Welcome to
newhorizonssucks.net

The old site is still available here, but I'm not going to be adding to it much or updating it much anymore, as I have limited time in my old age.

However, I do still receive email from people on occasion, describing their circumstances after doing business with New Horizons, or asking if New Horizons still sucks, given that there aren't any fresh stories on the site. Rest assured that the majority of the stories I ever received were not put on the site because I never received permission from the authors. They wanted to see how NH resolved their situation first, or they were embarassed about getting taken, or they were worried that even with name withheld they would be immediately recognized from the details of their story, or just didn't write back when I asked them for permission. Whatever the reason, I always respected the right of anyone who wrote in to NOT have their email published.

Before I go into whether and why New Horizons sucks, let me just quickly say that you are much better off being skeptical, with eyes wide open, than hopeful and dewy-eyed when you deal with ANY SCHOOL that does technical tranining. And it is worth your time to check out the Advice Page and the Survival Guides before you do business with ANY of these people, whether it's New Horizons or some other outfit, EVEN IF THEY ARE KNOWN AND TRUSTED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. Any promise that isn't in writing and signed isn't worth anything, because as far as the judge can tell it never happened.

Last thing before we get started, these are only my opinions, based on what I have experienced and what others have told me they have experienced.

So, does New Horizons still suck?

ABSOLUTELY, in my humble opinion. How so? Let me count the ways....

They allow their franchisees to lie, lie, lie in order to make a sale. In the few years this site has been up, I have received hundreds of emails from all over the world describing shady, dishonest practices and outright lies told by New Horizons' sales drones. Heck, the first lie is what their sales drones are called: "Account Executives."

Where I come from, "Executives" make decisions and have some bit of power over the direction their company ends up taking. NH's "Account Executives" are barely paid, make most of their money on commissions, and have less than no power when it comes time to make a decision about anything that happens in the business.

So if you were expecting your "Account Executive" to go to bat for you when it turns out that the courses you signed up for are not what you were told, and you'd like a refund, well don't hold your breath. Even if he's a nice guy who would return his commission in order to help you get your refund, the management doesn't take orders, advice, or even requests from AEs, any more than they would from the guy who mows the lawn.

Other lies New Horizons feels free to let their franchisees and salesmen tell:

"This will be a student loan."

Advice: Don't borrow money from scum.

"We will help you find a job. / We will guarantee you a job. / You will be making $XX,000 after getting your certifications."

They will email you some want ads. That's how they help you find a job. Or they will guarantee you a job as an instructor working for them, assuming you pass all of your courses, and sign a years-long contract for very little money and ungodly long hours. I've NEVER heard of New Horizons doing thing one to place a "graduate" into a job outside of NH. On the bright side, sometimes they will let you take courses for free or low cost while you work for them. On the downside, these may be courses that they are requiring you to take. And if you try to quit before your contract is up, they'll bill you for the list price of the courses you took.

Advice: Don't buy the job hype, and don't work for scum.

"We'll get you Financial Aid."

Advice: Once again, don't do business with scum, and shop around if you are determined to get your certs. If you don't know why you're getting certified in this thing or that, other than somebody told you that you'd have to be certified to get that big fat six-figure job, then you should not sign up for anything until you know why it's necessary and what it is. So ask them for the names of specific companies that hire their graduates, and if they actually manage to produce a list, call the human resources departments of those companies. Ask if they've ever hired a graduate from New Horizons (or xyz school, wherever) and if they have, what kind of things they are looking for, how much you could expect to be paid for position X or position Y in your first year, etc.

If you won't do this tiny amount of legwork (phone work, actually) then you probably deserve to be ripped off, and you probably will be.

There are so many other New Horizons lies that listing them here would take far too much time. Click on the "Other Stories" link if you want more of them.

So, why else does New Horizons suck?

Once again I reiterate that these are only my opinions, based on what I have experienced and what others have told me they have experienced. So, what are my opinions of New Horizons?

They do not care about you in the least. They do not care if you ever get your certs, they do not care if you ever find a job, they do not care if you go bankrupt because you have to pay off loans that financed their houses and boats, because they lied to you about having a guaranteed big-money job at the end of the rainbow.

They guarantee NOTHING. They don't guarantee that they'll even BE THERE at the time you come in to get your instruction. They don't guarantee that your classes, necessary to get your cert, won't be cancelled due to low attendance. They don't guarantee that their instructors know what they're talking about, that their instructors have all the certifications required to teach the course they're teaching, they don't guarantee that if you learn everything they teach, that you'll pass the certification tests. And they certainly don't guarantee a good job for you even if you do get your certs.

Their business practices and the way they treat custoners and employees alike do not look like the way responsible companies behave. They brag of being the world's largest independent training company, and they may still be, even though their stock has completely tanked, they've been delisted, and a bunch of their locations just evaporated (meaning you show up for classes and there's a padlock on the door and nobody home.)

There are too many more reasons to list.

Advice: If somebody from New Horizons offers you training, a loan or a job, turn around and run like hell in the other direction.

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