SCAD seems to place getting your money out of your...

SCAD seems to place getting your money out of your pockets and into millionaire Paula Wallace's bank accounts above all other considerations.

Can you get a good education here? Of course. Is it worth the price? Not really in my opinion and experience. To put it politely, the staff at SCAD were not "up front" with me about certain matters, wasting my time and money. My counselor was clueless and unhelpful. My interaction with the head of one of the departments was very negative, and their interaction with me was needlessly rude and abusive on their part. The resulting complaint to the ombudsman - almost comically complicated to file, and of course with no real consequences to the person who treated me so absurdly awfully.

My experience showed me that you cannot trust any of the people you're paying to do what they're paid to do. You have to hound everybody to get anything done or they will drop the ball. My experience with my hometown community college, by contrast was exceptionally professional and efficient. SCAD cost much more, but the service and professionalism amongst the staff was relatively poor. It doesn't inspire much confidence when your community college seems to deliver and your mega-expensive college won't or maybe can't.

After talking to other people who majored in the same field at other colleges, I get the impression that SCAD is particularly bad in this respect. The only thing keeping me from giving SCAD one star is the fact that one may actually be able to get an excellent education. But everything else about the college - from the rudeness of the staff, to the ever changing faculty, to the high prices and irritatingly poorly planned campus pull the rating way down. Yeah, I learned, but it was an incredibly frustrating and unsatisfactory experience, and I felt like I was wasting my money every step of the way. If you can get into some place else - get into some place else.