I entered Colorado Technical University in North Kansas City, MO in April 2005. It didn't take long to see there were many issues with the school and the proprietary company that owns the NKC school and many others throughout the US. Anyone looking to attend a proprietary university should thoroughly research that entity, and the parent company prior to making a financial commitment.
I enrolled in Network Administration at the very beginning of CTU's transition in name change from Sanford Brown. The admissions rep assured me the name change was good and the primary reason for the change was to provide a higher level of academics to their students. Sanford Brown was a college-level school and CTU became a university-level facility.
I spent two 11 week terms at CTU and started into my third term with a 4.0 GPA. At the end of my first term while taking a final exam in college math, some students would approach the teacher, ask him whether a particular answer was right or wrong, the teacher would tell them if it was wrong, have them sit back down and do the problem again until they got the right answer. Then he graded and recorded their final grades. I was amazed! After voicing this concern, this matter was solved but it should never have taken place to begin with
The second term got even better. The Department Chair for IT "taught" a class on Linux. Once a week for four hours we spent the majority of our time doing very little. A couple of evenings we actually looked at the Linux book and tried entering the commands to achieve the same results as in the text. Most of the time, the text results we were trying to duplicate couldn't be duplicated because it was an "Administrator function" and were were merely "users".
We loaded the same software on four different occasions. We were never given a test, a quiz, or received a mid-term assessment as to where our grades stood. At the 10th week, the Department Chair stood in front of class and told us our grades were based solely on absenteeism at which point, another student and I went to the President the following day.
On the 11th week, after the President spoke with the IT Department Chair, the teacher provided us with some phoney list he'd compiled about how we were graded. The grades, how and when they were achieved, were news to us. At the end of the term I was suppose to know something about Linux. I'm fortunate to be able to spell it.
An online career fair was held through Career Services in mid-October. It was promoted through the student portals for a month prior to the fair and looked good until the days it ran. There were 24 companies listed, 3 companies with actual times for an interactive chat with the student. I went to each link and found 1 job in the KC area. Most jobs were low-level paying jobs in other states. I could work at Starbucks in NY as a barista, a line cook in MA, or a restaurant server in OH. It does look good when CEC touts services available to their students in front of shareholders and prospective shareholders though.
Career Education Corporation's (CEC) stock went from $75 a share to $35 a share in the course of a year due to bad press. The name change from Sanford Brown to CTU is common practice with CEC. When a school's reputation is as poor as Sanford Brown's was, they merely open under another name, do away with that entity and apply for accreditation. Sanford Brown was consistently losing their accreditation, even though accreditation is solely regional.
CEC's shareholders' annual meeting notes are available online and I urge you to visit the site. CEC is facing investigations in many states, has had or may still have investigations being conducted by the SEC, and the Department of Justice to name a couple. At $32,000 for an Associate's degree, do not invest your money and future with a company that conducts business in this manner.
My education is partially funded by VocRehab and after advising them of these issues and MANY others at CTU in NKC they advised me to withdraw immediately. Of 36 credit hours I will only be able to transfer 9 to a university that actually teaches networking and is credible in the metropolitan area. (CTU did away with the Network Admin. program and has only Computer Systems Support in the Associates.)
I could go on and on. This is merely the tip of the iceberg! I have heard from friends in new york and maryland that the Sanford Brown insitutes in those areas are close to being closed due to multiple lawsuits pending. Go figure once a sanford brown, medical or technical, always a sanford brown!! STAY AWAY! this place is way messed up!
Deborah
Independence, Missouri
U.S.A.
Carl
landover, Maryland
U.S.A.