Student stories
For-profit schools enroll about one of every eight students seeking higher education. Many are older, working adults or military veterans seeking flexible schedules and short programs without the requirements of community and state colleges.
The AJC asked several local students about their experiences.
Will Mueller, 27, enrolled in heating and air-conditioning repair at Fortis College in 2011, encouraged by his parents to find a stable career.
Fortis shares retail space with a check-cashing business in a Smyrna strip mall and hardly looks like a place that would charge students $20,000 for a 12-month course. But Mueller was drawn by promises of hands-on learning and good jobs for graduates.
Instead, he said students had to fend for themselves in crowded labs, as teachers split time between as many as 20 pupils. “If you really didn’t know what to do, they weren’t really there to show you or fix it,” he said.
He said he gained his HVAC certification despite not gaining any real knowledge of HVAC repair. He quit Fortis after being told he had failed an earlier class and had to retake it.
Shortly thereafter, Muller said he got a call from a collection agency seeking a $300 dropout fee from Fortis. He said Fortis never had sent him a bill.
In response to AJC questions, Fortis College issued a statement saying all charges, including withdrawal schedules, are in enrollment agreements students sign. Fortis also said student-teacher ratios and rates for completion and job placement for the HVAC repair program meet or exceed requirements of the college’s accrediting agencies.
Corey Hawkins plans to graduate from Westwood College in December with a bachelor's degree in information and network technologies. Hawkins initially enrolled at Morehouse College but admits he wasn't mature enough to handle college. After a series of jobs changes and becoming a father, in 2011 he enrolled at Westwood.
His experiences at its Midtown campus were good, he said. But when he had to reduce his class hours when his second child arrived, there was a mix-up with the school’s handling of his financial aid. That led to his being temporarily homeless when he could not pay his rent, and he failed and must retake his final two classes.
Hawkins lobbied for free tuition to complete them.
“I think all the issues with the finances come from the company’s national guidelines on the way they handle money,” he said.
The 34-year-old Michigan native faces about $70,000 in debt from Westwood’s $87,000 program, but he is undeterred. He is already working in his field of study, he said, and having a degree from a for-profit institution has not hurt his career.
Adrianne Gates, a Navy veteran, tried going to Clayton State University, but she said she felt like "just a number" there.
“You are in a big auditorium with one instructor you can barely hear,” she said. “I spent more time in the café playing spades than I did in class and still passed.”
So Gates, 25, used her veteran’s benefit at American Intercontinental University, a for-profit in an office park near Perimeter Mall. Gates is studying media production and sound design and also works at the college. She said the experience is exactly what she hoped it would be.
“We’ve got the best of both worlds: Instructors and people who are actually experienced in what we want to do,” she said.
Thanks to her military service, federal taxpayers are covering the young veteran’s tuition and fees. AIU discloses its average cost as $72,240. The median income for an audio or video technician – a common job with the degree she is seeking — is around $42,000, according to federal statistics.
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