I started an Associates in Business Administration degree with AIU back in June. I set up a degree plan with the advisor. This plan had me doing 3.5 sessions. For those of you not familiar with AIU, a session is about 4 weeks, and has two classes. So seven classes total. Then, in the middle of my last session, they told me I may need to take another class. Of course, this would necessitate a fifth session, another half empty session. I was afraid it would cost more, so I asked several times if it would. They assured me that there wouldn't be any additional cost. In the beginning of December, I got an email saying that I owed them for an additional session (which takes the original $8200 up $2300 more). I've been having it out with them for a while. Does anyone have any advice on this? Do I have any recourse if they won't bend?Also, wanted to let others know to be wary of AIU -- it costs a lot, and they may try to get you for more (in my case, nearly 30% more).
Wrong. A session runs for 5 weeks and 4 days. Five weeks of lectures and 4 days for students to complete their remaining assignments and for instructors to grade these assignments. My advice to you now and in the future is to always make sure that every agreement between and any school is put in writing and is appropriately signed. Disclosure: It's obvious.
So I have no recourse unless they sign something to that effect? I certainly didn't sign anything agreeing to pay more -- I wasn't even notified until they tried to bill me. I would have no problem paying more if it was because I had failed to complete my advanced standing or failed classes. The problem is that they set up a flawed degree plan originally, assured me throughout my studies that it was correct, even when I questioned them about it, and then told me it needed to be changed only when it was to their benefit. Would it be of any benefit to me to go to the Better Business Bureau or the accrediting organization? Just got a response from the Advisor I worked with earlier on to set up my degree plan. I had asked for some details about the plan we set up. He said, "Unfortunately I cannot answer questions for you at this time. Per university policy I am not allowed to work with students after their 2nd week of classes." This seems very fishy to me.
I have found AIU's staff very helpful in resolving any issues that I have had. They even changed the wording on their transcript as a result of a thread here on degreeinfo about the perceived bias that might originate because thier transcripts used to read AIU-Online. Ike, is right though, get everything in writing. I have had no more administrative trouble with AIU than I think I've had with any school. It's my belief that part of the college process is learning to combat administrative difficulty. If you don’t encounter it someway in college, you’ll eventually find a real world situation you have to navigate out of. It is possible someone misrepresented something to you. I've never known a school to allow anyone to take a credit class free of charge. Your other option would have been to test out of it. You might try and email to the dean of students, or one of AIU’s officers. You can generally find their email contacts if you search around AIU’s main website.
The problem I have isn't trying to take a session without paying for it -- it's why I have to take that session in the first place. When I first worked with my advisor to set up a degree plan, I told him that I had taken two (2) Microsoft MCP tests. He told me then, and set up in my degree plan, that those were worth 6 credits of advanced standing each. There was of course, no documentation on what the tests were worth, so I had to take the advisor at his word -- bad idea. I found out 4 months later, as I was finishing up my last session, that the certs were only worth 3 credits apiece, and so was forced to take another session. What made this so aggravating and revolting was that I had noticed the discrepancy BEFORE my last session started. That session only had one class in it. Thus, had AIU caught the mistake in the 3 months I was taking classes, or when I brought up some issues with them, I wouldn't have had to take an extra session at all. AIU had a chance to fix their mistake, but procrastinated until they could force me to take another session, and thus be forced to pay for it.
AIU overcharges My cousin that graduated from AIU 6-months or so ago .. has been overhcarged also. Basically they added 1/2 a session to his program and he has not been able to get an answer as to why ... he is being forced t pay extra. ~ $2500 or so. This is illegal and we should notify authorities.
I've been doing some further research on AIU and it seems that this bait and switch technique is fairly common for them. Ripoffreport has a bunch of threads about AIU coming to people in their last class and charging them $2500-$4000 extra for things AIU should have anticipated. In my case, after I gave AIU all of my information, they set up a flawed degree plan and didn't "discover" their error until they "had to" charge me an additional $2300. When I tried to talk with the advisor that set up the plan, he wouldn't talk with me, stating a "policy" that he couldn't talk with students after their second week of classes. If that's not a big red warning flag, I don't know what is. Does anyone else have personal stories like this they can share? It'd be great to assemble a list to warn others of the dangers of AIU. I've gotten some responses on my blog as well: http://programcsharp.com.
Email me for a competitive online U We are Kaplan University, we are a competitor to AIU & U of Ph. Email me for more information. (Note from moderator: blatant shilling is inappropriate. I've chosen to leave the name of the school so that our members can see this school's marketing efforts. We have many, many other programs in our database and I'd personally recommend our members check a school OTHER than Kaplan)
Sallygal, perhaps you misunderstand the caliber of the people that usually browse this forum, but I will tell you in my opinion your recruiting efforts are not helping your school any at all. In fact, your school's reputation just dropped by 10 or 20 points in my estimation. No one here will have a problem with you attempting to answer legitimate, focused, questions about your school. But this relentless advertising and going after students who ask questions related to problems with other schools makes you, and your institution, look no better than blood hungry sharks ready to pounce on the first piece of chum that happens to float your way.
message for sally gal You may be a competitor of ours, but you don't see me on here spamming people to sign up. You aren't helping your school at all by doing that.
