University Of Phoenix - Axia College Online - Apollo Group Axia College: Financial Aide Nightmare, Internet

Sometime last year I decided to go back to school.  A homeschooling mom of two, online was my best option as I could work on assignments while my children did.  All started well...financial aid was distributed and I was refunded the excess in no time flat with no calls made on my end.  This was not to be the case for future distributions.  Brief timeline:

May '09- Started classes.

June '09- Financial Aide distributed, excess refunded to my account within 3 days.

Oct 7, '09- hmmm...didn't I have Financial Aide due? Call FA get slight run around.  Find out that even though I was told all my paperwork was in line, there was one tiny thing I had to fix.  Fixed while on the phone with FA, system updated...voila "I can now get things going.  Should be here in two weeks." 

Two weeks later- No Aide showing on my account.  Call FA again.  "Oh, they are reviewing it.  Should be here by the end of the month."

Nov '09- Call FA again.  No Aide, still processing.  Call FA's supervisor.  "Oh, we'll put in a rush.  7-14 working days"...you're kidding me, right?  7-14 working days it was.  Money showed in my student account but low and behold...7 days later it was still there.  Call..."We can hold this up to 14 days."  Me:  "Then why bother putting a rush on it."

Late Nov '09- Still no payment.  Switch to military, get a discount on classes...supposedly.  Takes weeks for the paperwork to finally get put through.

Dec '09-  Wow, look...they finally decided to put the excess Aide in my checking account.  How nice of them!  Classes aren't discounted yet, but hey...I'm sure someone is on it. 

Week before Xmas break- Finally, classes discounted...more excess funds in my account awaiting transfer to checking.  Whoa...new FA and SA for the military goo.  Cool, someone that knows what they are doing and can get the ball rolling on that CAA stuff that they've had paperwork for since the beginning of Dec.

Back from break Jan 4, '10- What's this...another FA and SA team?  Non-military!  WTF!!  Call and get told that I'm now with an online team, big boo boo and will be transferred back to military immediately.  Old FA puts in a debit memo for the extra funds sitting in my account.

Jan 11, '10- Back with a military team but have had ZERO response to multiple voicemails and emails concerning the billing of my CAA (which is on a timetable for billing) or the as of yet un-debited amount of money sitting in my student account.  Send one more email and miracle of miracles, the phone rings...it's my new FA!  "Billing is running two weeks behind"...hmmmm, me says:  "The debit has been in for long enough and the funds were sitting in my account prior to break.  Why weren't they taken care of then?" No real answer to that one...not really surprised as it seemed that I was taking up valuable tooth picking time at that point.

That brings us to now.  No word on the CAA funds, no word on the supposed debit.  If billing is running two weeks behind in getting debit memos processed then perhaps they shouldn't have taken that extra week of break.  I want to add that my CAA must be billed before the end of the course, which is approximately a month away.  It takes my CAA two weeks to process the request and send the funds back to the school...it takes billing two weeks to train the monkeys that hit the send key for fund distribution.  I'm sure that I'll see all the money owed to me around the time my next Aide payment is due to come into the school on Feb. 22.

At this very moment, my Account Summary is showing no excess or owed funds, but I also cannot access my Account History due to a site glitch.  I'm guessing (and I'm probably not wrong) that the funds have yet to be sent to the bank and the zero balance is due to the glitch as well.

I'm stuck here for the time being but can guarantee that once our military move is complete, I will no longer be a student at University of Phoenix-Axia.