Collins College

I arrived in town from a long season of working on a documentary and was staying in Phoenix to recuperate, when I saw an ad for Collins College on local daytime television. I decided that I would go in for a tour. i was really impressed with the course work and curriculum and I immediately signed up for classes in a future semester. I went back to LA and did some work in some places and was paying back my loan in order to attend classes that spring. That December my advisor, whom I had been speaking with daily, stopped returning calls. She finally reached out to me while I was on the phone with the admissions office some weeks later, and they announced that the ART INSTITUTE HAD BOUGHT AND SHUT DOWN COLLINS COLLEGE BECAUSE IT WAS COMPETITIVE IN BUSINESS AND ETHICS. I went to the Art Institute for a tour and they did not know anything about film or music in the technical sense and it would be a waste of money to go there when they only offer a certificate. Collins offered bachelor degrees.

DO NOT come near this so-​called educational institution!!! You will end up with HUGE student loans, poor education, and ZERO help with employment search. No industry will take their diploma seriously!

Please don’t keep going to this school, it was a complete waste of time and money. There WAS NOT A SINGLE EMPLOYEER THAT WALKED THROUGH THE DOOR AT COLLINS COLLEGE! How are you suppose to get a job from this place? Well you can’t in the last 6 terms of graduating classes I know six people that got jobs relevant to there degree, me being one of them had to go out and find my own work at a company that is not a game company. I know that this sounds like «well you should have done that anyway» I know and I did but Collins needs to help there students get there jobs. Again it was a waste of money and time and the instructor are coming in and out of the college so fast that there is no way to set up a stable curriculum.

We were here for a graduation of one of there students so we got a free tour of the place. If I were to go into this field of work and go back to school this would be a college I would consider.

Going to college follows one simple principle: You pay them and you in turn receive an education. Collins College is the exception.
The loans you pull (from private and federal sources) are for very large sums that end up total to a mean of roughly sixty-​thousand dollars (~$ 60,000). These loans are generally low in interest, however Collins will not help you in knowing when or if your interest rates for subsequent loans are increased. The highest I heard of from an attending student was a $ 30,000 loan at a 14% interest rate, which, if you aren’t keen on interest rates, is downright awful. That was just one loan. You will end up accruing many more loans throughout this «education».
Speaking of which, the education you receive can easily be achieved by purchasing student license versions of programs (such as 3DS Max, Adobe CS4, et cetera) and playing around with the tutorials. If you want to acquire an education that relates to the Video Game or Graphic Design Industries, you are WAY better off looking into a community college, a non-​profit university, or a list of books that are readily available via
. You certainly will NOT get what you pay for from Collins College, no matter how you sugar coat it.
I have spoken to many other alumni from Collins College and from Art Institute (both of which are known as «For-​Profit» institutions), and everyone has a remarkably similar story. Received a crappy education, an incredible amount of debt, and work jobs that don’t pay enough to make their student loan payments.
If you have a car that is paid off, no cell phone bill, and you live at home with your folks, you can probably swing the average repayment bill of ~$ 650. That, though, is peanuts compared to the highest I’ve heard of (that being ~$ 780 per month). Do NOT waste your time, money, or life attending ANY For-​Profit program. Two years of nothing but ridiculous debt is NOT worth the toilet paper degree.

The majority of these for-​profit schools are a scam, and this one is no exception. It’s far too expensive, the job market for game/​graphic design is shaky at best and the pay for those jobs will hardly make a dent in your student loans. Trust me when I say I’ve run the numbers… and this was back when the economy was «going great» –whatever that meant.
If you want to get into tech, start at the bottom and take a few programming classes at the local CC. Then plan on transferring to a four-​year school later on.