The Art Institute of Portland

I would give zero if I could. It was a sham all of it. I graduated two years ago and I still haven’t gotten my diploma. They did not teach me what I needed for a solid career nor did they help me find a job. I’m in massive debt and can’t get a decent job it’s the biggest regret in my whole life. I wish I had never gone.

Unfortunately there’s no option for ZERO stars,. this is a complete rip off folks — they will farm out your loan to loan contractors that cover their tracks so you cannot follow up on exorbitant increases on the interest rates, where you (if you’re a trusting yet stunned parent that signed for the loan) are stuck for the rest of your life paying off on just the interest, never mind the principal amount of the actual loan. Before you know it,. you will be paying for a non-​usable joke of an education that amounts up to what you would have paid for your child to be a Doctor. Do NOT enroll here. Parents,. when you’re looking at your puppy eye’d child asking you to sign for a loan DON’T DO IT, unless you like being homeless and diving your credit.

Avoid AI Portland! If you visit the campus you’ll meet a nice salesperson who has a sales quota they have to meet to keep from getting fired, but dig a little deeper to find the true story: most people who enroll at The Art Institute of Portland don’t graduate. And transferring those specialized credits to a traditional college or university is not possible. (If you bring this up they will tell you the receiving institution determines what credits will transfer rather than tell you the truth, they don’t transfer!) Then look at the debt to income ratio for the small minority who do graduate, then do the math. Google Art Institutes and lawsuits and you will find the many that have been filed by shareholders, former students, former employees and state and federal governments. 15 Art Institutes stopped enrolling students in the past six months because the system is out of money. The federal government no longer wants these colleges in operation because of fraudulent recruitment practices which have led so many into debt which they cannot pay back. Take it from someone who gambled and lost, all that glitters isn’t gold. Behind the smoke and mirrors is a greedy corporation hungry for your dollars.

Nice to know all my tuition was being used fraudulently! I wouldn’t have attended had I known about this. Did have the pleasure of learning under a few great instructors, but most of them seemed clueless. I turned to the internet to teach me things that instructors left out.
The school uses high-​pressure tactics to get you to enroll and seems to swiftly move over tuition and costs (the reality of the costs, anyway) and assures you that there will be grants and this and that which will help you pay for school. In reality, I was ineligible for them all. But at that point it was too late.
Wish someone had been there to lay the truth in front of me. I would have gone to a school closer to home and would have a LOT less debt. I have currently paid about $ 20k towards my debt and the amount of what I owe has only decreased by about $ 3k. You do the math.

My daughter is going there. They purposefully hide what the tuition rates are and the online payment system won’t show what your balance is. It has been this way for three years. Thier accounting is borderline criminal. If there is a class action lawsuite, I’m in.

Internet speeds are similar to dial up… without the dial tone.

The animation program was great, but the other education wasn’t. Such as math and English. Most of the teachers were not accredit to teach the general ed. My biggest deal breaker was that they conned me out of $ 14,000 in just two terms. They started off by billing me In January for winter and spring term. I hadn’t even moved to portland or started any classes. They also generated random bills for little things that I wasn’t receiving services for. They would ask me to pay $ 800 every month out of pocket. Then they didn’t accept my financial aid and billed me directly through the school, so I had to start paying for my education right away. They told me with all my financial aid that I wouldn’t have to start making payments till I graduated. Also, I was paying $ 1,200 a month for my apartment even though I had 4 roommates. I could have rented a luxury apartment by myself for that money. Not to mention, the roommate situation is terrible. My roommates smelled like death. One of them hadn’t taken a shower for three months. Yuck. To top it all off, I had 4 different financial advisor within 5 months. So my financial file was screwed up and none of them could «figure out why I was being billed so much». I guess thats what you get at a for profit school. I was advised not to go, but I did anyway. Should have taken their advice.

Hardcore aggressive recruitment tactics, these days of 2012. Is the school failing? Does the upper management not have a clue? Are teachers writing horrible reviews for it to be a place to work? Is it all numbers based? Are there class action lawsuits against them?
Yes to everything.
Their recruiters love to keep the pressure on you, and they make lots of little fibs when you talk with them that seem pointless. Its because your admissions rep is more like a cult salesperson. Speaking of cults, this place operates like one. The people who give it good ratings and put down the bad reviewers conveniently ignore people who’s scholarships got ‘lost’. Any prestigious institution would not do that, so what does that make the AI as a whole?
Do some research before going here, empty promises and bogus job placement figures have been documented. Rumor has it they are looking to sell the whole thing. Is this the kind of «college» you want to go to? Credits rarely even transfer. Twice as expensive and half as good as a community college. Queue the AI sponsored review in response.

I’m an AI student… I’ve been in the Culinary Management Bachelor’s program. It’s an ok program. I’m not currently enrolled though. Trying to figure out what to do with my degree… I think that culinary programs have priced themselves out. It’s way too high to attend. By the time I’ve graduated, the school will have charged me over $ 100k. WAY TOO MUCH!!! When you leave the school, you don’t get a salary to cover those student loans. I’ve been in the industry almost twenty years, so getting a job for me isn’t too hard. But there are students out there who pay this money, only to land jobs just above minimum wage. They’ll never be able to pay off their student loans. Sheesh.
I don’t know what to say. I truly enjoy going to school. Learning is a passion of mine. But at too high a cost, I’m not so sure I can see the sense in it.

This place-​what a joke. This isn’t a school, it’s a business. I am just now finishing my freshman year up here and I can’t be more excited to be done with this place. The administration is about as helpful as a dead raccoon on the side of the road. No one knows anything and sends you to another person, to another person and then to another person in which you end up talking to the person you started with. I had ten different scholarships when I started here and they lost them/​were so overwhelmed with them I had to help my «financial advisor» figure it out. They charge way too much for crap classes and act like they will get you a great job when you graduate. WRONG. I’m in fashion design and you’ll either be working at Macy’s when you grad, freelancing to make ends meet or possibly work for Nike. The financial office is THE WORST. Every couple of weeks I would get a new bill for some random amount-​which would be one thing but I had my first two semesters covered by scholarships! AND they knew that. Now as I am trying to withdrawl I have been given THREE different totals as to how much I owe. They don’t give you any statements, just how much you owe. My first term a teacher gave me the wrong grade and it took me a month just to get a response from someone as to how to fix it. One of the superiors that I e-​mailed just e-​mailed me back a month ago, and I e-​mailed her in DECEMBER!!! (it’s now May) Here’s my advice to you who can’t focus on anything but art school: go to a CC or University first and get your pre-​reqs done because unless you are getting an Associates here, you’ll have to take them anyways but at a MUCH higher price. Second, only come here if you want to work for Nike (clothing wise) otherwise grow a pair (like I should have) and move to L.A., NYC, London or Paris and get a good education, WORTH spending a lot of money on.