UEI College - Riverside — Attraction in Riverside

As a veteran using my GI Bill benefits, I felt compelled to share my experience at UEI College to inform other servicemembers and veteran students who are considering enrolling.

Short version: If you're a veteran, proceed with caution. There are some serious issues here that you should know about before making any commitments.

BAH Reduction - 25% Cut for Veterans: One of the most disappointing and financially impactful surprises was the 25% reduction in BAH (Basic Allowance for Housing). UEI operates on a non-standard term schedule, which significantly affects your monthly housing allowance. Most recruiters and staff do not clearly explain this up front, and it's a painful realization once your benefits start being processed. For many of us, that 25% cut can mean the difference between making rent or not.

Potential Loss of Accreditation: Additionally, UEI College is under serious scrutiny. In 2023, the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC) issued a System-Wide Warning to UEI and other IEC-owned institutions due to "potential systemic violations" and an ongoing investigation by the Department of Education. This isn't just a footnote--it's a major red flag for any student investing time, money, and future career hopes into a school that may be at risk of losing its accreditation.

Discriminatory In-Person Requirements for Veterans: While the school permits the general student population to attend classes via Zoom from home, veteran students using GI Bill benefits are forced to come into the physical campus to maintain eligibility. This policy creates an unfair double standard. It's hard to justify making veterans commute and attend in-person while everyone else has the flexibility to learn remotely--especially when the coursework is exactly the same. It feels like we're being penalized for using our earned benefits.

Poor Communication and Inconsistent Administration: Veteran students often get caught in the middle of administrative disorganization. Communication between the VA certifying officials at the school and the students is poor, and there's often confusion about scheduling, benefit usage, and compliance with VA requirements. You're left doing the legwork yourself to ensure your benefits are used properly.

Facilities and Resources Are Subpar: The campus conditions aren't great either. Classrooms are outdated, lab equipment is often malfunctioning or unavailable, and computer access is limited. For a school that charges as much as it does, you expect better infrastructure and...

Stay away from this school. The recruiting department lies and creates fakes urgency to join whatever program you may be interested in. HVAC program constantly experienced lack of supplies (at least for night classes) and most of the instructors don't care about actually teaching unless you get lucky. You'll learn how to test a capacitor and braze a copper pipe on a table(which does you no good in the field, stick to YouTube). Overall their program is lacking and you're paying 20k+ for a glorified certification. Not to mention the career services department is absolutely garbage. Totally unprofessional, profanity constantly used, one of the employees showed up drunk once constantly gagging/vomiting in the office space, and the higher up Hilda was completely unprofessional yelling and cussing at her employees, she made me uncomfortable in their office as of I'd be a burden asking them questions.

Finical department are some slick tongue liars. Make sure you take the time to read everything single piece of paper they put in front of you. They will tell you an out of pocket price, and lie about other hidden expenses that you are expected to pay. Clearly they have no problem with saying whatever it takes to get you to enroll. I was told 9k out of pocket only to find out I'm now delinquent for an additional 10k. They promised a specific out-of-pocket expense just to get me signed up and they beat around the bush about any questions you have about any additional costs.

If they tell you financial aid will cover the rest they are liars and just saying whatever it takes to get you enrolled. Look up the Class action lawsuit from their Fresno campus. Pressured enrollment tactics, misleading information about out of pocket expenses, and zero accountability for any of their actions.

UEI Riverside ( maybe the entire institution) deserves to be shut down!!!! proceed...

The staff are super friendly and easy to get along with but if your here for the education you should probably go somewhere else. Im enrolled in HVAC classes and we have very few labs and units to work on for the number of students that are enrolled in the class, I have only been lectured to twice in the last 7 months I've attended, and the campus security is not very safe I've ran into trouble on multiple occasions with strangers finding their way on campus. About 95% of what I have learned so far has been souly from reading the textbooks and the homework and quizzes are easy enough to be done with no studying whatsoever. I almost hate leaving a poor review of this place because it has a great environment besides a few minor things that the campus needlessly tries to enforce on students but in order to give people who haven't enrolled in school a rough idea of what they could be getting into I needed to leave an unbiased review of the school as whole. I don't know if it's any better in other programs, looking at things from the outside it does not appear much better. If your looking to enroll in HVAC I would recommend possibly going to Summit Career College because they are cheaper and it seems like they have more units to work on or at least it seems that way when I toured their HVAC shop. Intercoast is an option to but the facility looks very run down and poorly maintained but I haven't attended either schools nor do I know anyone who has so take that with a grain of salt. But if I were given the option to go back and repick schools I would not...