My experience at Mason Anthony School of Cosmetology has been, without a doubt, my greatest…read morefinancial regret as an adult. Seeking a meaningful career change, I pursued massage therapy program. Upon enrollment, I was given a brief tour and required to complete various paperwork, including a student handbook and a contract stating that Mason Anthony would deliver the 600 credit hours mandated by the State of Ohio to graduate from massage school. In exchange, I paid approximately $7,000 in tuition--an amount I opted to pay in full rather than through financing or a payment plan. This was a significant financial investment, one I made in good faith, expecting to receive a structured and comprehensive education. My decision to choose Mason Anthony was based primarily on its affordability and accelerated program length, with the expectation of graduating in just under a year. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that lower tuition came at the expense of quality education.
From the outset, I had concerns. Despite reasonable expectations for hands-on training early in the program, it took three months before I was allowed to perform a massage on another person. Even then, there was no structured guidance from the instructor, who failed to demonstrate proper techniques before requiring us to practice on classmates.
The most glaring issue was the instructor himself. He demonstrated a complete lack of awareness that students learn at different paces and through various methods, making no effort to accommodate diverse learning styles. When I privately voiced concerns about being unprepared, I was dismissed and told to rely on senior classmates for guidance. Instead of providing structured education, the instructor wasted class time telling exaggerated personal anecdotes, complaining about his salary, and openly criticizing the administration. Instruction often consisted of watching online videos rather than engaging in hands-on learning. Worse still, he was frequently observed sleeping at his desk during in-person classes and even during Zoom sessions, with classmates documenting these occurrences. The lack of professionalism and commitment to student success was astonishing and unacceptable.
For seven months, this subpar instruction persisted, with conditions deteriorating over time. During this period, the instructor canceled class approximately 17 times, equating to 68 hours of lost instruction--hours that were fully paid for but never made up. Instead of addressing this issue, the school arbitrarily awarded students credit for those hours without providing any educational content.
The situation reached a breaking point when, without warning, the instructor abruptly resigned, notifying students via email just five minutes before class was scheduled to begin. The administration claimed they had no prior knowledge of his departure.
What followed was a complete breakdown in communication and instruction. For a month, the school provided no structured education. Instead, the Operations Manager--who had no formal massage education--assigned essay questions as a means to accrue credit hours. This practice was nothing short of a fraudulent attempt to cover up the institution's failure to provide the education it had contractually agreed to deliver. I later learned that the daily one-hour lunch break we had taken for seven months was not authorized, yet the school still counted it toward our 600 required hours. This means that rather than receiving four hours of education per day, we were only taught for three, yet credited for four. In reality, I estimate that I received only half of the promised instructional hours, with much of my learning coming from self-study, video tutorials, and discussions with fellow students.
When I raised these concerns with the administration, their proposed solution was an insult: they offered me the opportunity to retake the course free of charge with a new instructor. This was unacceptable. I had already sacrificed income from my full-time job to attend school, and I could not afford to repeat the program due to the institution's failures. The administration attempted to feign ignorance of the previous instructor's negligence, fraudulent credit hours, and multiple canceled classes--including several Zoom sessions. Their response demonstrated a complete disregard for their students' time, effort, and financial investment.
After 11 months in the program, I graduated, only to realize I had not received the fundamental education necessary to pass the State of Ohio MBLEX licensing exam, which costs nearly $300 to take. The inadequacies of the program left me unprepared for the very career I had sacrificed so much to pursue.
The school failed to uphold its obligations, and I refuse to accept the financial and professional consequences of their negligence. Mason Anthony needs to be held accountable for it's failure to provide quality education.
