Today I am thankful.....for the Goddess Tyche.
She's the goddess of luck and fortune.
Two weeks ago, I learned that the Community College of Aurora dis-enrolled my daughter from all of her classes. At least, we think they did.
According to the registrar, she was dis-enrolled on February 14, 2017. We don't know why. We were told that it happens to a lot of young people because they're naïve and think they know better than the adults. I'm paraphrasing.
That's what CCA's representative said.
That ticked me off. It sounds like they're purposefully waiting until deadlines pass and silently kicking kids out of class so they could collect the full tuition without proving any service to the students. The State of Colorado and the federal government heavily fund this institution. These actions drag out the number of years a student is enrolled and increased the amount these students cost the taxpayers.
The representative also said that they kick kids out of class if they have health issues that leave them in the hospital....no exceptions are made (which is unlike any other college I've worked with).
They also told me that they only communicate via email. Unfortunately, emails are not the best manner of communicating. Sometimes they wind up in the junk folder which makes it hard to know what is going on with billing or coursework until it is too late.
Now, the cashier and the financial aid office said she never dis-enrolled. She failed the classes.
After six hours at that school, we walk away with a bill double what we expected, payable immediately, and NO coherent answers as to what happened.
How can you have a teaching moment with your kid if you don't know what the heck happened?
No matter what happened, I needed to pay $2,165 to the school immediately.
I just lost my job. I took on a lot of freebie hypnosis clients because I figured I could live on the unemployment, severance and my savings. I figured I could live about six months on what I had saved and continue with my standard of living.
After paying for my malpractice insurance, my health insurance license renewals, my psychotherapy license renewal and the kiddo's extra college debt.
I'm nearly broke.
I actually thought about......food stamps. This is because the young lady staying here lost her job and has special dietary needs. I overheard her asking her parents to help her pay for her special food. I overheard her on the phone saying,
"They can't do that for me, Mom. They don't have much money."
I saw her eat chicken. She's vegan!!! She's so loving towards animals. She looked so sad when I saw her throw the bones away in the trash.
That broke my heart. I thought I had to do whatever it takes to provide for this kid and my own.
Thank goodness. I don't have to go on food stamps.
I received a letter today from my bank. They offered me a $10,000 credit line with 0% interest for the next 13 months. There will be 3% balance transfer fee. If I charge $500 within the next three months, I get $150 back. There is also a 1.5% cash back feature.
I went online. I was approved instantly. I put my daughter on the account.
I had her type in her social and get the alerts sent to our phones. Either she can build her own credit now or teach me never to trust her again.
She will receive a card. We will transfer that $2,165 to the new card. She will use it to pay her tuition to Metro State and buy her books.
She will have one year to figure out how she's going to pay it off without incurring an interest charge.
I'm guessing she'll use her Pell grants and student loan.
If she doesn't, at least I've bought myself some time to pay it off.
*****
I pay my credit card off every month in full.
Apparently, I have excellent credit despite the bankruptcy I had to declare just prior to the divorce.
I'm feeling thankful.
*****
The agreement I have with my daughter is that I will do this ONLY if she cooperates with the investigators from the Department of Education. There are many, many reviews across the web of other CCA students being dis-enrolled without learning about it.
In my daughter's case, she was turning in assignments. She thought everything was okay.
There are three other major concerns I've discovered as well.
*****
My original goal was to be a psychology professor and have a private practice.
Stalking changed that.
Yes, the only reason I don't teach is because I had a stalker. I was offered a job teaching psychology at a Regis University over ten years ago. I declined because Shannon was known to harass my colleagues on campus.
I know how colleges work.
This is a travesty.
I'm pretty good at politics, too. I'd love nothing more than to see the funding gutted for this institution so long as they hide their deans' contact information from students.
Yep, they refused to give me the contact information for the dean. The Community College of Aurora had a media blitz because they hired a Dean of Retention.
They must be losing students. I can't get the contact information for this gentleman. I've tried several times. I was refused the information.
I can tell him why they're losing students.
They must not care!
No matter - I'm friends with many Republican lawmakers. I have a reputation for hating taxes and for being a stick in the mud when it comes to funding.
I'll admit, I'm a bit of a craggy person.
I love TABOR. I developed an appreciation for it when a local government employee illegally stole $500 from my family.
It took me years to learn where the money went. It went into her personal travel fund.
Any money a government collects is a tax. Taxes do NOT go into personal funds. They go to the government, to the purpose stated in the regulation allowing for the collection of that tax.
There is no regulation that states a family can be fined because a city employee has a book on his desk. That's the rationale this woman used. She claimed that the employee handbook said that employees could be fined for any reason. It's still illegal, just check into the federal Department of Labor regulations. Municipalities are not exempt.
I stopped laughing when I called my city councilman to inquire about the missing money and the assistant city attorney called and threatened me before slamming the phone down in my ear.
That was sooo cute. She asked what I was going to do about the errant employee. I was basically told to shut up about it.
I was so angry that I put on my ritual garb and went down and performed a protection ritual over the police department and then cast a curse that could only be broken with the city manager stops allowing supervisors to steal money from employees.
At the time of the phone call, I didn't know what I was going to do. I was mad. I called upon Hermes and asked for more political clout.
I was put in touch with famous and well known tax advocates. Our collective efforts, in part, cost the city well over $70,000,000. within two years.
Don't threaten strangers. You never know what they are capable of. My area of expertise is the use of language to persuade people.
It got uglier from there. I wound up running for office in a very high profile campaign before the harassment finally stopped. When the tax-happy supervisor harassed me in the papers, I asked Pheme for help. The articles written about me in the papers eventually overshadowed her attempts at gossip in the forums.
I don't know if I'll ever quite be over that. In the back of my mind, I wonder how many other people are being ripped off in a similar fashion and just roll over and take it.
Maybe I'll be over it the day The City of Aurora stops using home rule to illegally fine employees and putting the money into the department head's personal travel fund. Yep, that's what the HR Manager told me - the money goes into the boss's travel fund!
Disgusting!!!
*****
I've just come to the internal understanding that the story about CCA is just something I can share when lawmakers discuss funding for higher education.
In fact, some of my political friends have started joking with me about it.
I'll ask how someone can be so unenlightened and I'll hear "s/he probably studied at a community college!"
Oh my......
It's a shame.
It is what it is.
I'd prefer my daughter go to Regis University but she likes the progressive vibes at Metro State. Two of the philosophy professors there taught her Latin when she very young. That's probably the real reason she wants to attend.
She had good memories of the people associated with the campus.
Yes, she speaks fluent Latin. All of my kids do. One is a paralegal. I have no clue where the others will wind up.
I blame my grandfather. He spoke fluent Latin, too.
******
There is one thing that is bugging me on a personal level about the Community College of Aurora.
I saw my daughter's first semester grades.
Yep, she was also dis-enrolled from her online courses (just like the second semester). Yes, we owed money for that, too.
She's Pagan!
SHE FAILED MYTHOLOGY!
I have every book Joseph Campbell wrote. In fact, I have more than one set. One is in my personal library. The other is in the family library. It's a staple in our home. I even have numerous Carl Jung books. I gave this daughter a vintage copy of "Man and His Symbols."
The pictures are beautiful!
In our house, mythology is religion.
I cannot fathom for the life of me how she failed a class that focuses on Greek mythology.
Seriously.....I saw the syllabus.
How in Hades does a Hellenic Polytheist fail a mythology class????
She told me that the teacher had a chapter on Paganism/Witchcraft that was totally wrong. She sat down and tried to talk to the teacher but failed the unit. It's a major misconception that all Pagans engage in witchcraft or that Wicca is witchcraft. Sigh....
Oh Lord and Lady....I've lost faith in that school.
Maybe I should apply to teach the course.
Geesh!
I'd rather teach the history of psychology, consciousness or qualitative research methods.
This is right up my alley, too.
******
This bullshit educational railroading is about to come to an end.
We're going to leave it up to the Feds.
I hope Pietho influences the words in the complaint,
Hermes guides the message to the Feds swiftly,
Themis inspires justice for the incoming students so that
Nemesis doesn't have to take further action.
What I wrote is a thousand times nicer that what I want to say.
When someone truly pisses me off - after ripping me off- I envision them being bent over by the son of Aphrodite and Dionysus.
I wish that Priapus would drill their back ends and give them a screwing similar to what they gave us.
Ascendo Tuum!
What is mythology to some people is the religion of others.
Love ya lots,
S.