I attended a program at a regionally accredited B&M school. Some classes were in person and some online. I chose the program because they advertised that all of the classes included specialized training and they were one of few schools holding the professional accreditation required for offering this training and the accrediting agency would give me a diploma. The syllabus for all of the classes also mentioned this training all over. When I started classes I learned that the teachers were not familiar with the specialized training. One teacher said she did not know about it herself and just asked us to read it. Another teacher said it was not important and so we never talked about it class. I could not drop the courses because the school policy said I needed to make that choice in the first day. If I wanted courses like this without this specialized training I could have gone to a less expensive school. They took my money but did not give what they advertised. What can I do?
I do not want to be specific because only few schools have this training. I should say, many jobs require the training and with it I could get a big pay raise. I spent several thousand dollars but the classes did not include the training they said it the classes would have. It is a public university.
There will be a grievance procedure in the university catalog, if it applies to your situation, then try following it first. If you're not satisfied with the outcome, you can file a complaint with the accreditor, you can file negative information about them with the Better Business Bureau, you can sue them, or you can try to drum up negative local news media attention on them (example).
Take them to small claims court. You don't even need an attorney for this. You get to present your case in front of a judge. Most likely the school won't even bother to send anyone to give their side of the story and you'll win a default judgment.
If there are only a "few schools" that offer this training as you stated, you should be able to very quickly turn to your industry and find out who the reputable providers are. If this school is considered reputable in your field, and you plan to stay there, you need to go higher up the food chain. Ask for a refund or a re-take with another instructor. I'd certainly start with the school before going to court.
I agree. Try to get a meeting (in person or on the phone) with someone at the school first before thinking about going to court. I had a similar problem with a school in the past, and I resolved with a phone call to the Dean of Students. After a friendly discussion of the issues, I agreed to take my business elsewhere and the school agreed to refund the tuiton for the two classes I took. Problem solved. Also, I was able to use the 6 credits to transfer to another school. Try this route, it just might work for you, too.
There are a few grievance procedures in the catalog. It says nothing about who to contact or how to file a grievance. They are only for discrimination and harassment. I also found complaint departments and they only handle those two kinds of problems.
Before talking to the Dean of Students, did you talk with anyone else? Is it inappropriate for me to complain to the Dean of Students without first speaking with my advisor and other people in my department?
I don't think it's inappropriate to contact the Dean directly, but in my case I spoke first with an advisor, who put me in touch with a manager (I can't recall her exact title). The manager took my info and a description of my problem and forwarded it to the Dean, who called me later the same day to discuss. This was for an online program from a public university. Good luck getting your problem resolved.
You seem to be indicating that the school holds some form of professional accreditation, but is advertising this accreditation in a misleading way. In this case, you could file a complaint with the professional accreditation agency; this could be an issue that the accreditors would be concerned about. However, you should try to resolve the issue with the school first, before taking it to the school's accreditor.
No they do have the professional accreditation and if I stayed with the school I could get the diploma from that accreditation company. The piece of paper will be meaningless without the training that was supposed to come with it. The classes did not include the specialized training related to this diploma and accreditation. The classes just talked about generic and out of date information which I could have found at any other school and the teachers did not know anything about the training related to the diploma.
