Westwood College review: scam/fraud/unethical behavior

I attended westwood college between 2005 and 2008. I was 17 years old when they first approached me on my high school campus and eventually a sales rep came directly to my home and highly pressured me and my mother to sign paperwork right then and there and at their campus in upland, ca.

The admission and financial aid staff told us that they were fully accredited and that I would be making a lot of money once I graduated from their bachelor's degree program. ($80, 000-$120, 000/year) once I graduated, the career counselors they had at their upland campus helped me find a minimum wage job on craigslist that was completely unrelated to my degree. ($19, 000/year) the staff knew that I was a first generation college student in my family and that I had feelings of apprehension about signing up for their courses and they took advantage of that, I see now were really high pressure sales tactics.

Not 6 months into the bachelor's degree program a student assaulted me and would do horrible things to and threaten me if I did not comply to his demands on a weekly basis, for almost the entire duration that I was attending westwood college. When I tried to tell the counselor's (Really they were sales reps) and teacher's about this student and how I was not happy with how the program was progressing. I was instead pressured to continue to finish the degree requirements in silence, so that they could cover up what was happening to me and so that they did not have to report an assault to any federal or state departments. My safety and well-being was of no concern to anyone at westwood college. They only wanted my money.

Never once did any staff at westwood college encourage me to go to the police and file a report about the student that had assaulted me. Never once did they try to separate or discipline the student that had assaulted me. They would still schedule him classes with me and tell me to ignore him if he was "bothering me." their primary focus was making sure that I was attending their classes and giving them my financial aid money. From this student's deplorable behavior and treatment, I suffered from symptoms of depression and disassociation and westwood college further took advantage of that to manipulate me into committing to their bogus degree programs.

Besides that horrible experience, most of the instructor's were unqualified to teach and often would not teach at all or show up to classes, and yet hand out a-grades to all students, despite poor work being turned in. They also lied to me and my mother about how I was to pay for these classes. It was described to us both that I was signing up for "federal financial aid," they instead took out federal and private loans with high interest rates with sallie mae. My mother was lead to believe that we would not have to pay for anything. The financial aid staff initially told me that I did not qualify for the pell or cal grants, but it turned out that I did and they took the money without even telling me. I did not find out about that until I approached a local community college about what I could do, after I had graduated and found out that the bachelor's degree that I had worked so hard for was non-accredited and non-transferable.

When I tried to go to westwood college to ask what I could do about lying to me about their accreditation and what I could possibly do with a completely worthless degree. I was pressured by the president of the campus at the time named dave or david to sign up for another degree program. I refused and years later another admissions rep told me that they had former westwood students that were attending local cal state and uc schools and pursuing master's degrees and that I did not have to go back to a jc to redo my gen ed requirements. I approached these public universities that she named and theyinformed me that they had no westwood students in their master's programs and that they would not accept my credits.

Attending westwood coollege in upland, ca was a horrible mistake. They were an unethical and fraudulent company that would say and do anything in order to steal money from students and leave us with debt and worthless degrees!