Business ProfileforThe Harbour at Orange Coast College

The Harbour is the "dorms" on campus at Orange Coast College in **********, **. It's a third party company (in other words, not affiliated with the school), which struck me as a bit of a red flag to begin with, but it's the only option for student housing if your child doesn't live close enough to commute. My daughter was the student, so naturally as the parent I was running point on the majority of the housing and logistics. The Harbour has been astoundingly and almost impressively incompetent throughout the year. You might be thinking "oh, well it's a pandemic, lots of businesses, especially schools, have struggled blah blah blah..." I assure you that's not the case here. It's blatant greed coupled with rabid stupidity and a dash of "there's nothing you can do about it" arrogance. The physical buildings themselves are fine. Nothing special, but fine. My daughter shared a 4 person apartment (4 tiny bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room) and the rent is $1350 a month. Good luck finding an 18 year old who can afford that. But wait, the student loan can cover the cost of housing at The Harbour! Great news, right? Sure, if you're a parent who has an extra ***************************************************************************************************************************************************** other words, someone has to front the exorbitant rent amount for months at a time before the loan disburses and then reimburses the parent (or student, depending on the specifics of the loan). This is the lemon juice in the paper cut. The Harbour being unaffiliated with the school affords it the luxury of being completely inculpable in all arenas of the financial aid conundrum. That's even assuming they have people there to answer phones. My daughter and I have called dozens... literally dozens... of times and only ONCE did someone pick up. A *****************, who responded to my question with (this is verbatim) "Hmm... I dunno, lemme go ask someone." My daughter's refrigerator went out on the 3rd day of the semester. It took them nearly 3 weeks to get a replacement in there. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, keep your children away from this wildly irresponsible, opportunistic residence. I promise you'll regret it if you do. I don't want this to come off like a grouchy Yelp review, but I can't emphasize enough how ridiculous the whole experience has been and I'm hopeful I can help some other parents steer clear of the misery this godless crater of ignorance has saddled me with.