The Art Institute of Pittsburgh - Online Division Reviews of Bachelor's in Graphic Design

"This college fails it's students because they fail to concentrate on the skills required within the industry. As such you take on an enormous amount of debt for an education that firms will not recognize. You really will not graduate with the skills needed because the position has evolved to the point you need to be able to the entire Adobe Suite, Python, Coding, App development, animation, and a great deal of web design. Advertising is moving from print to the web and sales are bypassing a physical location to online. You need to be able to design the look and functionality of a website, while offering more to the user in the way of apps. This is what graphic design firms are looking for along with package design, book design, interactive learning designed, and an entire host of things requiring design. Web and Graphic Design have merged. The Art Institute fails to recognize this, and they push fluff courses over actual content that builds the skills firms are looking for. I would like to say this is the worse part but it isn't. What makes it worse is you are teaching yourself 60% of the time. Instructors regularly tell you to use the internet and fail to respond to questions in a timely manner. Classes frequently do not match the software version and this causes numerous issues and a huge waste of time. You get a better education simply using Lynda.com, Udemy, and Treehouse. These sites give better instruction and the skills employers are looking for when reviewing skills and testing potential employees. You can spend 1200 between the three sites just mentioned or 90,000 and not get the skills you need. You can also get a better education for less combining your local community college along with the three sites."

"Horrible! I originally transferred to this school because they promised me everything my last school was not. Things were fine for about the first year and a half... I have no complaints. But then about a year ago, they told me I owed them money out of pocket because financial aid no longer covered my courses. Total BS since my original financial plan covered EVERYTHING. I have now been making monthly payments and they slowly keep adding additional amounts to my payment plan. I am now paying OVER 14k out of pocket to finish my degree. If I wasn't less than a year shy of graduating I would of transferred, but unfortunately, none of my credits will transfer over to any other school because of the way AI "classifies" their courses. Before my last set of classes ended my financial counselor told me that I was not to able to take additional classes until my new payment plan (for yet again another amount increase) was signed. I asked him what I needed to do to sign this new payment agreement and I thought the entire thing was handled. FOUR days before those classes were to end and my new ones were starting, I had to make my payment, and I noticed that the new payment plan had NOT been applied. I promptly emailed my financial and academic counselors, but got absolutely no response. I was unable to start my next classes, in fear of being charged completely out of pocket for them.. A few days after the start of classes I noticed my financial counselor had changed within my campus common. I immediately contacted this counselor and again never received a response. I emailed and called this counselor about a dozen times before I received any sort of response from him. We scheduled a time to talk on the phone, but that time came and went and he never called, or emailed. When i tried to contact him I received no response. I spoke to my academic counselor about it and she tried to resolved the situation but she again pushed the situation to the back burner after a day or two. It has now been 5 weeks! My classes are suppose to end next week. I asked them to remove me from my classes since day one if the situation was not fixed, which they have refused and I will not get charged for.... Completely fed up with the school, the academic and financial department, and everyone else I have been in contact with since this mess first started. I have not gotten anywhere and get the runaround EVERY TIME I try to discuss things with them. I would not recommend this school to anyone and would not wish my situation on anyone."

"This school is not really much of a school at all. Gen ed classes are all in a cookie-cutter format that is inefficient and just not really helpful at all. It felt like taking the same class over and over. The actual art classes usually came with little to no guidance. I did well in these just based off my prior experience and talent, so it took me awhile to realize that nothing at all was actually being taught, save for a few instructors that actually cared enough. The format is basically to have the students try the assignments, get critiqued on how to change it, rinse and repeat. No instruction on how to actually do it to begin with. Which is the entire point of going to school in the first place. Now I've got $60,000 in debt to pay off, and no job in the field, because their "career services" when you're about to graduate is a forwarded list of jobs from indeed.com, which is just pathetic."

"I absolutely regret spending so much time and money here. It's not that great in quality as far as the work that's assigned and what's expected for I can learn most of this online by having a subscription to Lynda.com. I mean, my high school art assignments were much more difficult than the ones at this school. Many of the instructors aren't great either. Their assignment instructions were often vague, causing me to lose points because they weren't clear. It's also quite wishy-washy what they expect in an assignment, and can they ding you on just about any nonsense you "forgot" to include in the assignment, yet the instructions don't call for said nonsense. I hope this makes sense. Just save your money. Don't go to school for graphic design or the like because most of it can be self-taught."

"I did not graduate. I changed majors with the hope that a combined bachelors degree of Graphic Design and Business Administration would be a boost for a good job. AIOline let me believe that. I was also told I have PLENTY of student aid left that I could finish up and get my degree. Then a letter came in the mail from SallieMae stating I had reached my limit of student aid. The school could not help me and I was no where near getting a degree and was told I needed another $30,000 to complete the course. I was told I could get a 2nd mortgage on my house to pay for it or get a personal loan. Imagine! Encouraging me to go further into debt to pay them!!! Now here I am a few years down the road regretting I ever thought of going to college much less transferring to this school. I'm $60,000 in the hole with no degree to show for it.. Thanks to the economy, neither my husband or myself have had much in the way of pay rises either. I've had forbearances to the student loan on occasion due to more important bills (like eating, lights, heating oil). Many good, well known and reputable colleges are going online with many courses because its convenient for students who work. stick with them and do your homework on the best ones. Ask Questions."

"I did not graduate. In fact I spent 4 years at this school and they ran through my financial aid money like it was water. At first I did not notice and was busy working on the online classes. Then at one point we was required to purchase digital online books. I could not find cheaper books or borrow books for my classes to save me a few dollars. Some of the classes I questioned because we did not hear from the instructors much. And looking at my work and the work of others I could clearly see that my work was not up to par for a good professional portfolio. In the end I took notice of how high my bill was getting and inquired to how many more classes I had to take yet. It took me awhile to get a straight answer from my advisors. When they finally informed me I ran through all my grants, and loan money that I only had 10 classes to take to graduate. But I could not move forward because I could not pay for the classes, also I had to drop out and they charge you to drop out of school! 3000! Worth of some kind of fees. So here I sit with over 60,000 in loans, climbing interest rates and nothing to show for it. Sadly I thought that the Pittsburgh Art Institute was a good school in good standing. Only I found out too late and assumed too much and got talked into this school only to find out it's a scam. I did not get my degree, can not get my transcripts until I pay off that 3000.00. And if I had gotten that degree it would be useless. Go to a real university or Community college forget this one. Online is not worth the trouble in the end."

"I have read a lot of negative reviews of this school, so wanted to add my comments to help people decide. I have an AA from Art Institutes of Seattle and wanted to finish my BA but am a busy working designer and couldn't attend a physical campus. I had a great experience with the Art Institute online, but had to drop when my employer informed me that For-Profit schools are not covered by our company education reimbursement policy and I couldn't do full-time course load to qualify for full financial aid. The school finance people are indeed very pushy, but if you are sure of what you can afford and are willing to finance, you should be fine. Just tell them to stop calling and they will. The instructors were great and we had real online courses with instructor lectures and lots of valuable homework/projects. If I had a financial resource besides just being in debt for full price, I would reenroll. Note: In classes, I did encounter people who were not really qualified to be in class. They do over-accept students. So I could see how people are commenting about the lack of degree "status" from this school. But in the end, for all design jobs, it is your work that counts. A good portfolio, plus showing you put the work in by earning a degree, is all you really need."