The University of Phoenix Phoenix Campus

Date: Sep 12 2006
Major: Business - Management and Administration (This Major's Salary over time)
I am 24 years old. I enrolled at UOP at the age of 21 because I had started an e-commerce company that had me busy all day long with 12 employees and 70 hour work weeks. The learning structure at UOP worked fine for me, I could get my class work done at midnight when I came home from work, and the flexible schedule suited my needs. I would have never been able to attend a traditional University full time while operating my company.

That being said, trying to graduate from UOP has been a nightmare. My field of study required 120 units. I completed 122 units due to some classes that I transferred in from the University I was attending previously. After finishing all of my classes, no one ever contacted me and told me what to do. I called my academic counselor only to find out that I had a new academic counselor (for the 6th time in two years). My new academic counselor had no idea what my previous academic counselor had done with my transferred units and why they wouldn't show up on my transcript. In the mean time, I was already getting notices in the mail telling me that it was time to start re-paying student loans because I had finished school.

After mulling around, I called my academic counselor a week later, only to find out that I had a new academic counselor again (7th time). And once again, this new academic counselor had no idea what was going on with my graduation or my transferred credits. I sat in limbo for months and months and nobody would do anything about my situation. I had to cancel job interviews because my transcript didn't even show that I had completed all of my classes, and thus I was not eligible for jobs that required a degree. It has been the biggest nightmare of my life just trying to get that little piece of paper that says that I finished my course work. My counselors don’t care, in fact they seem to hate their jobs so much that they frequently quit. UOP notified my lenders of my graduate status, and they made me start paying back my loans, but still no degree! Credits that I applied to transfer months ago still don’t show up on my transcript. I’m at a loss. I invested tons of money on my education, I could have spent half as much and gone to a local State University but it would have required me to sell my company.

I don’t recommend this school to anyone unless you are in a unique situation like I was and you simply do not have time to spend all day at your local University. When I think back on it, I probably should have sold my company and used the money to attend a local University. I learned a lot of valuable things at UOP, but I feel that the quality of my education is being mocked by the sheer lack of service provided by the school. I had doubled up my classes to 18 units per semester, and financial aid only covered half of it, so I was paying to the tune of $2000 per month out of my own pocket, striving hard to finish school and when I finally do, I am stuck in limbo for what seems to be like the rest of my life. How frustrating to have completed school and have absolutely nothing to show for it. To this day it’s been 7 months since I finished my last class. Still no degree, still no transcript even showing that I am finished. My academic counselor still does not want to talk to me. I worked so hard, I pay my parents’ rent and bills, I pay for my little sister’s University, and I dumped over $30,000 of my own cash and financed an equal amount to complete my own education, and it feels like they have just abandoned me after I finished my classes.