Southwest University of Visual Arts

Just don’t waste your time here.
I very much value the education I got while attending SUVA, and yes that is a contradiction to my first statement so I’ll explain. The instructors at SUVA while I was there were some of the best, and as I understand it now, all of them are gone and the school is reaching out through craigslist in order to hire new staff — no teaching experience necessary. I will admit I had a few teachers while there who were inexperienced but generally they were only employed there for a few months as student reviews were done at the end of each semester. It seems they no longer operate this way and run their basic curriculum off of a high school curriculum book that can be ordered from amazon. Which sadly may have been the case while I was there too, however it has just come to light along with many other unsettling issues.
SUVA advertises high standards and a tough course but you will not get the kind of education you will ultimately pay for and you will probably end up with 100k + in debt. I graduated from the school two years ago, and it was not until a large group of students pulled together recently to file complaint after complaint that the school finally released my updated billing statement. And when they did so, they released it with four other students statements, to another student without any of our consent. As far as I can tell the staff member who did this has faced no consequences what so ever for violating student privacy.
They have yet to send the statement directly to me or any of the other information I have spent the last two years asking for. As they will not release my diploma to me while they maintain I owe past tuition. However, they had initially told me that my loans, grants, and scholarships were covering my tuition in full and that I even had a credit for $ 5,000. Which of course disappeared and then I received a bill for over 22k. This was about a year before I graduated, and it still has yet to be fully resolved. But in order to fight the claim that I still owe tuition as I had been told that I didn’t need to be making any additional payments I am personally responsible for proving there is something wrong with my account and SUVA will not release my file to me so that I can compare my documents to theirs.
Because it has taken so long and they are unwilling to work with me, as well as countless other students, and because of many other issues such as keeping students listed as enrolled long after they’ve left the school (yes I am still enrolled full time and I’ve reported it to my creditors but as usual nothing can be done unless the school reports it) I can only conclude there is something horribly wrong going on with student finances at this school and I will probably never see the diploma I worked very hard for.
Lastly their job placement program is nonexistent. They very rarely help students get placement in jobs after school, and any referrals they do get are from instructors or «friends» and are often just people looking to exploit student workers for rates under what the school teaches you, you should charge or get for your work — «Don’t undervalue your self or those in your field» — rather than actually give anyone a real job. This was also the case with myself and I was «placed» in an awful job right out of school that I was later let go from as it turned out to be seasonal, which was not mentioned by either the staff at SUVA or the business when I took the job.
So yes, the skills I learned there have benefited me and I appreciate them, but at this point I feel they aren’t worth the amount of loans I took on or this mess I’ve had to deal with since. So seriously save yourself the headache and don’t become another victim of this for profit school. I have spent countless hours emailing, calling, and even contacting the New Mexico Department of Higher Education and The Better Business Bureau and all of it has gotten me nowhere in dealing with this school. As they still, after two years, refuse to send me any information or even acknowledge my attempts to get in contact with them. If I had known in the beginning how untrustworthy and underhanded this school is I would have taken my money to a school that really cares about their students and their futures. Rather than one just interested in leaving you with an insane amount of debt and the lowest level of education they can get away with giving you and maintain accreditation.