Please read this before pursuing-an-online-education

Course on Financial Aid Issues when attending an Online For-Profit Institution: For students, administrators, and policy decision makers.

Dear Student,

When beginning your classes at an online for-profit or non-profit college or university, the typical process includes the following:

-Discussion with an Admission’s Officer about the potential degree
-Filling out an application
-Being transferred to a Business Office to help you with your FAFSA (Federal Aid for Student Aid), completing your package
-Be directly admitted to the college/university to start classes

After admission into a degree program and finishing your financial aid required documents and being approved for Pell Grants and other Federal Loans you will be placed into usually two classes for undergraduates and one class for graduate students.

Next are some obstacles and frustrations that you can avoid if you are aware of them.

First, some students do not receive their books on time for several reasons. This delays the students’ homework and assignments which affects their grades, which will then affect their eligibility for future financial aid leaving you with IMMEDIATE debt without any degree to help you get that 'perfect job' that many Admission's Officers talk about.

Second, many students who are accustomed to 'on demand' quick click of a mouse button to change financial decisions online think this may apply to your choices within your degree. Please be aware that starting a course during the first week of classes, you most likely will not know if you get along with your professor or not until week two or three. After deciding if you don’t like the class and want to withdraw from classes, by this point you will be charged most likely 75% to 100% of the tuition cost as well as apply W’s (Withdraws) or perhaps WF’s (Withdraw Failure) after a certain date, to be added to your transcript which affects your attempted/completed course percentage which most likely will affect your financial aid in the future quarters and perhaps your GPA and go into probation, then suspension, then termination from the university. Many, many, many students enter into this cycle.

Deciding to start classes to see what they are like, without understanding the full import of the decision, is likely to make you frustrated and disappointed in pursuing a degree in college in higher education. This bad taste will remain with you and might affect the attitudes of your children and others around you negatively.

Recognize that receiving federal loans carries a very significant personal responsibility. Most students in online education do not graduate, with only a small percentage of students making it to the final degree completion. This is a long winded journey that most do not make it. Employers usually do not care if you attempted or even finished half a degree. They hire people who finish. Most students never graduate, never get a better paying job, go into default on their loans and get bad credit scores and the cycle continues on and on. Such a 'simple' decision could influence the next 20-30 years of your life in unexpected ways.

After dropping out of a quarter of school, the fees do not go away.

Please email me with any questions lyleadams58@yahoo.com.

Thanks,

Lyle Adams