Cincinnati State Technical and Community College — Local services in Cincinnati

Horrible school. I attended the school for about 2 years and have a better experience at the DMV. I was told in high school by a Cincinnati State that my credits would transfer from Cincinnati State to University of Cincinnati seamlessly - they did not. In fact when I went to UC, they stated they could accept me as a transfer student but none, zero, NADA - of my credits would transfer. I applied to Miami University (Ohio) and was able to have 3 classes transferred. Miami was also cheaper at the time than Cincinnati State. I had to start all over from scratch after 2 useless years at Cincinnati State.

The staff at Cincinnati State, including the teachers, were low quality. Staff seemed to brush off any concerns you have. Asking for help? Only the minimum is provided to guide you in the direction you need. Teachers mostly seemed to be low quality and bottom of the barrel - I only had 2 teachers that were okay out of 2 years. A few teachers I was able to show issues with tests or exams - although they agreed that I was correct at the time, one refused to fix the exam grades for everyone because "That is what the test key answer is and she would have to go back and regrade all the tests"... Sorry? That is literately your job... The next teacher could not understand the wording of their own test question that they provided (online) and would not correct the answer for the students. I communicated this error via email and was pushed away. I pushed back stating the teacher was incorrect and provided the work as to why the answer was wrong, in a professional tone. The teacher responded unprofessionally by changing the color of the text in the email to red, downplaying my proof, not using punctuation, and using unprofessional language. I dropped the class as this is not a teacher in my eye; but someone who is there for a paycheck.

Cincinnati State had a graduation rate of just over 12% when I attended. 12% of students graduate from this school.... For the 2019 year it is now 17.9%. The odds of you attending this school for 2-3 years and graduating are very low. You are better off attending a real college if you are serious about your future.

The overall poor quality as well. I have never experienced so many arguments between teachers and students in a classroom before. After class is over, everyone leaves campus immediately unless they have another class within the next hour or so.

The current ad campaign that is on TV does not portray the school correctly. The average age of students is middle age. There is very few labs due to limited budget. Little to no student engagement events. Printers were not free. Book store was a COMPLETE ripoff, some classes did not require the book due to costs. Teachers would not communicate to students about schedule changes in tests and exams effectively for online classes (I missed my final Physics exam due to this).

Save 2 years of your life and go somewhere else. I am not the only one with a really bad experience. If you know someone that attended or attends Cincinnati State, talk to them. You will typically find they did not graduate or they think it is okay but plan to transfer to another school before they finish.

Take my advice and stay away from Nati...

I cannot recommend this college to anyone. I had a horrible experience when I went to Cincy State. The majority of the instructors that I had were flat out lazy and would be 10 to 15 minutes late to class. Several of them would wait until the very last moment to post grades. I approached several of my instructors in the past about my grades, and they told me they would have grades up by the end of the week. They never did until the end of the semester, so you would never know how you were doing until the semester ended. The marketing instructor I had lost one of my tests and she never bother to tell me about it until the end of the semester. She sends me an email informing me that I never "took" the missing test and needed me to come in to make it up before grades were due. Well, by then I was already on vacation with my family and couldn't drive back from Florida. I had one Algebra instructor who had a very difficult time trying to explain how he solved a problem. He also relied too much on PowerPoint slides that were clear as mud.

Not all of the instructors that I had were terrible. There were a few that I had who genuinely cared about our education and were passionate about teaching. Unfortunately, the majority of them did not care. My counselor left a lot to be desired. She was a messy and unorganized woman. She, at one point, told me did not believe me when I tried to talk to her about the issues I was having with my instructors. I believe she eventually got tired of me and had me reassigned to another counselor who was even worse. At this point my GPA had hit rock bottom because I never knew how well I was doing in some of my classes. My new counselor had the gall to tell me I should change my major. He also never wanted to listen to my concerns about several of the instructors. After getting so frustrated with him and the college I dropped out.

My problems with the college did not end there. After taking a year off from school, I decided to go to UC Blue Ash to finish my college education. I decided to get my college transcript from Cincy State so I didn't have to retake the general education classes. That process was like pulling teeth. It was so hard to get my transcripts. What should have been one trip ended up being five trips down to the college to see if they were ready. Eventually I got what I needed and did not look back.

There were plenty of other issues with the college when I was there. The computers in the student labs were virus and malware ridden. The food there was expensive and ok. Parking was a nightmare. Parking at the time was not covered in the tuition and a pass would cost you $50 which was the cheaper option or else you would have to pay $5 to exit the parking lot. Their Blackboard system was a joke. It was unusable because it would crash or go undo periodical maintenance which made online classes very difficult.

There are better colleges in the tri-state area where you get your money's worth. I do not recommend this place and advise checking out UC's community...

I attended 2 semesters here which went well and allowed me to complete half of my credit hours. When I first applied to the school my first advisor assured me I could complete my program completely online, as I don’t live closer enough to commute daily. When I went to register for my third semester I was informed one of my classes would have to be taken in person which I was annoyed at since I was assured I would be fully online. I did find a way to make the commute for that class once a week, and was told the rest of the classes I would definitely be able to do fully online. The day before one of my classes was about to start, I noticed it was changed from online to in person. Then I noticed 2 of the classes had changed like that. I contacted my instructor but didn’t hear anything back so had to miss the first class. I knew I wouldn’t be able to complete my degree without these 2 courses but I wasn’t able to commute, so I looked into transferring and ended up having to transfer because I never heard back from the instructor. The day after I completed my transfer the instructor emailed back and said I might be able to take the classes online, which isn’t even a full answer and was too late at this point. I was also told I would receive CState Accelerate which would cover whatever balance is left after my financial aid. I kept waiting for my balance to be covered by them and contacted them multiple times asking when the remaining balance would be taken care of and they would never give me a date and it ended up showing I owed 1000 dollars which I couldn’t afford as I was told it would be covered. Also was a nightmare when trying to transfer as the school was withholding my transcripts so I couldn’t send them to the new school. After I dropped all my courses the school also told me I would owe a fee for dropping them which is ridiculous because it’s not my fault that the instructor made the courses impossible for me to take last minute. Overall horrible experience, the staff who answers the phone are some of the rudest and least helpful people I’ve ever met and the faculty likes to deceive students and potential students. They will tell you whatever you want to hear so you will go there and change it last minute with no remorse. Would never recommend for anyone.

Edit: They are also charging me money to drop my courses now even though the website says 100% refund...