As some of you may know, I am graduating with my Bachelor's degree in one week. If you didn't know that, it is because I suffer from scholastic shame. Without going into detail, let's just say that my school is a very popular online college, represented by a mythical flaming bird.
I have had many gripes over the years, with many-a-shitty-letter written to the muckety-mucks at the university, often to no effect. Now that I approach graduation, the school informs me that one of my student loans is reported as defaulted, to which my financial counselor likens to a "break" from academia that I must have taken. The following post was my retort verbatim (minus the pictures, obviously. What am I, a goddamn rube? Wrong! I am a learned man!). Enjoy.
Good evening,
By "break," you must mean earlier this year when the UoP academic department botched my schedule.
I took no breaks but was involuntarily put on hold while the school figured out how to put me in the classes that I signed up for. I'll bet that this is what the issue is (although I still can't see anything relating as much on the lender's website).
I took no breaks but was involuntarily put on hold while the school figured out how to put me in the classes that I signed up for. I'll bet that this is what the issue is (although I still can't see anything relating as much on the lender's website).
I know that I fell into your lap late in the game and you've always been very helpful, but UoP has been the worst experience of my life from both educational and customer service perspectives. The increased cost of tuition was supposedly related to the "convenience" that UoP offers, but I've always found it to be the least convenient school I've ever attended. So please forgive me if I seem sour about a $43,000 debt for a lackluster education that potential employers giggle at, and still am not able to get anyone paid by my dollars to be accountable to their responsibilities to the students (see also: paying customers).
I'm kind of leaning towards the opinion that it is the responsibility of UoP to figure out all of this information out for me: dates and times related to the supposed "break," causes for the delay in scheduling (hiring and firing academic counselors, etc.), and so on, then explain that to the lenders.
I didn't borrow all of this money so that UoP could bumble around while I do all of the footwork to avoid defaulting on a loan that I was never notified of its status and still cannot find any evidence of such status on the lender's site. I know that cost is certainly not related to the quality of the education I'm receiving, so let's hope that it is at least supporting the administrative staff adequately enough to see it through to graduation.
I'd ask that you forward this email to my academic counselor (and whomever else will actually read it and feign interest in its content) so that you guys can figure out what happened in my case and not leave it to students completely unfamiliar with these processes to try and navigate through the mess created by UoP. In the mean time, I'll try to collect some info from Sallie Mae tomorrow during their business hours, which seems like more than I should have to do.
It is truly a shame that UoP is so enthusiastic and helpful to "help" one obtain loans and financial burdens to pay for one's education, yet not so much when a student nears the end of their tenure (see also: financial value) to the university.
I know in my bones that I'll be dealing with this mess well after my graduation, so I respectfully request that the UoP admin staff pick up the ball and exert some measure of effort in actually servicing their students/customers throughout their attendance rather than only in the beginning.
Not that this relates to you, but this issue will be discussed at length with my congressman. It seems cheap and wrong that I served in the military during a particularly not cool time to join the military solely to be able to pay for some of my education, and that these government funds go directly towards the most sub-par education available accompanied by customer service not fit for a Russian gulag, much less an institution of higher learning.
Yours respectfully,
Mike Maples
