A Blessing of More than I Could Have Imagined
By Margaret Michels
In April of 2013, I started attending Anthem College Online pursuing my degree in Healthcare Management. Now keep in mind that I am 60 years old and am kind of in a hurry to get in and get out so that I can get into a better paying job. This was supposed to help my husband and me be able to retire. Through the graciousness of my Dad, Lee Green, I was able to fund my education. I always told Dad that I couldn’t think, but he wouldn’t have anything to do with that nonscience! I started school and began to pay each month as I went each. I found that I LOVED it and did have a brain!
I was supposed to graduate December of 2014 and Anthem College was supposed to help me find a job. On a Friday morning, I gut up and decided to try to finish my homework for the week. When I logged into the site, there was an IMPORTANT NOTICE posted. I opened it up, and when I read it, my heart dropped to my feet. My school had gone bankrupt and as of September 1, 2014 was no long going to be in business. I only had four classes to go, and would have gotten my AS degree. The ironic thing about this was that I had been making monthly payments up until April of 2014 then thought I would just go ahead and pay it off. It would be one less thing to think about.
I must come clean and admit that I AM A CRYBABY! It seems like things had been making me cry a lot lately, and I hated it but here I was CRYING again! The school had attached a letter from the Arizona State Board of Education stating that if we wanted to get our money back, we could apply, and it MAY be refunded. Well, of course, I wanted my money back! I sent in the form and lo and behold I got a call from them. The man was very kind and told me that if I wanted to continue my education, I could call a school called Brookline College and talk to the President. I did that immediately.
He referred me to a lady by the name of Lynette. She told me that they would review my unofficial transcript and give me a call. After reviewing my transcript, she called and said that I needed to take the four classes, plus two others didn’t qualify, and that this would cost $10,500 but to not worry. She said that the financial advisor would be calling me to get me enrolled. As promised, the financial advisor called and the first thing she asked was if I had any questions. I said yes, I do and asked her how I was supposed to pay when Anthem College took all of my money. She immediately told me that she would have to call me back in a few days when they could figure this out. You see, all the other students had student loans that they were able to use to cover the classes, and I didn’t.
I called the State Education Board gentleman again, and he said that unfortunately they wouldn’t be able to pay since I wasn’t a resident of Arizona. He told me to call the California Board of Education, and they said that they wouldn’t pay it unless I had gone to a school in California. I called the Senator and got referred to another agency but, unfortunately, they couldn’t do anything. I tried to call Anthem College, and their phones were no longer in service. I called back and forth to Brookline College for a whole month finding that they were also running into roadblock after roadblock. It was a lost cause.
A few days later Lynette from Brookline College called me and asked me to go over all of the places that I had called because she was going to talk to the President of the school the next day and see if he had any ideas. She told me that she didn’t give up easily. Yah right!
The next day I had finally had it and told Bill that I was just going to cut my losses and move on. There was just nothing else I could try. He left to go to the store, and it wasn’t more than an hour after I had given up that the phone rang, and it was Lynette. She asked me how I was doing that day, and I told her that I had run out of options and that I would just have to give up my chance at finishing my education. She said, “Oh no you won’t.” She told me that she had talked to the president and they had decided that enough was enough and it wasn’t right what Anthem College had done to me and that they had decided to let me finish my education with them for FREE. This was supposed to cost me $10,500, and they were letting me go FREE! So, I bet you couldn’t guess what I did? Yes, I started crying! She was laughing telling me that I was supposed to be happy, and I was crying trying to tell her that I WAS happy.
The lesson I learned from this experience was twofold. The first thing was that God was taking time out of His busy day to think about ME. The second was that He was WAITING for me to get to the last straw and say I GIVE UP so that I would have to fully rely on HIM and not myself. He also wanted to show me that miracles can happen when we trust in Him. I am so thankful to God for what He did. I started at Brookline on October 27th and will graduate the first week of April, 2015. Praise be to my Lord!
