Highline College — Local services in Des Moines

Took a class over the summer back in 2004 when I was on summer break from the University of Washington. Wasn't really impressed back then. Now, my wife has been working on her associates for the past year and a half at Highline. It's been an adminstrative nightmare from the beginning.

Every quarter, after we've been told that her financial aid paperwork was good and processed, we'll get a message just as the quarter is about to start that the financial aid office needs more documents from us. Every quarter during her first year we've had to send them proof that we were married because the tax documents that they always want we're from a year before we were married. Every quarter we've had to send them our tax transcripts. So they have accumulated multiple copies of the same transcript over the course of an academic year.

The financial aid office also is impossible to reach. No one answers the phone nor do they respond to emails. Every quarter we've had to end up driving to the school and wait in line for an hour at the financial aid office to get something addressed. Personally I would think that given the amount of personal identifying information is in all the documents the financial aid office handles, someone could get prosecuted if any one actually looked closely at their practices.

I've also noticed a pattern with the instructors. My wife has been doing her classes online and there is a tendency for some of the instructors to be a bit careless when posting their material. Course material or kinks being posted late or written in rather inarticulate ways. Had one instance of posting the material for the wrong class. This in and of itself isn't a deal breaker, but there is a tendency for some instructors to blow off students when they try to ask for clarification. It's either "look at the course page" as is the student doesn't know how to read, or just dead silence.

Last quarter she had a US history instructor not even post grades for the first assignments of the quarter till midterm so if you were failing, you wouldn't have any feedback till it was already too late to course correct.

So in general, not impressed at all. Such a small school compared to a place like UW should not have such difficulty in terms...

I went here in 2019 - 2021, and the college was fine compared to the stupid schools I went to in the past. However, I wish I had picked better classes! I picked a women of film class, which was a very stupid class to take, not to mention the lady teaching that class was very rude, grumpy, condescending, and obnoxious! She is not qualified to be a teacher! The class was definitely not as easy as I thought it would be. If you can't describe films well and you're not a feminist (I'm sure as hell not), don't take this class! I'm NEVER EVER taking a class like that again!

I also took an English 101 class with a VERY rude and condescending blonde teacher. I literally raised my hand to ask a question, and she whispered a snarky remark to her assistant saying "Go see what she wants! I don't know why she's raising her hand!". What did she want me to do? Shout my question to her? That's stupid! She was not as helpful as she thinks she is! She was very dismissive and disrespectful. She's also not at all qualified to be a teacher.

But the students were much nicer and cool to talk to than the students at my previous schools. As someone who strongly hates school, Highline college was tolerable. It's not perfect but definitely tolerable.

Also, other than those teachers I mentioned, the teachers are mostly nice, chill, and compared to my previous teachers at my previous schools, they were caring!

Also, I made my very first ACTUAL best friend at Highline College (we are still best friends to this day! 💛)

I was considering taking better classes at Highline college that are actually of my interest. But because I hate homework, I don't have the money for it, there were times I was VERY late to class, and I have a job, I decided not to. I feel like if I picked better classes with MUCH better teachers, I would have an even better experience. But this college, I will say, was okay! It's definitely better than my previous schools that I've been to that honestly made me want to commit suicide!

Also, off topic, but I loved that Churches chicken was a couple minutes away from Highline college! Church's chicken is my favorite...

everything about this college is good except for food, parking spot, and place to study.

Educations are alright. Highline has a tutoring center which can help you with your assignments if you have any question. do not think tutoring center as your homework robot thou. (COMON! they are tutor from school not from you!) you can also pay them for private tutor if you ask front desk about it. Library has large area, so there are plenty of seats available as same as computers. You can print as many papers as you want within 20$ free fees.

There are a lot of international in this college. I don't complaining about those internationals, but when you have to study for midterm for example, there is always international student you have to deal with. If subjects are connected with math, they will work well within a group, but if the subject was something other than math, you will have to carry them with care to pass the test. In my suggestion, it is alright college, but there are not that much of people who can use English professionally enough to do a ASSIGNMENT!. One of the biggest problem in this college is parking. If you didn't pay for your parking permit, there is NO EXCUSE FOR GETTING A PARKING TICKET IN FIRST WEEK.. YES!!! FIRST WEEK!!!... even you paid your parking permit( which parking ticket is there for making people to buy their parking permit instead of RIPPING people's money off) there is no excuse what so ever. Even if you bought the parking permit, there is no gurentee if you find a parking spot or not. sometimes they are full even with your parking permit!.. That is why people go to LOW'S and park there instead. I have seen many people without the parking permit, because LOWS got the parking spot without need to pay for parking permit!.. LOWS usually comments on the school's newspaper that they will tow the cars from highline students soon.. But i have never seen them doing it in...