Even at lower government estimates of 19,000 barrels a day, at 40 days the BP oil spill would total some 760,000 barrels of oil and it is still spewing oil. Other official scientific estimates place the amount much higher at an estimated 25,000 barrels of oil a day which at 40 days would be about 1,000,000 barrels of oil have leaked into the gulf thus far—BP’s oil spill will become the worst in history and the consequences are certain to be tragic on a global scale.

The travesty with this disaster, besides the fact that it happened, is that it was not an accident. Certainly BP did not intend to blow up its own well but the company was pushing to get the project back on schedule and took a series of shortcuts that undermined safety procedures and practices in the drilling industry such as using a weaker casing material design and not testing at appropriate times for back pressure among other breakdowns in safety protocol. These conscious decisions to forego safety practices mean that the BP oil spill is not an accident.

Furthermore, and perhaps even more ludicrous, is that the company has spent an enormous amount of money on high dollar public relations firms, television and radio commercials, and other public relations messages and efforts in an attempt to protect its brand—not to mention the fake workers that the company hired and bused in during President Obama’s visit to the region. Rather than paying for Washington lobbies, high cost public relations firms and marketing and advertising efforts BP should just starting paying local groups in the region to help with the clean-up effort. Additionally, and even more of  a travesty, the company wasted the first three weeks of the spill attempting to capture the oil coming out of BP’s underwater oil spill rather than attempting to shut the well down completely.

The economic implications and stimulus to do so are clear. It is certain that BP was attempting to salvage not only some revenue from its blowout well but to also keep some of the well structure intact so that it could go back and re-monetize its operations once it got the oil spill back under control. BP is one of the most unethical and dishonest corporations currently in existence considering its long history of safety violations that have already killed other people such as the Texas BP Refinery explosion. And the oil is still leaking.

“In 2009, the U.S. Department of Education provided a preliminary report to the university that cited untimely return of unearned Title IV funds for more than 10 percent of sampled students. The report also expressed a concern that some students enroll and begin attending classes before completely understanding the implications of enrollment, including their eligibility for student financial aid. As a result, in January 2010, its parent company, Apollo Group Inc., was required to post a letter of credit for $125 million by January 30 of the same year” –BusinessWeek

Subject: University of Phoenix Business Practices

I enrolled in the University of Phoenix in November of 2009 in its Doctor of Management in Organizational Leadership program. At the time, the intake counselor (let’s call him salesman) advised me that the program entailed residencies that were held at various points around the United States. Additionally, he stated that if I could not make one then I could schedule an alternate residency. I explained to him that this was important as I travel internationally quite often and, of course, this would be a logistical problem. Again, this was BEFORE I agreed to register in the program. I completed several courses in the program and my residency was coming up for March of 2010 and informed the salesman that I would need to reschedule my residency as I would be overseas at that time.

Suddenly, rescheduling the residency was a problem. Several parties told me that I could not do it. Finally, when I threatened to quit the program they said I could do it. This was after being brow-beaten by my academic and financial aid counselors on a conference call wanting to know why I could not cancel my travel plans and attend the original residency. At any rate, they finally said I could reschedule but that I would need to WITHDRAW from school and start up again with my regular schedule after the residency.

Let me re-emphasize that rather than simply letting me take another course on the curriculum which, I might add, not every course is a pre-requisite for the next, contrary to what these sales people say, they told me that I would need to withdraw. Any other graduate school worth the appellation would have just let me take another graduate level course however the University of Phoenix forced me to withdraw. The school was stating that I would need to withdraw (fall out of compliance with financial requirements regarding full-time attendance) because the school would not allow me to take another doctoral course instead.

Rather than go through this ordeal every time I might need to reschedule a residency I chose to withdraw. Thus, since the University of Phoenix was forced to return some of the financial aid monies that it received from the government it is now stating that I owe tuition for a course which was supposed to have been paid for and for which this entire ordeal started because the salesman told me that I could reschedule residencies “no problem.” Of course, he disputes this now as one would expect but I can tell you that this institution is driven purely by the amount of churn it can generate through billing the federal government for federal financial aid funds. The actual treatment and outcome of the students is purely secondary which is why the graduation rates are so pathetic.

While I am certain the University of Phoenix might be able to rationalize its billing me for $2,301 in tuition in spite of it being the reason I withdrew, I am just as certain that there are inconsistencies in its accounting of my financial aid application, dispensation, and adjudication through this process. Please look into this particular case and add my official complaint of this University’s practices to the long list I am sure that you have already compiled.

My chief complaints are the following:

The school required me to withdraw to change my residency date

The school “auto-withdrew” me from a course-whatever that is but I question the methodology because the school uses something it calls the “Course Exit Tracking Checklists” to determine attendance or withdrawal apparently which I neither signed, approved, or was made aware of in advance

The salesman than enrolled me in the program ensured me that I could change my residency dates yet never mentioned that I would need to withdraw in order to do so

These and other issues are why the University of Phoenix Sucks.

SWOT Analysis

Case Studies

BCG Matrix

TOWS Matrix

Value Chain Analysis

Dupont System of Financial Analysis

PEST Analysis

Marketing Audit

among many, many others