UUÖ±²¥

I quite liked everything about this school, except their financial aid office. The teachers were incredible knowledgeable and helpful. I learned an awful lot. My only problem stemmed from how they handled my financial aid. During my fiscal years with them, which is the 8 month period you are taking classes with them, I had more problems than I didn't. I was on the phone with them so many times to figure out what was going wrong it was kinda ridiculous. Now my biggest problem was not that it was a... Read More repeating problem, it was a slew of all sorts of things. My biggest complaint in all this, was I would call and they would give me information that was wrong. Yes, Beth you will be able to enter your classes, the start date would role around and my class would still be locked. The number of problems they had with my account seemed to be endless. Here is a few examples: a new financial aid system was installed and I didn't click through it to show I had learned about it, but I was never informed to do this. My aid was cut drastically, they marked me down as part time instead of full, I use this money to pay my rent! I had class overlap between to fiscal years and they really could not figure out how to hand out the financial aid because of it. My favorite out of all of them was when they sent me an email and told me they had over appropriated funds to me on my student loans and that I now owed them $1755. How does that even happen? The honest truth behind the last one too was I called them to make sure I was suppose to be getting the extra money, it was more than I typically received. They assured me up and down that it was the correct amount. I could not finish my last two classes with them until I paid it back. I do not have a lot of money, I have two small kids, and the financial aid was my living money. I had to take out a payday loan to pay them off, so I could finish my degree. It really was not a pleasant time for me.

APUS offers exceptional opportunities to non-traditional students with a dedicated focus on unique programs curated by experts in the field. The school concentrates on current issues and employs technology effectively, however since the school is entirely online, APUS often attracts mediocre students which detracts from the quality of the education and competitiveness of the programs. Finally, the workload for graduate-level studies is insufficient considering that students must utilize self-study... Read More methods and assignments to overcome the lack of in-class participation and discussions.

This online degree has its pros and cons. On the plus side, the price is right, and the professors gave me the freedom to work on the subjects of greatest interest/relevance to me. Some of the professors were very much involved in the field at the same time they were teaching the class, as well. Cons, for me, included some of the work being too easy, some of the lower class level profs being ill informed on the subject matter, and a general lack of ability to really connect with professors due to... Read More the nature of online learning. It's also difficult to get valuable recommendations from an online institution unless you're really extraordinary. Overall, though, the ease of scheduling classes, the cost of classes, and the incredible convenience of working on a degree from an accredited institution exclusively from home make this an easy choice. And of course, another plus was that the university had the environmental courses I wanted/needed.