I am not a stranger to online institutions and just how "for profit" they can be. I was a victim of the predatory lending scam run by DeVry University and several other online institutions from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s. DeVry University left me mangled credit, no degree, and $49,000.00 worth of debt after 18 months of classes. 13 years later I am still affected by this and am still waiting for the last $20,000.00 of fraudulent loans to be discharged from my credit. 

   For the duration of my 20s, I was unable to attend another school, not even community college. I could not afford to pay monthly payments toward the $49,000.00 balance and no school would touch me until I could. We finally had a big win against DeVry that saw roughly half of that balance automatically discharged and we received a refund of about $300(I know, a lot right?) from a class action lawsuit. The discharge finally put me into a position that allowed to me to enter into a payment agreement with my loan holder so that I could once again pursue my dream of higher education.

   This all happened in 2020, right before the pandemic hit. Everything was shutting down and I saw my dream slipping away again. I wanted to attend college physically, at last for half of my classes. Enter Strayer University. While trying to find a community college that maybe had a program I could begin online, I drove past a Strayer University location on my way home one day. I decided to stop in and see what it was about. I was weary that I didn't see any students of faculty aside from the main admissions office when you walk in. I was ensured this was due to the current situation with the pandemic and usually it is bussing with teachers and students alike.

   I was very clear that I was not interested in ONLY online learning, I had been down that road and it did not end well. I also told the young lady I was interested in pursuing a degree in IT, not business. With bright eyes, she informed me that I was in luck, and Strayer had just implemented a new bachelor program for IT. I reiterated that I expected to be able to take my major courses on campus and physically learn from a professor, at least for my IT courses. I also stated I anticipated transferring to a well-known 4-year college after a year or so. I was told that would be no problem, everything is only online right now due to the pandemic, and they would assist with my transfer whenever the time came. Needless to say, it all ended up being lies.

   By the time I hit my second semester I knew this whole place was a scam. It became apparent very quickly that papers were auto-graded. I even tested my theory in an English class where we had to submit a paper by quarter's end and our first draft was due at the 3-week mark, our next draft was due at 6 weeks and the final draft was due in week 10. I submitted the exact same paper all three times. No changes. I received something like a 90, 95, and 100 for the paper that never once was edited. So why was it not 100, 100, and 100? Maybe because they want to make it look as though they are teaching and students are improving? Possibly.

  We also get automatic, pre-recorded responses from our professors to tell us "good job". We were never referred to by our names in the recordings which were my first clue. Then I received the exact same recording twice from one professor a few weeks apart. The only time we even get to interact with our professor is ONE time a week for ONE hour, and they do not teach us anything. All they do is tell you how to submit assignments.

   There are many more issues with this institution like how they manage student refunds, the limits on our abilities to buy quality materials, and how they trap students in their first year by making them take courses that are only recognized by their institution and charging $1500.00 for every class you take(minimum of two) so by the time you realize you are being cheated out of proper education for the amount of money they are taking, it is too late. You are already over $10,000+ in debt, none of your credits are transferrable, and say goodbye to another bachelor program somewhere because you will not have the funds anymore unless you want an associate's degree now. I was literally charged $1500.00 for a course that wasn't even credit-worthy and I was forced to take it because it apparently is a "placement" course for English.

   I have gone along with this for far too long. I changed my courses myself for this school year to make sure I was taking my Major courses for IT and could just go ahead and earn my CompTIA certifications that I was told we were prepared for in this program. They charged me over $4,500.00 for my major courses and then made me spend over $200 to access a third-party course to learn about IT. I literally could have paid a couple of hundred dollars myself and purchased access to the third-party material they were using. The material does not even adequately prepare you for CompTIA certifications. It adequately prepares you for TestOUT certifications which are not nationally recognized in the IT industry. That is my entire Major course for IT. I give Strayer $1500.00 per CIS course to access another company's program that I also have to pay extra for, and that is my training. All online. Something I could have done on my own and saved $1500.00 per the 3 courses I have already taken. There was no instructor teaching us IT. There was no additional work, no discussions, it was literally logging into Strayer and clicking on a hyperlink to take us to the third-party website and learn from that company's recorded instructional videos.

   I also could have paid under $1000 to take a 6-8 week course that prepares you for the CompTIA A+ certification and guarantees you pass or your money back. The first CIS course I took was to prepare me for the ITF+ certification through CompTIA which isn't really a certification, it is just a test that lets you know if IT is a good career path for you. I only passed that because of what I already knew and I did not pass by much. There was nothing on that exam that was in my course material. Nothing.

   Strayer is grossly overcharging for the quality of education they provide. They charge 50,000+ students a tech fee 4 times a year which equates to millions of dollars in revenue for them and we use an interface that has been around since the 90s. The way we have to teach ourselves, and WE DO TEACH OURSELVES, is archaic. So where is our tech fee money going? They even supplied me with a laptop that wasn't spec'd for the IT program I signed up for. The laptop I would need is $900 in their store, but you are only allowed to use $400 a quarter in the store. The most I have been able to spend is $134.00 in a quarter. There is nothing we can buy other than the access codes they make us buy to use third-party programs or their "web texts" for their curriculum that no other institution recognizes.

   The courses offered here are worth $300 in my opinion. That is based on the material being taught, which goes no higher than High School level aside from the third-party programs they use to teach for them. After two years, I have not had ONE of my professors actually teach me something. I had a 4.0 up until this year when I realized they were robbing me. I now have a 3.9 because I started a new program, a real program, that is teaching me tech and that course took precedence over a joke of a History course I was in at the beginning of the year. I literally SKIPPED my final in that history class and still got a B! How!? How could a student not take their final and get a B!?

   I only started this petition because Strayer once again, messed up students' refunds and left me on hold for an hour and a half almost before I got an answer about what was going on. I hopped on the community forum to let the other students know that they need not worry. Strayer got all of their money from you already and they didn't care about your pell grant if they aren't getting any of it, but they are going to issue a later refund so don't fret. Then I realized this was the fourth time this has happened in two years, then I realized there were a lot of people this school just doesn't care about. They should have informed us about the refund issue. It should have been noted on the community forum that there was a delay with Pell Grants and not to worry, your refunds are coming, just a little late. Then I realized just how selfish and greedy this school was considering how much money they take from our loans, trap us here so we are in debt and cannot transfer credits to another institution, and many of these students aren't even aware that this is a joke of education for the price they are paying.

   Strayer targets the same demographics that DeVry and the other predatory schools did. the majority of these students aren't even aware that the Department of Education does more than handle loans. When I saw that my forum post went from 60 views to 300 views to 500 views, I felt that maybe I do need to be the voice for them as well as myself. When it went from 500 views to over 2000 views in less than an hour, I knew I needed to be the voice for us. Strayer is a prime example of why Student Loan forgiveness is a huge topic in this country right now. We demand to see their justification on paper for charging us the amount they do to teach ourselves our own material using a platform that hasn't been updated in over a decade.

   This school needs to be investigated. They have shell campuses everywhere that are not really campuses. They promise you can take classes at your campus with a physical instructor, but none of their courses ever have an available on-campus option. The option itself is listed on their website, but none of the classes are ever available for that option. NONE. It is almost impossible to get a hold of a human being if you have questions. Bottom line is, the education we were promised is not being offered and we are being charged more than most 4-year state colleges without the benefit of real live teachings and up-to-date material. 

   Even if ONE student feels like they are not getting the education they are paying for, it is worth looking into, let alone thousands!