Concorde Career College Concorde Career Institute Concorde Career College Rip Off All Around Aurora, Colorado

I worked at Concorde Career College for over two years. During my employment there, I won multiple awards and lunches, received letters from students thanking me for my work, and befriended several other employees. 

I also heard from more complaining students than I did happy students. I heard stories from student after student of them feeling trapped in programs they felt they could never pass, I heard from students who "graduated" in a run-down church auditorium with a certificate that they could not do anything with and most employers did not respect. I heard from students deep in debt that they could not pay after graduating and facing unemployment or having to get work at  fast food restaurant down the street. I spoke to so many students who were going bankrupt, losing their cars, unable to pay their student loans, unable to find work with their certificate, and so on. 

I also saw the highest turnover rate among employees of any company I have ever worked for in my entire life. I saw other employees being fired left and right, at least 4-5 employees every two weeks on almost regular schedule. Student "advisors" told me outright that they had sales quotas to meet or they would be fired; and they were fired at least every two to three weeks there would be new employees. During my time there I saw 3 academic deans and two campus presidents come and go; and too many teachers to begin to count. I saw friends who were other employees win awards plaques and trophies only to be fired a few weeks later for not meeting quotas or for unknown reasons. I saw people rummaging through students records day and night with no one signing anything, I saw stacks of certificates sitting on desks all over the place with no accountability. 

Materials in classrooms are old and outdated, the library has no books in it or old textbooks if anything at all and no system to prevent anybody from walking out the door with whatever they wanted, teachers dating other teachers and other students left and right, no tutoring at all, and no jobs placement program to speak of. 

For the students, most of them don't know they are being taken advantage of: they can go to any community college and pay a quarter of what they pay at Concorde and get a legitimate certificate or continue on to a college. Many students cannot transfer to colleges and universities because many of the other institutions of higher learning won't accept certificates from Concorde Career College. Many employers also won't hire Concorde Career College graduates. Physical conditions at Concorde Career College in Aurora, Colorado are also poor. Half of the building is either abandoned or used for irregular Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and Salvation Army drop-offs during Xmas. Since there is no cafeteria there, students eat meals from construction site meal trucks or walk across the street to eat at a gas station or a run-down seafood shack next to a pornographic video store (with a bar conveniently located next to it). I have walked around the building many times only to find homeless people sleeping in dark areas, cigarette butts everywhere, bottles all over the place and garbage in the parking lot. 

I am ashamed to have ever worked there and quit because I felt that I was working for a dishonest, unprofessional company.