursement, leaving you to cover 12% of the cost EVEN THOUGH YOU "THOUGHT" YOU HAD THE LOANS TO COVER YOUR COMPLETED COURSES.

As a real life example, I am stuck with a $965 bill that I thought was covered by Stafford loans for classes I completed. This may be correct according to federal guidelines, but this was not transparent at all. I even went through great lengths to inquire about any costs that I may incur due to my withdrawal and both Student Account Services and their Financial Aid office and everyone I spoke with told me that there should be no reason I would owe anything. Upon inquiring about the bill, everyone I spoke with was a bit dumbfounded as to how this happened, but couldn't do anything about correcting this issue. It was simply a stroke of bad luck I guess.

Additionally (the reason I withdrew in the first place), the instructors for the online program do not grade your coursework. You simply get credit for turning in your assignments. I tested this by turning in a final project (a 5-7 page paper on project management) for the final class. I did not even complete the requirements in the grading rubric (my paper was a half page short of the minimum length, nor did I have any of the required citations or a bibliography). I received a 100% on the paper. To say the least, their academic program is inferior.

Ask a Question or add a response!