Collins College review: fraud 17

I'm a stupid parent who signed for her daughter to attend Collins college. I was lead to believe the loan from Sallie Mae would be transferred to her once she graduated. Loan went into default and now is $180, 000.00. I can not pay on this ever, especially when the school has no credit as far as educational value. My daughter does not work in the gaming industry as to what she went to school for. My life has been on edge for several years now due to issues. Including poor credit scores and unable to even obtain a loan as needed. I would appreciate any assistance in resolving this issue if anyone has suggestions.

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The department of commerce believes CEC used preditory practices. To see if you qualify for debt forgiveness call CEC at [protected] toll free.

It
has been so long now, i cannot quote to you the exact year I had
attended Al Collins Graphic Design. I can say that I was there before
the name changed to Collins College, and before they had a computer
graphics department, which was under construction at the time. I
was under age to receive a loan on my own, so I had to have a co-signer,
my father. I also had to send $200.00 and a portfolio of my art and
skills before being accepted to this school. That, at the time, seemed
to me to feel like a good school. The idea that they were scanning
through applicants, to see who was actually skilled in art, and who were
not. $200.00 fee ment they had a large number of applicants, and
wanted to weed out the more serious ones from the less skilled. My
father and mother had just divorced, and that left my father in some
serious debt, let alone, his credit was shot. As I talked to a
recruiter, he had told me that they had a program that IF my fathers
credit score did not pass their requirements, that i was still eligable
for some sort of loan, and that I was still on track to attending their
school. I sold my car, packed my bags, and Am Tracked it to Arizona
from North Carolina. Now, When I and the recruiter were
talking, I had said, "I am already skilled in art, drawing, painting,
ect. There is not much you can teach me there, however I would like to
learn to put my art on computers. Be it Video Games, or Animation. He
said they had a graphics arts department, and that would be right up my
alley. I was out of state, and was placed in some appartment complex,
with 3 other roomates. I was lucky, I guess, from some of the reports I
have read on here. We all got along great, and were some of the best
friends I had at the time. However, 2 of them were into some real heavy
drugs. Not something I would have wanted in my HOUSE. But enough of
that. I had started my classes, and within 2 months i had began to realize a ton of things were very wrong. ONE:
Remember that $200.00 review fee for a art portfolio? I looked around
my classroom, and to my amazement, only ONE kid in all my classes could
actually draw. He was doing Comic Book art. Every other student could
have been out drawn by a kindergardener. And I am not exagerating.
AWFUL. Completely disgusting artists. TWO: The classes I was
attending were things like "Lettering", "Coloring", "Advertising"
Nothing at all to do with graphic art. In fact, the coloring class, I
had been asked to teach MY techniques for a week. I had some of my art
on the table, and the teacher, (great guy, BTW) saw them and said they
looked as though I had colored them on a computer, photoshopped or
something. When I told him that it was only color pencil, he said "Will
you like to show us how next week?" I was excited, sure. Always loved
teaching, however, here I am paying them money for me to teach them how
to color. That's when my bells and whistles went off. THREE: As
I am sitting with my buddies at lunch, outside, I was looking over at a
building that was under construction. Plastic, scafolding ect. I had
asked "What's that going to be?" Someone responded, "Oh, that's the
graphics arts building." "Wait, you mean thats an extention for it?" "No, that IS the building. The courses are not here yet." "Well what the hell am I taking?"
I
looked over my degree, and lo and behold, it was some crap degree in
advertising. Let me warn you, I hate advertising. I hate those who
advertise, I hate the entire industry. There was no way I would work
for a degree in that dispicable field if I was paid to take the
classes. The lump sum of my degree would have come out at $45K, not
including intrest. I marched up to me recruiter, and asked him
what the hell was going on? I thought I was here for graphic arts, and
here I find the building is not even finished. So I am in some
advertising degree. This degree would set me in some feild like
magazine covers, CD covers, and so on. I told him to go to hell, and
packed up, and headed home. I withdrew, broke my lease, screwed my
roomates in the lease, and rent, and went home with a scar of $4, 000.00
in loans. Now, keep in mind, my father was paying these loans, not me.
I am not eligable for a loan. Months later my father had to
file for bankruptcy, and upon that moment, I was of age, 21, and the
loan sharks came after me. My father already wanted to sue the
recruiter for lieing, let alone, break his legs for sending him so far
into debt, and lying. Years later, and as I grew up, I wanted to
go back to school, a real school, and get a real job. Dream Job, in
robotics, or areospace. Again, Lo and Behold, I find I am in default.
Default to a scam of a fraudulent school. I had talked to all my
roomates for years after that horrid school, and they all dropped out,
because the degrees they were going for were crap degrees. LET it be
known, we were all bright students, and were the head of our classes.
All but one guy, but he had a good heart. We did not leave because we
could not hack it. I joined the service after that crap. I was top of
my division in boot, top of my class in A, B, and Sea/C Schools, and was
the fastest to gain rank in Pearl Harbor Hawaii in 15 years. from E2
to E6 within 4 years. I served on a submarine. I LOVE school. I love
learning. I watch only Discovery, History, and other channels of the
sorts. I spend hours opn youtube learning stuff from air brushing to
streatching canvas. I cannot stop learning junk. This School,
Al Collins, has to be sued, even though they are closed now. Someone
has to pay for the number of lives they have ruined. Although I was
only 4K in debt, the intrest over the years has sent my credit to BAD,
and is now defaulted. They have tried to garnish my wages, but I have
avoided them every step of the way. I do not owe anyone anything for a
all out money scam. I have read on WIKI that "Collins College"
has been investigated in their loan department. That alone should tell
everyone that something went wrong here. If there was a case against
them, I have not found it. If it is still pending, please count me in.
If it has already been pressed, what can I do right now? I went
under a program with the governments Education Dep. and paid $50 per
month for 6 months consecutive, and am still in default. I want my life
back. I want A life. I want a real job. In this day and age there is
NO room for such scams. I need help.

I attended this school in 2012 and was told I am no longer allowed to attend after a year. I didn't even get a chance to choose to leave. I showed up one day and was told I am no longer a student. It was complete bull ### and I somehow owe $14, 000. What the hell man. This school needs to be shut down is it hasn't already, and we deserve our money back/ payment for being pressured into signing our lives away. And to those who got jobs, or believe its accredited, it is not an accredited school and you were lucky to find a job afterwards. No one in America, let alone the world, will hire graduates from Collins College anymore because they aren't accredited. As a matter of fact companies have signs on their buildings that say "Those who have graduated from Collins College need not apply here. We will not hire you."

I had similar experience with my "education" at Collins College. I have a lifetime of debt I am struggling to payoff with a job that barely utilizes my degrees. This job a high-school drop out could do and pays accordingly. Does anyone have any information on a class action lawsuit against CC? I would appreciate any information regarding how to stick it back to CC for what they have put me through. Thanks.

send info to familiardreams@gmail.com

All this is true, I graduated in 2010, October, and wouldn't say I got really any type of education. I graduated with a 3.4 GPA so I obviously went to class and did my work, while working for both D3 publisher (a game publisher in tempe) and THQ (a game company in PHX). I was extremely disappointed in how kids were just passed on through classes by paying money after they failed. I think our class started with 42 and 2 of us graduated, yea I said 2! It was obviously a joke but at least 40 of them got out before owing what I owe to Sallie Mae. The biggest thing that irked me was that I would work and turn in things on time and them jim and nance in the back of class would turn it in weeks after me and not get penalized. I still remember calling my family and telling them i wasted the last three years of my life there, but at least I was blessed to find my true love (now my wife), she was at ASU for Law School, and Corporate Law actually. So thanks for that collins, moved from Va to Az to find my wife but a pathetic education.
I am currently working for a huge marketing company, Sapient, in Miami Beach Florida so things worked out for me but it is because I made them work out and wouldnt give up on a career because of a ### education/school.

I work at a large community college and we get so many students who come here with Collins College horror stories. A lot! And none of there credits transfer her or to ASU, whereas a student can attend our community college for their first two years (for the low cost of $71 per credit), transfer their credits and finish their last two at ASU. Please do not go there. You are better to attend a community college and then transfer to ASU or U of A.

I attended this joke of a school till halfway through my BA. I was originally interested in traditional animation, of which I was told I would be able to study. Once I was committed however I discovered That you could ONLY complete coursework in computer animation. There were only three traditional classes! Yet I was forced to spend hours a week in a life-drawing class sketching absolutely ugly models. The teacher was a published artist and expected everyone in the class to draw like freakin' Alex Ross. Look him up, not an easy level of quality to obtain! Nevermind the fact that you don't need even the slightest drawing capability to produce stunning 3d work. I should know, many of my friends couldn't draw a damn stick figure but could animate 3d dinosaurs and model cars. Almost all course work was up to you to figure out for yourself, as most class lectures were simply explain a tutorial on creating a 3d object. No effort was made to explain how or why the process worked or how it could be applied to future projects. While enrolling I was told of the students who went on to promising careers after graduation. What I was NOT told was that some had as much as five years of previous schooling before even coming to Collins. The student assisted housing was a joke: for a two bedroom apartment that cost 800 in rent they placed four students in it and charged us 350 a piece as well as told us if electric went over 80 bucks we had to pay. So they paid 880 to the apartments at most, while the FOUR students inside gave them a total of 1400 a MONTH! The list continues. At one point the classrooms became lacking in computers. We were told it was REQUIRED to purchase a $3500 laptop to continue education, but no worries it comes out of student loan! Well by this point one teacher I had that loved spiking his coffee and barely looked lucid most days had somehow been promoted to dean of animation studies. This [censor]-hat assured us that he had PERSONALLY reviewed multiple laptops and the gateway model was the only one that didn't burn out. Yet the specs barely met the minimum requirements for our software MAYA. I used a loophole in my loan to have the $3500 released to me so I could purchase a laptop of my choice. I saved $500 and got a laptop that was FOUR TIMES STRONGER. Basically gateway at this time was going under and offering kickbacks to any company or school that would buy their computers in masse. The gateway model started burning out only weeks after most students got it. I was given a lot of trouble over not buying the gateway for some reason (wonder why) and my school store accounts were frozen for one month. ( Have you ever had to pay for Prismacolors out of pocket?!? They are EXPENSIVE) The account was unfrozen with no explanation as to why it happened in the first place. Also I do agree that most of the equipment was faulty. And at the time I left there were three students to one computer, as Collins College was accepting any student through the door it seemed and took on WAY too many students. Around the time of going into my BA I discovered this "accredited school" had me stuck, as no other school would accept any of their credits! I was told by devry that my associate's degree was worthless and I would have to start over! This was repeated by seven other prestigious schools! So I stuck it out. I was told in my associate's program general education courses were not required for graduation. Upon entering my BA, I was informed that gen eds were being added to the curriculum and being doubled up on to make up for not taking them during my associate's. I was informed that I was being ALLOWED to graduate my associates despite not taking the gen eds, even though they were NOT OFFERED AT THE TIME. So now I had a three class workload daily, with each class assigning work as if it was the only one we had and nobody had jobs to work. My day started a seven A.M. and ended at three A.M. everyday, even most weekends as I tried to catch up. I developed insomnia trying to cope with the workload. Upon completion of my associate's the job placement office found me three jobs: a non-paying conceptual artist internship with a lone guy trying to put a movie together (8 years later it no longer exists and the copyrights weren't ever filled to begin with). The other two were McDonalds and Home Depot. Not exactly the kind of job placement help I expected. The teachers constantly reminded you that you were to have no unique drawing style at any given time (with a few wonderful exceptions who sadly are in the now almost defunct traditional animation) despite the fact that this was a 3D ANIMATION COURSE! One flash, graphic design and video editing class each was thrown in for some odd reason as none were explained in any depth. It was like attending a weekend workshop. The final straw, the one that pushed me over the edge and made me walk away, was when I was informed by the financial office my loan had not been sending my checks. I attempted to contact Sallie Mae and dealt with endless phone tag. "Oh sorry you need to speak with so-and-so" I would call them and leave a message. They would call me and leave a message (that never answered my questions only telling me to call back) and so on and so on. (note: this is the same loan company that has been sending my statements to a 8 year old address, despite the fact that they have my new email and phone number, and I gave them a new address at that time. I have given it to them countless times since. Apparently, a secret agency conspires to erase my updated information, because the thought of borrowing loans from a company that can't complete a task as simple as database entry scares me!) Meanwhile, I had payed over two thousand dollars I couldn't afford out of pocket (the entire point of my loans, yes?) over a period of almost two months. I had enough. I walked into financial services and told them I would not leave till they had Sallie Mae on the phone in my presence. They argued with me at first and became hostile but eventually complied. Sallie Mae picked right up for a Collins College call and had no problem getting the call directed to the appropriate person (funny how that works). It was there in that office, with the dean present (as he was informing me that my outburst would not be tolerated and that I was to leave) that the Sallie Mae representative calmly and with no idea that anything was wrong answered my questions. I asked simply "I have been informed by Collins College that my loan ended and have been unable to reach you for confirmation nor have I received any statements. My loan was not supposed to end for six more months. My checks have not been arriving according to the school and I have been paying tuition out of pocket. What's the deal?" I will never forget the look on everyone's face in that office as rep politely said "But sir...your loan is still active and actually will be for eight months, not six, and your last three checks were cashed as per your agreement with Collins College. I can fax you the financial services paperwork showing where they have signed for your checks as they do twice a month." The funny thing is that no one in the office looked shocked and no one apologized...they looked angry. A week later I was informed that suddenly, the money they had taken from me was for additional costs of no specific nature. I left the school and told them my lawyer would be in touch. Two months later I received my money back and a formal apology, along with a non-disclosure agreement I refused to sign. This is the real Collins College. I know many successful Graphic Design student from there and film students but not animation, and all my friends had serious issues at one time or another. Be very careful of this school. Be ready to be entirely self-motivated to the point of teaching most techniques to yourself out of books and videos, be prepared to conform and don't EVER speak your mind (it just makes life harder trust me) and watch your money like a freakin' starving hawk that hasn't seen food in a year! This is a school for those with money to burn, who don't have to have a job on the side to pay bills. So to those who made it through...damn you don't know how lucky you were.

Sadly, this is all true! I went here for my AA in Digital Video Production and What a rip off...I was taught nothing! and had to learn almost everything myself (honest to God). Please don't waste your time like I did. This is my take on Collins College... I moved here (Tempe, AZ) from Ohio with plans to follow my dream as a Music Video Director/Producer...which I will be no matter how bad I was ripped off by this so called college (at least im not going here for my BA...ASU here I come... wait no story, just facts. Here's what I think of Collins College from my point of view:

Very over-priced, They don't teach you anything beyond whats common since. Some teachers are good and some are probably only qualified to work at McDonald's like someone mentioned below...(by the way my first job was at McDonald's...I have a Collins degree is only making 2 dollars more than I was making there SMH). Half of what you buy from the book store, you don't need or use! The college is so plain and dull looking...not very inspiring...I remember thinking "Am I in prison or school" lol. My class started with 20 students and ended with like 4 and they kept the class going...how sad! The camera's and equipment they teach with is outdated. Where's the HD!? its 2010 and lastly...THIS IS HOW THEY SCAMMED ME INTO ENROLLING HERE...THEY TOLD ME I NEED X AMOUNT, I APPLIED FOR FINANCIAL AID, I SIGNED AND THEY TOLD ME I WAS GOOD...6 MONTHS INTO MY PROGRAM THEY TELL ME I NEED 6K MORE DOLLARS...WTF! SO I HAD A CHOICE APPLY FOR THERE IN-SCHOOL LOAN OR DROP OUT WITH NO DEGREE AND PAY FOR THE THOUSANDS I ALREADY SPENT UP UNTIL THAT POINT! OH YEAH, CAN'T TRANSFER BECAUSE NO SCHOOL WILL ACCEPT COLLIN COLLEGE'S CREDITS..THEY'LL LAUGH. WHAT A JOKE! I laugh because, I have faith in God and I know this was just a $32k life lesson. In conclusion, do your research and follow your heart. I will reach my dreams no matter what because I have God by my side. Some people might think this school is great but to each its own. Just do your research, don't rush like they want you to. Money is the root of all evil.

I got my A.A. degree in film and video however my diploma isn't worth the paper its printed on. Collins College favorite phrase is, "We are trying to get you in and get you out, CHA CHING. And your money is in their hands, not being put to good use. The faculty is a joke, your being taught by hasbeen teachers who where kicked out of the film industry, the gen ed classes are being taught by people fresh out of college with no real teaching experience at all. I was told once that you really have to impress the teachers to get contacts in the film industry, while they do nothing to impress the students alot of them play favorites with students who kiss their butts. A class would be going on while your so called top of the line teachers are out at eating and drinking and when they come back they are lazy and good for nothing they pass you but give a higher grade to the butt kisser students. Now I have to pay Sally Mae back over 50 Gs and all I will tell them is get your money back from Collins College they ripped me off and did the same thing to you. So in short don't go to this so call college the cameras breakdown, they won't pay for up to date equipment or software, or decent teachers.

I just looked into this school myself. The tuition was about 60, 000 for the bachelors degree yes and once I found out it would cost $18, 780 I laughed to myself. I had just attended High Tech Institute in Minnesota, so I am well versed in the ### they were trying to pull..since I had just gone through that for an Xray Technician...(Certified through the state but did not graduate the class...I was a 4.0 student with a 93.6 average.. They sent me to a chiropractic site for my externship...note I did not more than 1 Xray a week...I was manhandling their customers with stem unit and TQ-machine, and massages.. And I found out the jobs were not hiring because of the doctors exploiting the system and using Exters to fill their HIRING positions...After the experience I knew Collins College was the same way.. They ###ted me through the process of lies and I payed my $50 app fee ($50?!?!? first flag) Got on the phone and my admissions rep started calling me Matty. (Second Flag) Then I called them on their ### and they said they could not understand what I mean...Then her voice got all pissed off because they knew they were not going to be able to rob me..She said WELL IF YOU WANT THE BEST EDUCATION AND TECHNOLOGY YOUR GOING TO HAVE TO PAY THE PRICE!.. I was like whoooaa ok.. yall are on some ###.. peace.. Unless you have $60, 000 to drop, I would not even apply, And this school is accredited to those who accept the credits...(Yes that is what the accreditation is.) To whomever would want this kind of course, I would recommend a REAL Community college that offers a video production ASDegree.

dgonchild- im not surprised if you work for collins college. Nice cover up!