ITT is no longer allowed to enroll students who rely on federal loans and grants • Hacker News Board

Re: ITT is no longer allowed to enroll students who rely on federal loans and grants

#41

Post by wang_li » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 9:55 PM UTC

Kevin_S wrote: post #34

wang_li wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>not a front for siphoning federal aid for the enrichment of executives and shareholders. So many public and private non-profit universities are going to wet themselves if anyone starts enforcing that rule. Ok, they don't have shareholders, but it's well documented that the increasing cost of university and college educations is largely driven by administrative overhead and not paying professors, adjuncts and lecture…

The increase in administrative overhead and such is more a case of the modern customer. Comparing private non profit universities and these BS places is stretching too far. On the customers - the ability to attract modern students rests more on amenities like dining halls and dorms, not on the academics. Sad, but ultimately true.

This kind of competition is only possible due to federal aid. There is a certain amount of non-educational amenities being provided, but it's trivial to find articles like these

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873233168045781614...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/higher-ed-administr...

That document the growth in non-teaching administrative and professional staff at universities. Staff that grow at more than double the rates of enrollment and teaching positions.

Re: ITT is no longer allowed to enroll students who rely on federal loans and grants

#42

Post by colejohnson66 » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 9:56 PM UTC

inputcoffee wrote: post #35

emeraldd wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand cutting off Title IV is basically the death penalty for a university ... So the original title might not be that far off from reality.

Clickbaity titles are "true" in the sense of being accurate. The issue with them is that they don't explain what the article is about (forcing you to click on them and then to figure out whether you are interested in the topic).

Maybe it's just me, but the original also sounds like someone with a bias against ITT would write

Re: ITT is no longer allowed to enroll students who rely on federal loans and grants

#43

Post by korethr » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 10:03 PM UTC

I'm torn on this. Understand, I have little love for ITT, and I got my 4 year degree from there. In hindsight, I wish I'd done community college and the local university instead. I honestly believe I'd have had a better curriculum, better books and a better ratio of instructors who cared to ones who didn't. I believe I'd have had to take on less student loan debt, as well.

That said, suppose ITT Tech does lose its accreditation, closes, etc. Where does that leave me and the other graduates who actually do have a modicum of knowledge and competence? Are our degrees automatically scrubbed from history, having never been -- leaving us unqualified to hold our current jobs or any future ones that require a college degree? Do our degrees become a black mark against us, nullifying any experience displayed on the same resume? Or will it just be a non-event that nobody notices or cares about?

Re: ITT is no longer allowed to enroll students who rely on federal loans and grants

#44

Post by sliverstorm » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 10:04 PM UTC

lowpro wrote: post #28

sliverstorm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government has no right to bar you from traveling. The government has no constitutional obligation to pay for your plane ticket.

So why are they paying the 'proverbial plane ticket' in this case? I think that's what the OP is saying here.

Because we decided we/they should, for equality of opportunity & economic benefit.

We build city parks because we think they are good. That doesn't mean that city parks are a basic human right constitutionally owed to us by the federal government.

Re: ITT is no longer allowed to enroll students who rely on federal loans and grants

#45

Post by cpr » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 10:13 PM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #23

ulkram wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, there are a lot of good private universities.

In the USA, private does not mean for-profit. The good private universities are still non-profit. There's nothing wrong with for-profit schools in theory. It's a socio-economic problem. There's already so much money flowing through the US university system that the vast majority of for-profit schools are predatory institutions targeting lower-class, under-educated people. Their primary business model is to convince s…

The "good private universities" may be "non-profit" in some strict sense, but in the case of the big Ivies (e.g., Harvard, my alma mater), they could be described as a hedge fund with, oh, yes, by the way, a school attached, or, alternatively, as a huge Federally-funded research institution.

The educational part seems to be a facade for the big money/big institution part.

(Bitter much? Sure. ;-)

Re: ITT is no longer allowed to enroll students who rely on federal loans and grants

#46

Post by mywittyname » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 10:20 PM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #23

ulkram wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, there are a lot of good private universities.

In the USA, private does not mean for-profit. The good private universities are still non-profit. There's nothing wrong with for-profit schools in theory. It's a socio-economic problem. There's already so much money flowing through the US university system that the vast majority of for-profit schools are predatory institutions targeting lower-class, under-educated people. Their primary business model is to convince s…

> There's nothing wrong with for-profit schools in theory.

Absolutely.

The problem is our university system as it stands is now really structured for profitability. The system was originally designed to cater to wealthy students and when public universities came to be, they kept the same model, and used tax subsidies to maintain it.

An effective for-profit education system would look nothing like our current university system. But a higher education system that doesn't match our current system isn't useful for students because the majority of them are looking for degrees, not necessarily an education.

Theoretically there's nothing wrong with for-profit schools, but the current educational climate prevent them from working. For now, for-profit education really only has a place in domains that can be taught adequately in less than a year and where the student's outcome can be readily assessed.

Re: ITT is no longer allowed to enroll students who rely on federal loans and grants

#47

Post by walrus01 » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 10:22 PM UTC

The worst thing about ITT Tech (the stupid for profit scam school) is the problem it causes for the employees of ITT, the big defense contractor/technology company, which has nothing to do with the tech school. The "real" ITT has had its name dragged through the mud by these bullshit artists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exelis_Inc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITT_Corporation

http://www.wsj.com/articles/harris-corp-to-buy-exelis-for-4-...

http://www.itt.com/Home/

So you worked at ITT in a senior technical engineering or management role, put that on your resume. Looking for a new job, good luck watching it get shitcanned by HT departments where somebody is scanning through resumes and will discard anything with "ITT" on it. Not fair, and lazy, but it happens.

Re: ITT is no longer allowed to enroll students who rely on federal loans and grants

#48

Post by michaelchisari » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 10:28 PM UTC

emn13 wrote: post #39

kosievdmerwe wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with for-profit prisons is the misalignment between what's good for profit and what's good for prisoners. Where the prisoners can't "vote with their wallets" to counter-balance this misalignment. I don't see a similar issue with for-profit schools. In order to attract students they need to to provide good education and foster a good reputation.

Hmm, is that really true though? If so, ideally, people would choose an institute that teaches them as well as possible for as little as possible money. But that's not at all what people do: they prefer prestigious schools that (hopefully) lead to good job prospects. Prestige is a funny thing - the fact that a school is hard to get into and expensive may well raise prestige, regardless of educational outcomes. Don't…

Not to mention that for-profit schools appeal to (some would say prey upon) students from blue collar or lower class families for whom ANY degree seems worth whatever you might pay for it.

If you're from generations of laborers who have never gone to college, then taking out a predatory loan to go to a predatory school that gives you a somewhat useless degree seems like a good idea at first glance.

Re: ITT is no longer allowed to enroll students who rely on federal loans and grants

#49

Post by grahamburger » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 10:40 PM UTC

A few years ago I had to make several hires in cities away from the main operations of our business. These were technical positions, but not really highly skilled positions - think geek squad level proficiency. Many of the candidates came out of ITT, and to be honest they were among the best candidates for this level position, or at least they interviewed the best. I got the impression that ITT spends a lot of time refining interview techniques - amusingly, at the end of the interview each ITT candidate asked us the same 3 questions almost verbatim, I'm certain those questions were drilled in to them as part of mock interviews. They were good questions, I wouldn't have thought anything of it until the 3rd or 4th time it happened and I started to notice the pattern.

From that experience, I have a hard time writing off ITT + similar as worthless or even predatory. I don't know what these people paid for there education, maybe it was enough that they'll never be able to get a good enough job to get out of debt, but it certainly seems like it was worth something. These people were certainly employable, and IMO moreso on average than those from similar socio-economic backgrounds who didn't have any secondary education to speak of.

Re: ITT is no longer allowed to enroll students who rely on federal loans and grants

#50

Post by sldivzklhc » Thu, Aug 25, 2016, 10:43 PM UTC

emn13 wrote: post #39

kosievdmerwe wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with for-profit prisons is the misalignment between what's good for profit and what's good for prisoners. Where the prisoners can't "vote with their wallets" to counter-balance this misalignment. I don't see a similar issue with for-profit schools. In order to attract students they need to to provide good education and foster a good reputation.

Hmm, is that really true though? If so, ideally, people would choose an institute that teaches them as well as possible for as little as possible money. But that's not at all what people do: they prefer prestigious schools that (hopefully) lead to good job prospects. Prestige is a funny thing - the fact that a school is hard to get into and expensive may well raise prestige, regardless of educational outcomes. Don't…

It doesn't seem like the selectivity/prestige effect applies to people who go to for-profit schools. Since prestige is subjective, for-profit schools can market themselves as prestigious while expanding to provide seats to anyone who can obtain a student loan. The government should not be complicit in this deception, hence the action here.