Pennco Technical Institute Bristol PA ripoff Bristol Pennsylvania

Pennco Tech suckered me in in Febuary of 1999 when I was going through a very difficult time in my life and they knew it!

I was looking for a career change and I wanted so much to get into computer programming and get out of the dead end job of security. I passed the tests and got in and was told I would receive a degree in computer programming. The degree was instead in "Specialized business technology" and may as well say "SCOTT TISSUE, WIPE HERE" on it!

I was told the teachers would be licensed certified instructors who ended up being previous Pennco students who had just graduated a term or two before I came there and had no clue what they were doing let alone how to teach it!

Our last term there, we wrote resumes under the instruction of career services. They told me to lie on my resume and tell employers that I had a degree in "Computer Science". They sent me on a few interviews, all of which were jobs that were found in the newspaper and we were totally not qualified to do. The employers practically laughed us out of thier offices when we'd go to apply! The other jobs they were giving me were in no way in the field I was studying! They were mostly taken out of the local newspaper. That which we could have done ourselves instead of paying 15000 dollars to have a fake to for us! I finally got a job on my own at a telemarketing company that I later found out was where alot of Pennco grads worked. It was not in the programming field at all but when I went back to career services, I was told that I already had a job and they didn't need to help me! When I told them it wasn't in my field of study, I was told "Yes it is! You're working on a computer! It does not matter if you are programming it or just looking at it! It is in your field!". I was doing data entry! Nowhere near computer programming! And in no way in the pay rate they were promising!

When I graduated on July 15, 2000, there were only 4 of us left out of the original class of 24. None of us had the careers we were promised!

I haven't seen or heard from all of one of my class but from what I know, all we were given was a garbage degree, emty promises and a debt that hasn't went down in 5 years of paying on it! I'm sure several of my classmates feel the same way! I wish we could get together and file a lawsuit or something! If enough people got together and filed a class action against them, it may stop further rip offs of young people and aduilts!

At the time I enrolled in Pennco, I had a choice to go to either that school or the local community college. I chose Pennco thinking I was making a good choice and would get the same education in half the time! I WAS WRONG! If you have the same choice to make, go to the college and get a real education and a real degree!
We're still mostly doing dead end jobs and not making anymore if not less then we were before we went!

Kenny
West Mifflin, Pennsylvania
U.S.A.