Florida Career College Reviews

"I.started classes in 2014 .when i went for interview for enrollment options i was falsly informed of the correct information regarding what i waa looking forward to pursing . Every specific question i had in reqards to what i was looking for was answered in lies.BASICALLY PCT IS ONLY AN 9 CNA CLASS THAT COULD'VE BEEN TAKING IN 3-6 WEEKS ELSE WHERE .CAREER services doesnt help you at all until you graduate and find your own job .they will call ask you information about your job andm ark it down as they helped you.thry only offer you help in finding home health jobs . Its 9 modules and 7 of them repeats information just under a different curriculum name .if you have any question no one answers them thry send you to the next person leaving you still with no answer.They run the good teaches that care away .you get a different set of books each mod and only go over maybe 2 chapter s out of an 50 chapter book only to revery back to one book with all the information. Basically you can teach your self. Upon completion you still have to take an phlebotomy class or challenge the boards for.to be certified in that .you still have to yakemore classes on ekg to get an certification .no one cares its all abiut money to them .p.s RUN FAR AWAY AS YOU CAN"

"My deepest thank you for every teacher . Career service all of you helped me with my career while I attended your campus to the faculty and staff. You are the best. I'm working now at veterans nursing facility land o lakes and the time I was a student learning hands on. Really helped me on my journey still learning as of today . I keep my books as a guide. Thank you such I apologize for not writing a review sooner. But better late than never. I extremely enjoyed all of my classes. And learnt alot. So from the bottom of my heart THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BEING WHO YOU ARE.."

"Know that None of their credits count but you will pay over $450 a credit hour. They lied to me & no school in Florida considers me a college student so don't plan on transferring or getting a bachelor's degree. I owe $35,000 for credits that are not accredited!"

"This is a message for anyone considering attending Florida Career College, regardless of campus or program. These facts are true and correct as of the date of this article, 6/11/ 2015. On August 21, 2014, Education Training Corporation, the former parent company of Florida Career College, filed for bankruptcy, after securing the sale of the Florida Career College campuses to a company from California. On August 22, 2014, all Florida Career College campuses commenced operations under the new corporate umbrella of IEC, International Education Corporation. After obtaining applicable accreditation and governmental approvals, on March 10, 2015, all Florida Career Colleges fully adopted the IEC model, resulting in a number of changes for the students. These changes were instituted in spite of student protest, and with no regard whatsoever as to how they would affect the students’ lives. Students who desired to continue their education at FCC were faced with the requirement of signing a new enrollment agreement, in essence, totally disregarding the legally binding contract they had previously entered into with FCC, or facing the possibility of being stuck with non-transferable credits and Federal loan debt that they may not be able to pay back if they do not complete their education. The first change I would like to talk about is the CLASS SCHEDULE. Classes were extended by 4 hours per week, under the guise of “shorter program completion times”. This meant the morning students would now attend classes Monday through Friday, rather than just Monday through Thursday. The pitfalls: 1) Many of our students had jobs on Fridays, and either had to quit their jobs or lost their jobs because their employers could not accommodate their new class schedule. 2) Many of our students who own automobiles (many of them use public transportation) sometimes do not have the money to pay for gas to get to school. Having to come to class five days a week instead of four represented an insurmountable hardship for many. Administration was deaf to the students’ pleas and hardships. The evening session was changed from 6:00 to 10:00 PM to 5:30 to 10:30 PM, Monday through Thursday. The pitfalls: 1) Many of our students work until 5:00 PM, and some have to wait for partners or relatives, who also work until 5:00, to arrive at their homes to take care of their children, so they can attend evening classes. Many of these students were lucky to make it to class by 6:00, let alone 5:30. The result is that many, if not all of the instructors, had to change their method of teaching to accommodate the hard working late comers by having the students who arrived on time work on assignments and such between 5:30 and 6:00, and then start teaching at 6:00 PM. 2) Public transportation stops at specific times, forcing many of the evening students to leave early and miss anywhere from one hour to thirty minutes of class, which again forced instructors to accommodate them by stopping lectures early, while the students that stayed essentially got to work on their homework assignments at school. In essence, students got one hour of homework done at school, but the actual teaching/learning time was not extended. 3) Even though the classes were now longer in order to achieve the “shorter program completion times”, many of the courses were combined, the result being that many of the subjects that were being taught under the old curriculum were dropped, so the students were no longer learning things they were learning under the old curriculum. The second change I would like to talk about is SWITCHING FROM A NON-ATTENDANCE TAKING INSTITUTION TO AN ATTENDANCE TAKING INSTITUTION. Under the IEC model, any student who misses more than 25% of class time in any given module (a module is four weeks long or 80 hours) would automatically fail the class. This posed a problem particularly for evening students who could not arrive on time due to work schedules or had to leave early due to public transportation schedules. To make a long story short, the first module that FCC officially was an attendance taking institution, approximately 10% of the students failed because they missed over 25% of the total number of hours in a module. Had it not been for the attendance taking rule, all of these students would have passed their classes and moved on to the next class. Instead, they came to class at the beginning of the next module only to find out that they had to repeat the class. Some of these students were straight A students, and some of them would have actually graduated that module, had it not been for the new attendance taking rule. This issue is compounded by the fact that, since the class had been offered the previous module, and there is a specific sequence in which classes are offered, it could be several modules before the student can retake the specific class, and in some instances, graduate! This meant that some of the students, if the particular class was a prerequisite for more advanced classes, would not have a class available to them for several modules. The third subject I would like to touch on is that, even though each module lasts four weeks, the IEC model dictates that NEW STUDENTS START EVERY TWO WEEKS, basically creating two sets of classes that go on at the same time, with start dates that are two weeks apart. The pitfalls: 1) Sometimes the number of students that start in any given program is so small (1, 2, or 3) that instead of hiring an instructor to teach these brand new students, they put them in the same class with other more advanced students. This creates a problem in that the new students don’t have the knowledge of the subject matter that the more advanced students have already learned, putting the new students at a disadvantage and holding the more advanced students back while the instructor brings the new students up to speed. 2) Sometimes not only are new students scheduled to join more advanced students, but they are scheduled for a totally different class than the other students are, forcing the instructor to teach two classes in the same room and at the same time! 3) Sometimes, again because of the small number of students per start, instructors will have three different classes in the same room at the same time! 4) And sometimes, to make matters worse, an “A” module student is placed in a “B” module classroom, which means that they are already two weeks behind, and that after only two weeks of instruction, the “B” module will end, leaving the “A” module student without an instructor! Not related to curriculum, but still impacting the quality of education and services, some of the campuses, in an effort to reduce their budgets, have recently eliminated the position of the person that assists students in the LIBRARY with doing research for their assignments, etc. They typically would assign one or more instructors to cover the library, the issue being that since instructors are teaching, there is no one to assist students while classes are in session, but only after classes have ended. Instructors also have a number of other duties to complete, so they are not completely focused on helping the students in this manner. Next, I would like to address PLACEMENTS. 1) Placing graduates is a very competitive “sport” (yes, noticed that I said “sport”). The placement departments from the different campuses compete against each other constantly, based on the percentage of “graduating students” that they place, and they get rewarded for their performance. In order to place as many “graduating students” as possible, they sometimes place students in less than desirable working environments. When the student who has already graduated is forced to quit due to the negative working conditions, usually involving illegal activities, discrimination, and/or sexual advances, and comes back to the placement department to ask for assistance in securing a job in a more normal environment, they are faced with the comment that “our students who are getting ready to graduate are our top priority; here is a list of job search engines you can use to find a job”. The reason for this is that students who have already graduated do not count towards the department’s monthly ratings; only the students who are getting ready to graduate do, therefore, they have no interest in assisting the graduates. 2) If you happen to be an A student who has language barriers (many of FCC students come from different countries and speak different primary languages), you may be hard to place, yet, you will still have student loans that you will have to pay back. 3) If you happen to be a student who just barely gets by and graduates with a C average, you may be hard to place, yet, you will still have student loans that you will have to pay back. 4) If you happen to be an ATB student (a student who was able to attend college by qualifying for the “Ability to Benefit” program, but does not have a High School diploma or a GED), you may be hard to place due to the fact that the majority of employers require a High School diploma, even if you have a college diploma, yet, you will still have student loans that you will have to pay back. 5) If you happen to be a convicted felon (many of our students fall into this category) and you did not choose your program carefully (Admissions will enroll you in whatever program you want to enroll in, without regard to factors that may affect employability), you may not be employable in your chosen field, yet, you will still have student loans that you will have to pay back. The next thing I am going to point out is that unless a student can pay cash for the gap between their tuition and the amount (of the tuition) covered by the Federal student loan(s) they qualify for, the student will need to MAKE MONTHLY PAYMENTS TO PAY BACK THE ADDITIONAL LOAN WHILE ENROLLED IN SCHOOL. This is not new since IEC, but a lot of students sign up thinking that they won’t have to make payments until after graduation, only to find out that they do. Last but not least, I would like to address CREDIT TRANSFERS. There are two types of accreditation: national and regional. Typically, a regionally accredited school does not accept credits from a nationally accredited school and vice-versa. The final decision as to whether credits earned at FCC will be accepted by another educational institution rests solely on the institution that the student intends to transfer to (receiving institution). This is something that is usually misunderstood. FCC has no control over which institutions will accept their credits or not. I hope this has been enlightening and helpful to anyone considering attending Florida Career College."

"The only issue I had was with financial aid. The women that deals with the financial aid is very nasty. If u are a few days late they will come pull u out of a class to talk about the payment& will put you out of school if u can't pay,regardless of the 30,000 check they receive for your student loan. And this women's office is in the bookstore so if u haven't paid she will hold your books"

"First of all I graduated last year from the Medical Coding and Billing class and found out the state boards that had taken was Worthless because no one took their credentials, I still have to take the CPC from an Accredited College because their Not. So the admission rep tells me to continue my education and become an HSA it's an Associate's Degree. OK well now I'm in this program part the way through it, another school takes over, changes the rules including the curriculum, a lot of the staff left and all these New People started taking over, they cancelled the online classes abruptly and added more classes to the class I'm already taking making my graduation date even further away. Money, tuition oh let me tell you about that.You're charged 80.00 a month whether you have a job or Not and to make sure you pay they have this lady that hounds you and that she can't give you Your books for your class until you make a payment. Never mind that she's holding back books that are already paid for through your financial aid.So the teacher gives me PowerPoint presentation she's made copies of so I won't miss out on the lesson and homework. Yeah this school sucks.Some of the Teachers are wonderful but this new FCC is a complete scam. I can be reached at catinaqueen@gmail.com for the Ligitator that wants to pursue this."

"This college does not care I'm a current active reserve soldier and I'm on my last two classes. First they told me I had one class left then then they tell me I have two I'm deplopying in two months and now they don't have me schedule for no classes."

"I Am still attending this school. I was talking to a couple students who will graduate soon. 2 of the 4 already have jobs lined up in the HVAC field. The other 2 didn't apply as of yet. 2 of the 3 instructors in the evening classes are Jacksonville City Electrical Inspectors, which of course includes HVAC. There was no real sales pitch. No pressure from financial aid office. I held out for a couple days thinking on the financing. They didn't call and hassle me or anything."

"You make my put in a graduating year, but hell no did I graduate from this overpriced crap hole. They changed their curriculum twice midyear, and if by chance you'd like to further yourself after... Good luck finding a school to accept your credits. Not even state college takes FCC credits. Do yourself the benefit of choosing a local state college, it is A LOT!!! Cheaper and you have much more options afterwords should you choose to go to a university."

"All happened in 2008 I was 18 interested in going to a trade school to do something with my life.Ended up walking in and got approached like if I was in a car dealership it was the admission guy who makes commision when hooking someone in.How do I know? School is always hiring and I seen they get paid bonuses and commisions..Got talked into and got a presentation of the school I will admit at that time I was impressed comming out of high school eager to make something out of my life.Guy gave me a killer SALES PITCH and hooked me,long story short.I signed the papers and got my own mother to sign away.My mother is Spanish and does not understand how the school worked and was defensive.The counselors and staff disarmed her..So it went on...Innitially it was for just computer repair guy showed me indeed.com average salary was 36k at the time feeding me how much money I will be making and if I do the fake associate degree i would be making 80k......Keep in mind it was 2008 worst times of all in the economy.So I ended up doing the program under my name alone I completed 9 months.I was persuaded to extended just another year with the pitch sale over and over again.THIS TIME I COULDNT DO IT ALONE,I had to get my mother to co sign for the sali mae loan.FUNNY thing is that i have a couple of freinds like Robert And Jorge who are in the same boat.Being young you want to aspire and move on with your life.The pitch sales and promises and life service you would get got me moving emotionally.I kept on with the school And IT was horrible.I got in the school without a High School Diploma or Testing and I can proove it!I was with students who barely spoke English.There was NO HANDS ON only 1 time.After I graduated with my Associate Degree without a high school diploma.I DID NOT GET ANY I.T JOBS LIKE PROMISED.I did however get my resume created.IN DEBT ARROUND 50K in the whole.Contacted the school and career service for help all I can get is advice to pursue more certification.I got certifications after I graduated and still to this day I am JOBLESS IN DEBT WITH Sallie Mae harrasing me and my mother to pay back.I have at Least 4 Freinds I can name who will agree with me..Like the students in the school throughout time will say..Florida Career College-THE COLLEGE THAT CARES ABOUT YOUR MONEY...So if any Lawyers want to contact me go ahead or someone share your stories... Thank you"

"Looking to connect with other students whom were totally dissatisfied with school and felt they were sold "a bill of goods" and have considered taking legal action against this institution of cons"

"Horrible school. Having teachers that have had their RN license revoked and on the displinary board. Classes are a joke, teachers cant control high school students. FINANCIAL AID IS A RIP OFF. None of the administrators "care" like their slogan claims. Tried dropping out but then your threatened with money problems. Wish i knew then what i know now. DO NOT GO HERE THEY ONLY WANT YOUR MONEY!!"

"I paid $50.000 for an associates degree in medical office administration. now im going for my nursing and none of the schools take credits from FCC. so i basically wasted my money and my time. I graduated with 4.0 GPA. this school is over priced and it is NOT accredited for healthcare programs."

"I started my nursing program in FCC thinking everything was fine. Until my friends told me that was a really bad choice of mine going to FCC for my associates. I researched the school and it says it was approved and not accredited. I went to the director of nursing and she said they working on getting their accreditation higher but they might get it in 2019. The school accreditation is too low, you will not go forward on your education and career. I met a girl that finished her associates there and she told me she had to go back to school and retake every class again because no school wouldn't accept her credits to go for her bsn. No hospital will hire you. Please don't do the same mistake. I went to the school and withdraw asap , thank God it was only 2 weeks in there. Make sure you research your school before you go there."

"Went to the school with hopes of graduating and starting my career and the school closed completely down with no warning at all I had 2 classes left before I had to graduate."

"Classes are a joke, most days sat there and did nothing. Information is out of date. Do not go here"

"Instructors were placed that were not qualified to teach. Financial aid was kept, and not returned to loan company before they closed school. Purposely kept funds thinking loan would be written off by loan company. Now have to get them to return funds. POC's don't return calls in refences to problems."

"Don't do it, go to another college. Once this school get there money from the goverment for your tuition then your treated like crap. Including SOME of the people in Career Services, head of Xray group they are VERY RUDE. I made the worst decision in coming to Anthem. They make their own rules and policies as they wish. Plus there is a lot of favoritisim to whom they WANT TO help. So with this being said "STAY AWAY", it's a scam, a rip off."

"GUYS -GUYS -STOP TALKING WITH NOT SENSE -THIS IS THE BEST SCHOOL EVER - I DID GRADUATED IN 2011 AS A NETWORK ENGINEER -AFTER 3 YEARS- NOW I WORK AS A NETWORK MANAGER FOR A MAJOR COMPANY- I DID GRADUATED WITH MAJOR AWARDS 4.0. PRESIDENT LIST -BEST STUDENT LIST- YOU GUYS ARE BAD STUDENTS."

"To anyone who read this please don't do what I did and do your research, this School make a lot of promises and doesn't keep any. I had the misfortune of picking this school and I could be more disappointed. They promised a evening course, but after the fist two semester you find out that the classes will be in the morning, They do not have all the accreditations, Their schedule can change at any moment, They change uniforms colors just so that they can charge you more money. Schools like this should be illegal, please don't loose your time and money."