University of Maryland University College

I went to UMUC for half of one semester. I transferred from University of Maryland at College Park after being treated very poorly by the Office of Student Financial Aid there. They could not deny me entrance because I had a full scholarship to attend any university in the University of Maryland System, but the scholarship only covered tuition, NOT BOOKS! So I had to get loans or grants or a job or whatever else to cover the books, housing, and food , and transportation, but they always took a very long time to process the FAFSA applications and my Montgomery GI Bill funds. So no matter how I estimated my finances for a semester they always found a way to undercut anywhere that I thought I could count on financial aid, and this exacerbated the situation to blow my budget and render me even more in debt. So I transferred to UMUC and the the same thing started to happen. I took an online course in Desktop Publishing and it seemed amazingly rigorous, and I appreciated this and was up to the challenge but because of the administrative issues I could not keep up the way I wanted to. Based on my entire post-secondary experiences I wrote letters asking the Deans and Provosts of several colleges and universities including UMUC why the financial and administrative processes of their institutions were in such disarray, and why is it that certain students of a certain race (black) and nationalities (Afro-Caribbean) were being treated like Hindi outcasts and none of them answered the questions. So I realized something about all these 'institutions of higher learning': all the and majors are like candies in a store, but the administration is a cesspool of corruption. In state-run institutions like UMUC if you have to depend in any way on any 'government' process to pursue your degree you are treated like a cash cow - they lure you in but they string you out and suck the motoney while putting you into debt, and the first thing you have to learn is that you are going to Have To Be a good lawyer on your own behalf if you are going to get anything out of it - and that means that if you get in and either survive under GI Bills, Pell Grants, Loans, or Scholarships being handled by the universities or 'loan guarantors' or banks in any way then you deserve your degree, but if you figure out the scam before you do, then they were never qualified to give you and degrees and you were already considered the Threat to that business Before you even got in. I did, and I renounced that nonsense and have had No Regrets from renouncing but plenty of regrets that I didn't do it much earlier - after the very first semester of being a full-time student, particularly on November 3, 1993 when I began to question why a different school in Maryland (Coppin State College) would charge me $500 per month in dorm fees when there was a block of uninhabited houses all selling for between $3,000 and $20,000 right across the street. Yep! I should have renounced 'accredited higher education' in my first semester at Coppin, instead of suffering in the abyss of this diploma-mill-money-conduit-cash-cow scam way back then instead of seven years later in my first semester at UMUC. But at least I finally figured out the garbage.

I attended UMUC in the early 90s in Germany. I had some truly outstanding Professors. I had a few that were less than stellar--I believe that is typical of any University experience. The courses were challenging, enlightening, and fulfilling. I have since gone on to have a very successful career in the business world. I started a computer training school which was later sold to a Fortune 100 company. I than ran a region and then a territory for that company for 8 years. I am now on my way to career number three--I will be starting at a Tier 1 Law School in the fall.