I went to a similar for-profit school in Minnesota who also similarly shut down last year.<p>I still feel like they get a bad rap. Was it overpriced? Probably. Did I learn a ton and have small class sizes. Absolutely. The instructors had all previously worked in the industry, and knew their topics very well.<p>On top of all that, after graduation their persistent pestering of "how many places did you apply to this week?" (surely to help their numbers) had a lot to do with me actually getting a job. I didn't want to let the lady that called me weekly down. It took a lot of persistence and interviewing but I finally got my foot firmly in the door about 6 months after graduation.<p>I've been gainfully employed in the industry for ten years, I'm debt free, and I'm happy. I'm thankful for my time there.
The dream: take students who are mostly unprepared to succeed at college and educate & prepare them for success in the real world.<p>The reality: most of these students will not realize a return on the investment of their time and acquisition of a ton of debt that they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. Many will fail to attend class, fail to take notes, fail to do homework, fail to learn, and will not complete - but because they have already sunk huge costs into the endeavor, will continue incurring more costs in spite of the writing on the wall.<p>The economics means that these schools are unsustainable. However, some people find success through these schools. How can we continue to serve these people?<p>Perhaps we could avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater by creating more community colleges, allowing more people to enroll in affordable community colleges, complete milestones at their own pace, while providing more direct subsidies of tuition for the truly needy. I agree that we would benefit from more German-style apprenticeship programs as well. For all of their worker protections, they still have incredibly low youth unemployment.
I am personaly happy to see the hammer come down on these for-profit universities. I too feel for the students as I was one of the Corinthian Colleges students a few years ago at Everest University through one of the Florida campuses. My degree program was the A.S. in Computer Information Sciences -- such a waste. Look up the job placement rates for that program in 2010, just insane.<p>Thankfully I too have been able to take advantage of the Department of Education relief. But I have to go through the process of the “borrower defense to repayment”. It continues to be a tough process but at least it some form of relief for me.<p>I hope former ITT students are able to find a quick resoluton. This type of school shutdown is not easy on anyone.<p><i></i> On another note, I wonder if this is the start of the 'higher-ed debt bubble' that has been predicted for quite some time now...
I'll preface this with my lack of any love for ITT, but there's a piece of the story that bothers me:
<i>"Last month, the feds demanded the company produce an additional $153 million in collateral—nearly double its $78 million in cash on hand—to cover possible losses that the government might incur if the company were to suddenly fail."</i><p>Here's how that sounds to me: "Well, ITT technically hasn't done anything illegal. But we don't like them. How much cash do they have? Double that amount and tell them we need this much for 'collateral' or we shut them down."<p>Can anyone fill in the blanks that Bloomberg didn't? What basis does the government have to make such demands (as it appears to me) out of the blue? Why make such demands knowing going into it that it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy? (That last question is kind of rhetorical.)
My wife had worked as a temporary at ITT here in Calfornia. It was the most degrading work I have ever seen. She was teaching English courses, and 98% of the kids plagiarized, not even trying to cover it up. When she gave failing grades to the papers, the students fought back and the director at her location told her she can't do that. She quit that week.
I really feel for all the students who are so close to graduating and not knowing if they'll have anything to show for it.. And their credits will most likely not transfer to another school because of the different accreditations.
For IT degrees (bachelor and master) for those who cannot go to a "normal" college for four years, an option to consider is the online non-profit Western Governor's University [1]. It is especially interesting if you already know much of the material through work or self-study.<p>It was founded by several state governors about 20 years ago, and is accredited by The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.<p>It's pricing is interesting: $2890 per six-month term, regardless of how many classes you take or credits you earn during that term. If you want to take a heavy load to earn the degree faster and save money, you can.<p>Each degree program has a particular list of skills that you have to demonstrate competency in to earn the degree. They offer, of course, all the necessary classes to learn those skills, but you are not required to take those classes--you are just required to demonstrate the skills. If you have already acquired some of these skills elsewhere, you can take the test or do the project that demonstrates it and that will count toward the degree.<p>For most of the IT degrees you also earn several widely recognized third-party IT certifications, at no extra cost. For example the IT bachelor's program in network administration includes these certifications: MSCA Windows Server, CompTIA Linux+, CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+, CompTIA Security+, and CompTIA Project+.<p>(The offer more than IT, BTW. The also have bachelor and master programs in teaching, business, and health).<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Governors_University" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Governors_University</a>
This is an instructive lesson.<p>"Free education" they say. "It will solve problems" they say. "Education will be better" they say.<p>No, it won't. Free education -- or subsidized loans -- puts a disconnect between education and its cost.<p>If the person paying is not the person deciding, a poor decision will be made. It's just like how HSAs prompt people to think about what they're spending their money on.<p>ITT would not exist but for government spending. Sure, some will beat the dead horse of more regulation. But the real answer is STOP SUBSIDIZING. Stop subsidizing education, stop subsidizing mortgages, stop subsidizing GM, stop blowing decisions sideways by removing the universal language of cost from the discussion.
It looks like the main problem in this whole scheme is the government-funded student loan program. ITT was wrangling to get access that that loan money as a key to its operations. Failing to comply with the Dept of Ed's requirements caused them to go out of business, since they would no longer have a place at the public trough.<p>How many state schools and private colleges could survive without government largess? We've seen a massive increase in tuition costs, far beyond inflation in recent years. Such is the result of artificially boosting demand for college on the backs of the taxpayer.<p>As for forgiving ITT student loans, I say no. Students are responsible for their own loans and (bad) decisions. By that reasoning, shouldn't we just forgive all student debt for anyone who didn't get their dream job straight out of undergrad? What about those who don't finish school but still have loans? For everyone but the far left, these ideas are ludicrous. Let's not make the taxpayer suffer twice for the poor decisions of others.
Related: "The Law School Scam. For-profit law schools are a capitalist dream of privatized profits and socialized losses. But for their debt-saddled, no-job-prospect graduates, they can be a nightmare."
<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/09/the-law-school-scam/375069/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/09/the-law-...</a>
I live in Minneapolis and the City Pages did quite an exposé on them back in 2015. It was pretty eye opening and gives a really good glimpse into their tactics:<p><a href="http://www.citypages.com/news/itt-tech-sells-an-american-dream-of-broken-lives-and-financial-ruin-7463804" rel="nofollow">http://www.citypages.com/news/itt-tech-sells-an-american-dre...</a>
What disgusts me most about the for-profit schools -- not to come off as too much of a snob -- is that the money we the taxpayers put into their pockets would be better spent improving community colleges and state schools.<p>I get not everyone needs to go to an Ivy League school, but for vocational basics -- what people are going to these for-profit schools hoping to gain -- community college should be "good enough."<p>I'd look at Bellevue Community College as a great example of a strong vocational tech school. That should be a model others could strive for. When I was younger I learned a great deal in BCC classes -- knowledge that was immediately beneficial to my day job as a software developer.<p>In contrast, the classes at BCC were far more hands-on training than what I got at the school I eventually graduated from. Educationally, community college I feel was better... but certainly for connections and networking the "name-brand" schools pay off.
> Students now enrolled at the company's technical schools will be able to cancel any federal student debt they incurred for their education if they decide against transferring their credits elsewhere... Taxpayers will record a loss on those debt cancellations.<p>This seems very unfair to taxpayers, who are essentially forced creditors. If the college reneges on its contract with students, then the students should seek to reclaim their losses through a class action lawsuit against ITT. The government shouldn't be covering losses on what were, arguably, bad investments.
Have you ever worked with anything ... High tech?<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l31I9RvluEA" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l31I9RvluEA</a><p>I asked that once during an interview, and was met with blank stares. Haven't asked it since, but I feel like it could have been hilarious.
Question for lawyers in the audience: If ITT is shut down because the "education" it was providing was complete shit and not recognized anywhere else, does that mean that the usual rules about education related personal debt surviving bankruptcy wouldn't apply?
Unfortunately, ITT is just the visible tip of the iceberg. There are MANY more for-profit schools of the same ilk as ITT that will fleece the same archetype of education-seeker. This isn't over by a long-shot. These schools are everywhere and they are probably chomping-at-the-bit to get their mits on displaced ITT students and all others that are susceptible to the type of manipulative and deceptive marketing practices that ITT, and many other for-profit schools, use.
Next, go after the public colleges? Other than brand, do they do a better job? Spend more than 30% of income on actual educational expenses (like IIT does)? I doubt it.<p>{edit}
Seems like US Universities are about 1:1 faculty vs staff. Up from 2:1 40 years ago.
Instead of the government trying to protect their loans and end up doing the opposite, maybe the government shouldn't be in the business of lending money to individuals? Government + lending + a supposed social benefit = disaster. First it was with helping people own homes, and now it's with helping people go to college. It sounds nice, but by lending money the government can just hide the true cost of what their doing. (Meanwhile government loans for housing have gotten worse: <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21705317-americas-housing-system-was-centre-last-crisis-it-has-still-not-been-properly" rel="nofollow">http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21705317-americas-hous...</a>)
"It will now likely rest on other parties to understand these reprehensible actions and to take action to attempt to prevent this from happening again."<p>Indeed.
So to mitigate the possible effects of the colleges all suddenly shutting down they were told to put up a huge amount of collateral, which caused them to all suddenly shut down?<p>That's quite a mitigation strategy the government has going on there.
Yes ITT was a money grabbing parasite and I'm glad they are gone. But the glamorous 4 years schools aren't as great as they set themselves to be.<p>Many students come out of the great schools owing thousands and having a very hard time getting a job.<p>This is not new. The fact is that universities weren't created for job training. Their job was to expand your knowledge. That's why you can get a degree in Greek mythology or Latin or whatever.<p>It was really a way for rich people to spend their time in something constructive. Somewhere the idea of a university and job training came together but universities aren't very good at job training so that's the big problem. We as a society don't have a great way to train the massed for society's jobs.<p>Community college focus on getting you to a four year college but they need to do a better job at job training.<p>For profit schools have tried but they focus on profits and lose sight of the students.<p>We blame the institutions but students also need to take responsibility. If you can't take the time learn don't expect to get a job where someone needs to have a productive employee to keep the business going.<p>Also the K-12 schools need to do something to fix the problem. How is it that a student goes through 13 years of school and not learn to be a productive employee? That the real shame.Yet we put the blame elsewhere.<p>Politicians love to argue the effects of same sex bathrooms but they aren't willing to take on why schools are failing society.<p>We need to fix that.
Stop federally funding education. In the US we have 50 different opportunities to learn about how to create the best education system: all of these systems could learn from each other. When we allow federal funding of education we get much less diversity and innovation; we promote a mono-culture.
The entire concept of a corporate death penalty (in this case enforced by ITT no longer being eligible for federal student loans) is something that is not implemented nearly as frequently as it should be.
Federal student loans shouldn't be available to any non-accredited institution. If your credit hours won't transfer then it isn't a real College or University.
Too little, too late; ITT and a whole legion of similar schools should have been erased long ago, given glaring evidence of their mismanagment, often misleading/fraudulent advertising, almost no value delivered (e.g. dismal grad job stats), waste of public money, etc. The pressing question is how long before ITT re-opens under a new name; I highly doubt it'll just go away.
There is a startup opportunity here. It actually shouldn't take a lot of resources for this kind of technical education. Get a community hall, few experienced volunteers and have them teach skills for free to anyone who is interested. Students just promise to pay portion of their income if and when they get job. A startup gets little cut for coordinating whole thing.
Will coding academies go down the same route as for profit colleges? Right now they are the darling of politicians who think they could solve the country's unemployment and tech shortage problems. But once your put Wall Street in charge and scale them up handle large numbers of students, I wonder if they will become the next ITT.
That's less than two weeks from when the Title IV "death penalty" (Assuming I have my titles right, it's been a while) was assessed. (<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12361737" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12361737</a> )
people are so quick to make this a "for-profit" college issue, when it's not.<p>they shut down because the u.s. department of education banned them from enrolling new students who use federal financial aid.<p>what do you think would happen to "not for-profit" colleges if the u.s. department of education did the same to them? i'd argue it's the "not for-profit" schools who are driving tuition prices up because the government won't stop loaning money to anyone with a pulse.<p>dry up that loan money and watch prices fall from the sky.
How's Devry? I worked with a person that got a degree from there. It's for-profit too. I can't imagine it's any better than ITT with it's vendor lock in.
They should have spent the $18 million.<p><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-bill-clintons-nearly-18-million-job-as-honorary-chancellor-of-a-for-profit-college/2016/09/05/8496db42-655b-11e6-be4e-23fc4d4d12b4_story.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-bill-clintons...</a><p>EDIT: Not sure what the downvotes are for. ITT gets shutdown, but Laureate does the same thing, but even more so and gets a pass. The only difference appears to be these kinds of payoffs to politicos.
It's one thing for a school to recruit students that aren't prepared for the curriculum, and subsequent debt.<p>But it's quite another problem if the school loses their accreditation and is unable to deliver a quality education.