As part of the free legal assistance we provide to students, Veterans Education Success receives complaints from students using veterans’ benefits, such as the GI Bill, to attend colleges and universities around the country.  

We received 144 veteran and servicemember complaints about American InterContinental University.  We analyzed those complaints for trends, and found:

American InterContinental University

Of the 144 complaints our organization received:

  • Nearly 42% raised concerns about financial issues, especially tuition and fees being higher than promised.
  • More than 26% said they had trouble getting a job after graduation, even though they were promised post-graduation job opportunities.
  • 25% said they experienced deceptive recruiting and marketing.
  • Nearly 24% had loans they didn’t authorize or agree to.
  • Almost 19% complained that their credits didn’t transfer, despite being promised they would.
  • 13% complained about a lack of student support.
  • More than 12% complained about the education quality.
  • Nearly 12% raised concerns about the school’s accreditation – most often about deceptions about the accreditation.

Some examples include:

  • “I wanted to take the audio engineering program, but had to take the media classes as well, even though I had no interest at all in media engineering. After starting the media instructor informed us that it was impossible to gain employment in the field which left me wondering why I was even spending money on courses that I was never interested in anyway.” W.J. 
  • “I was told my tuition would be around $35,000 for my degree.  Come to find out it was actually $50 something thousand. They then changed the transcript fee from zero to $150. Then after I finish my degree they harass me everyday about continuing my education after they ripped me off.” F.M.
  • When she completed her deployment, D. enrolled in AIU to pursue a degree in human resources. The university assured her that her GI Bill would cover her tuition. This was not true. She ended up taking out loans to complete her degree. To make matters worse, AIU persuaded her to enroll in their MBA program for Organizational Psychology in Development, saying it would make her more marketable in human resources. She is now more than $73,000 in debt and hasn’t been able to get an interview, much less a job, in her field.
  • “I was relentlessly called before enrolling and relentlessly called to refer others once I graduated. I changed my number to get away from it.” D.S.
  • “AIU forced me to buy all my books and software from them. I could have saved thousands buying my books from other sources. They also told me to take out loans because my GI Bill would not cover the cost of tuition. I truly believe AIU’s reputation as a diploma mill hindered my job search after finishing my bachelor’s degree. I do not think the instructors read the work before grading because on more than one occasion I knew I wasn’t making sense as I wrote the assignment.” K.W.
  • “AIU credits don’t count anywhere.  Plus they told me they were non-profit and they are for-profit.” C.A.

 

Download the PDF here:

AIU complaints