Independence University Reviews

"I attended in 2019 the experience was cool to start with. Certain teachers I had just would not help with any assignments and the second I did not login or do homework they blew my phone up. I have an entire loan from them and I can’t afford it. I feel that if you cannot find a career in the field you studied for you shouldn’t have to pay"

"So a bit of backstory, I more or less joined this university right after high school and I come from a household that makes under $20,000 a year. I saw this school as a stepping stone to my bachelor's degree as I'd only get my AAS in graphic design here to make the other cheaper. I'm one of only two members of my family that I know of that have gone to college at least once. And finally, one of my siblings at the time was in the military and required my help as I was the only one available to help them move (3rd paragraph's predicament). So rating my overall experience with the school I'd say they are a nice 4/5 stars if not 5/5 in terms of the helpfulness of the staff. During the first few months if you have a computer science degree they will send you a tablet and after a laptop (mine was a mac). While not perfect their classes and more or less got the job done and were conducted using the zoom app for the meetings each week and campus app for turning in work, email between students and teachers, etc. They did record the sessions each week for students to watch back later on youtube which was very helpful if you miss the meeting. The only thing is especially for those of you who are considering the online version, is that you have to be active here and not play around. They have community tabs on the campus app that allow the students to talk amongst themselves and network as well as a built-in way to respond to the teachers to ask for help. I'd advise you not to be lazy and make time to go to the meetings each week as the teacher will go over last and that week's assignment and answer questions as well. Now you may be asking why did I give it a 3/5 then instead of the 5 right? Well in my case its that I was put into a predicament by my family, that lead to me not having access to the internet for 2 months (reminder I went to the online college ) and there was no policy or anything I could do to stop them from dragging my GPA through the dirt. While I do understand that it's not the school's fault, it does leave a bitter taste in my mouth not to mention that I'm now paying out of pocket to pay back the school tuition and will have to pay back the government as well for somewhere around over $30k total. Otherwise, besides this the career adviser was afterword was very active and adamant about helping me though I couldn't get much work under my degree where I'm at so it currently isn't doing anything. I would recommend this to those of you who need something akin to technical college and are ready and willing to put in the work. Otherwise, if you're going to play around save your money."

"If I could give 0 stars i would. This was a complete waste of time. All they care about is MONEY!!!!! They will call and email you several time throughout the day,but when you need help or have a question they are hard to find or they take weeks to get back to you. And their laptops are CHEAPPPPPPPP maybe cost you 150 in the store but they charge you a minium of $850."

"enrolling in this school was the biggest mistake of my life and if i can turn back time to never doing it i would. i have two more MODS left and i still havent done my externship. my site advisor told me that i should find somewhere but nobody will take me. i am paying so much for this school and passed all my classes and worked hard but im afraid i will have nothing to show for it but a huge bill. i wish i wouldve done my research first"

"This school isn't really what I thought is was going to be. I can't ever get a hold of an instructor when I need help and can't get answers when I need them. This school could do better hope things change but i don't see it. I may look for another college but I am trying to stick with this one."

"DON'T LISTEN , these people who are saying bad stuff . I been in this school sense 019 , done in april next year this school been good to me. Student advisor calls every other week and. We talk about courses and if I need help in this class, the teacher do actually care about students. These people are complaining about this , school probably drop outs or . Don't ask for help , because they think the teacher won't help them. If you put in the hard work , then you will be successful in this school. Ps. IF THE school didn't care they wouldn't send laptop to computer science students nor graphic art classes."

"I love this school I was able to earn my associates and now I am earning my bachelors since re enrolling I feel that I will be more prepared for my career. I am working with career services to get me into my field. I love everything about the school I love the tutoring services that they have I go two to three times a week and my instructors get back with me right away."

"My career advisor has very poor communication. I guess I could say it was VERY easy enrolling on the phone and signing up for my fafsa with them. I am trying to start, but every time we have a phone meeting she makes an excuse as to why she did not call me at the time that was scheduled. I am regretting this! I am looking for a new college; I hope this doesn’t mess me up or anything. I have signed everything I am supposed to even signed up for Fafsa. I have not paid anything. (First year in college)"

"I have been with this college almost 19 months now and as of January ill have my associates degree, and I'll be honest I at one point almost considered dropping out because I didn't think I could handle juggling work and my kids plus college, but with help from my professors and from the dean I was able to not struggle as much and pass all my classes. My advisor is amazing she calls me twice a month to check in on me and make sure I have everything that I need. And ever since covid hit the financial department has been amazing and understanding that im not able to make my payments yet for my student loans. I highly recommend this college because you do it at your own pace as long as you have the drive, determination, and discipline to focus and set aside the time to read everything and actually do the work in full."

"SCAM!!! This school is the biggest scam. They charge $74,000 for tuition but aren’t there for their students when they need it. They used to call me everyday when I was applying to make sure I get my financial aid done but once I got that done they stopped responding. The same financial aid advisor I had calling me everyday would message me 2 weeks later. Not only that but the teachers don’t even know anything. I don’t think they even graduated high school. I have a lot to say but this is a classic trump university scam stay away from this school!!"

"I think this is a great school, or at least it could be more better.. I am about to graduate in 2 months. I am now in my externship phase and havent re received a school refund due to me and I have been in school 18 months. Seems to me that they don't care if you have a job, kids, or other duties. Life DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND THIS SCHOOL. Be understanding and give me my money since I have to pay it back anyway because I have read about the trouble this university is in."

"I would not recommend this school to anyone. My wife attended for Business management and I attended for Computer Programming and Cyber Security. My wife had better grades than I did and they told her that she wasn't meeting their grade requirements of 65% when actually she was making an average of 90% which is more than enough to pass. She was then told that she is being dropped from her program and that she is required to pay back her student loan. As for myself I was averaging an 80% because due to work I wasn't always able to turn in my assignments on time. When I did turn in my assignments even when I would follow the instructions on what I needed to do and would make it to where it was flawless I would always get one of my teachers that would say that they needed me to redo the assignment and resubmit it and then when I would do it again with their instructions on what do do they would never grade it again and they would leave me with a lower grade. I have recently been dropped from my program due to not meeting the same grade requirement just like my wife and I have also been told that I need to repay my student loans. This school is one that doesn't give a rats ass about their students and is just in it to get your money and student loans. Another thing is that they say that they offer you a career path but actually they just attempt to put you in with the army. Not only that but a lot of the classes that I was required to attend by the school for my program were classes that had nothing to do with my program. Please for your own good attend a different school and just ignore this one."

"I have been attending IU for a little over 4 months now, and I love it. The staff and professors are amazing. Everything dealing with this school is amazing. I can't believe how much I love attending school here. They make you feel like family, and you can tell in everyone's voice that they want you to succeed. Every time I speak to someone from the school it feels like I'm talking to a friend and can talk to them about anything. My student advisor can call me and we stay on the phone for, forever just talking about school and life. If you have questions about anything you can email, call, or text them and they responded back within minutes. I have read the feedback of others and I just can't believe what there saying, it actually breaks my heart reading there posts. I would and have recommended this school to everybody I know, because I love it here so much. I'm so excited about everything I have accomplished with this school, I never in a million years thought I would have started taking online classes again, because of all the bad experience's I had at other schools, so thank yawl very much for being an amazing and loving school. I meant to add in that the school work isn't as hard as people think it is. You only have four assignments to do a week for the first three weeks then on the fourth week you have five. As long as you pay attention and do your research you can ace it even if you work over 12 hours a day like I do."

"After reading other reviews of people in IU's Respiratory Therapy program, I'm even more astonished that I was able to not only pass my registry exams, but was able to land a job. The sign up process was very quick and easy, and unlike the horrors that others had to go through, they did find a clinical site for me rather quickly, but that turned out to be another issue (more on that later). But just like everyone else, I wasn't told that the school was on probation before I signed up, but luckily they were still accredited. Each class is broken up into 4-week modules, and you almost always have only 1 or 2 classes (usually only 1). Each week requires you to write a discussion post on a selected topic, write a 500-word essay, and take a quiz, as well as daily checkpoints. Each had a specific point total attached to it. Half the time the daily checkpoints either had a link that didn't work or chose the wrong answer as the correct one and I would have to email the classes professor to have them change the grade to give me the points. Discussion posts are self-explanatory. Essays are pretty easy, it's mostly just regurgitating information from the reading material. As long as you did the essay, you would almost certainly get the full point value. The weekly quizzes could all be found on Quizlet or by doing a Google search. The weekly lectures were not mandatory (until for one class they suddenly were) but they were recorded so you could go back and watch them if you weren't able to be there live. This was actually very convenient for me because I worked most nights when they would record. Later in the course your week 4 exam will be proctored, meaning you have to have a webcam on and allow them to see both you and your screen to make sure you're not cheating. As long as you do well on the prior three exams and do the rest of the work, you can bomb the proctored exam and be in no danger of failing. I honestly didn't have issues with the work, the professors were all very good about answering questions and responded quickly. I did have one issue where a weekly quiz was for the wrong week. It was week 3 of the module and the week 4 quiz, which was material we hadn't covered yet, was posted. When I emailed the professor, she informed me that there was a mistake and they couldn't post the correct quiz, but I would be allowed to retake the quiz and was given the information to read to prepare for it. The clinicals is where I had most of my issues. In a real respiratory therapy program, you'll go to several different sites so you can experience it all: ICU, NICU, ER, pulmonary function testing, breathing treatments, etc. I was put in a small, rural hospital about an hour away from my home (which was much closer than some other students had to go). This hospital did not have an ICU or NICU, so for the entirely of my clinical experience, all I did was breathing treatments and EKGs. I got to see one intubation but no ventilator work because every patient that was placed on a ventilator would be transferred to another hospital. When I met some students from another school, they told me about their experiences, and that they already had jobs working at hospitals as student-therapists, something that IU never bothered to tell me was an option. When I eventually got fed up with not getting the kind of education I was paying for, I reached out to other local hospitals, and had one interested in letting me come do some clinicals there, only to later get an email from someone at IU telling me that that was against some sort of CoARC rules. So I never got any experience working with intensive care patients or neonates. Yet, the school still allowed me to pass those clinical courses. When it finally came time to take my registry exams, I did it without the help of IU. I still did all the post-program training they made available, but it was the Kettering Review that helped me with the Therapist Multiple Choice exam and tutorialsystems.com that really helped me with the Clinical Simulations Exam. I was able to pass and have been working as an RRT for about a year now, primarily working in the ICU because I told my boss about my poor clinical experience and that I wanted ICU experience. I feel like I was one of the lucky few that was able to succeed with IU despite them doing everything they could to make me fail. I did feel like I was underprepared when I landed my job, but I knew going in that most RRTs feel that way no matter where they went to school. IU was convenient for me because I worked full-time and did have the ability to commit to classes, but had I known that it was going to be such a poor education experience, I would have found a way to go to real classes and make it work with my schedule. In closing, I'm proof that you can get a job in respiratory by going to IU, but it's not going to be the ideal way to go about it."

"I am currently enrolled at Independence University for my bachelor's degree in Health Service Management. I would recommend this school to anyone who has the self-discipline to attend an online college. I have found the communication to be excellent and everyone genuinely seems to care about my education. The instructor's have all been very attentive to my needs as a student. My experience has been wonderful!"

"This is probably the worst school you can ever attend online. Go to University of Phoenix, you're better off that way. IU doesn't care about students, or if they've gone through mental health crisis, all they care about is the money they get from the government. It's a sad school."

"The school courses are a joke. They lecture one day a week for one hour if you can call it a lecture. There is basically no Instructor help with this online platform. Its just all about writing papers. If you can write you will get an A if you can’t, you will fail. You can spend 80K for this education or go borrow some books from the local library and do it yourself because that basically what you are getting into. I have friends at online University’ (who are not on probation like I.U.) , pay less money, and get real instruction. I am so worried this degree was a waste of time and money and no employer will take a second look because of it."

"I would never recommend this school to anyone EVER, anyone who takes pride in actually doing the work and making sure they are on top of their game wouldn’t make it at this school , as the communication is horrible . IU will call you a million times as much as possible for fasfa or to collect money or if your attendance is off but will not answer or respond when it’s about important things regarding classes or your degree , or anything at this point . I wish I had did more research on this school before choosing IU . I have not search the BBB because I’m already in it now and unfortunately it’s not much that can be done but this school sucks."

"I've been enrolled with Independence University for only 3 weeks now, but over the course of this 3 weeks, I have ZERO complaints about this school. The communication is 10/10, the amount of information I'm given is a 10/10. All of these negative comments are very mind-blowing to me. I've gotten what I was told I would receive already, (my tablet) I'm going to get the laptop in a couple more months too. I love my instructor, Christine Bailey. Overall, so far I think I made the right decision choosing IU"

"I recently graduated from Independence University with an associate's degree in Respiratory Therapy. My experience with the school was very good. I received a full scholarship and was able to maintain a 4.0, throughout the length of the program. The teachers were very helpful and made every effort to ensure that students could pass the classes. The whole program was designed for students to do well. Although the setup was not perfect by any means, it was definitely designed with the student in mind. Online school on a whole is meant for responsible students, so those who need their hands held all the way through would have a difficult time with any online program. It is no different at Independence University. The staff is there to help you along the way but the student still has to be disciplined enough to do the work on their own. The school adequately prepared me to take the TMC and pass it on the first try, so I know it is possible for others to do so if they apply themselves. I have seen many reviews that mentioned the CoArc accreditation status. All students graduating from the program, if they pass, their degree will be CoArc accredited. My degree is CoArc accredited. The school's CoArc accreditation was on probation due to not enough students passing the TMC exam. I am not sure why more people do not pass, but based on my experience, anyone can pass if they apply themselves and put in the work that is needed."