Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 325 posts

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#121

Post by PhasmaFelis »

neffy wrote: post #63
sanderjd wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But...if you learn all that stuff, isn't programming pretty easy? It's just specific abstractions on top of the fundamentals you already know... (I don't mean to be dismissive, I'm honestly mystified by your perspective here.)

Not really. Usually you get to learn all that stuff, and you get to learn programming doing the assignments, and projects. But there are some places out there that teach a very theoretical course, so unless students seek out programming experience they won´t get it. Programming is hard, and for some people it´s hard bordering on impossible. A surprising number of the latter still manage to get CS degrees.

It does bother me that it's seen as normal that students should have to seek programming experience on their own time. From my point of view, I was "seeking programming experience" by going to class all the damn time. I feel like I was lied to, basically.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#122

Post by sdenton4 »

jeffdavis wrote: post #118
jmcgough wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, these are problems that are present for some other schools, but ITT Tech is far worse. For-profit schools aren't even in the same ballpark as other types of schools, in terms of the default rate. These are businesses where the "admissions counselors" are salespeople who are told to lie to people and strongarm them into attending, taking out massive government loans and effectively stealing money from the federal…

22% vs 8% is not as big of a difference as I expected. It is plausible to explain that difference by the type of students likely to attend ITT vs a 4 year public university.

And 64% amongst those with loans to default on...

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#123

Post by djsumdog »

selectodude wrote: post #74
gohrt wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do private lenders lend to ITT students?

Because student loans are guaranteed by the federal government. Student can default and the bank will still get their money.

> Student can default

Um no. They can't. That's the problem with American student loans. It's the only contract you can enter into under 18 and you can never declare bankruptcy on them. It's the most bullshit type of loan there is.

In grad school I put part of my car on Student Loans because it was 0%. My car load was 5.2%. After I graduated, my student loans shot up to 6.8%! I quickly dumped all my savings onto them and squashed them in three months. Even if I hadn't been able to to that, I probably had the credit to get a cash loan for under that and pay them off. Most students don't have that option.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#125

Post by djsumdog »

headmelted wrote: post #119

Reading the comments here has been really eye opening to me. I always knew that tuition was orders-of-magnitude more expensive across the Atlantic but now it's a bit clearer why. Here (Northern Ireland, but it applies to the UK as a whole), students don't start to repay their loans until their earnings are over a certain threshold, then repayments are proportional to how much they earn over that level. If their annua…

New Zealand use to have free education. Then it became interest free ... unless you left the country. They bleed a lot of talent out to Australia, so if you move for more than 6 months they start charging you interest.

It turned from being a good socialist system that helped everyone to being a forced means of talent retention.

In the same way, American student loans are really aimed at keeping people trapped in industry they might grow to hate. Everyone has to pay the mortgage and all that.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#126

Post by FireBeyond »

jeffdavis wrote: post #118
jmcgough wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, these are problems that are present for some other schools, but ITT Tech is far worse. For-profit schools aren't even in the same ballpark as other types of schools, in terms of the default rate. These are businesses where the "admissions counselors" are salespeople who are told to lie to people and strongarm them into attending, taking out massive government loans and effectively stealing money from the federal…

22% vs 8% is not as big of a difference as I expected. It is plausible to explain that difference by the type of students likely to attend ITT vs a 4 year public university.

Nearly three times as likely to default on federal loans? And nearly six times as likely to default on private loans (I saw 11% as the rate). That's a pretty big difference.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#127

Post by iamdave »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #111
tn13 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this. The problem here is with the government instead of ITT in my opinion. If you are lending money to someone who is taking significantly more risk it is your fault if the person fails to pay it back and not of the consumer or the business selling the service. In fact it makes sense for the government to do better credit risk analysis for every college-course-student instead of providing loans for any student,…

Why the downvotes? It seems perfectly sensible that the government should be selective about who it loans money to. Even more so than private industry, considering the money they're handing out is from a deficit that productive peoples' taxes pay for.

I'll entertain the notion, because I have questions and reservations of my own (powered by certain built-in and historical baisies as an American...infer if you will):

What would the criteria be to determine loan eligibility for a student fresh out of high school?

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#128

Post by rbanffy »

tn13 wrote: post #96
gremlinsinc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not allow them to operate instead of force them out--make them pay for all defaulted loans above 8% -- that might make them work harder to get their students gainfully employed so they can cover their loans. -- not that I like ITT, I abhor them, and think that Bootcamps are WAY better in terms of quality education and quality of job prospects.

Yes this. The problem here is with the government instead of ITT in my opinion. If you are lending money to someone who is taking significantly more risk it is your fault if the person fails to pay it back and not of the consumer or the business selling the service. In fact it makes sense for the government to do better credit risk analysis for every college-course-student instead of providing loans for any student,…

If the payment has no causal relation with the services acquired via the loan, yes. Unfortunately what we seem to have here is a company selling the means to pay the loan one needs to take to pay for those means and, considering the reports on the quality of the services rendered, those means are being fraudulently misrepresented.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#129

Post by euyyn »

tn13 wrote: post #96
gremlinsinc wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not allow them to operate instead of force them out--make them pay for all defaulted loans above 8% -- that might make them work harder to get their students gainfully employed so they can cover their loans. -- not that I like ITT, I abhor them, and think that Bootcamps are WAY better in terms of quality education and quality of job prospects.

Yes this. The problem here is with the government instead of ITT in my opinion. If you are lending money to someone who is taking significantly more risk it is your fault if the person fails to pay it back and not of the consumer or the business selling the service. In fact it makes sense for the government to do better credit risk analysis for every college-course-student instead of providing loans for any student,…

Well, that's exactly what the Federal government did. "If you want a student loan, you can't enroll in ITT, as it's too high risk".

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#130

Post by mSparks »

buddylw wrote: post #47
rdtsc wrote: post #18

Are there any good ITT / University of Phoenix type schools? They all seem like scams. I don't count community colleges here, I know those can be very good. My wife went to one, got great education, was able to pay it by just budgeting money every month out of her part time work. Then switched to a 4 years univeristy, transfered credits and graduated with honors after 2 more years (with minimal loans). Would it be ha…

The quality of education varies between institutions. I graduated from DeVry a little over 10 years ago. I got a decent education (ABET accredited B.S. Computer Engineering Technology) and was able to put myself through school and get a good job. I could have done it a little cheaper in a state school and a lot cheaper with a community college, but for what it was I don't really have any regrets. My only critique is…

This whole premise of this story has me wearing a tin foil hat. [tldr]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILQepXUhJ98[/tldr]

Soooo many questions. so few answers.

I'll start with my immediate thoughts. High dropouts are not absolutely a bad thing. In fact its pretty normal in all western schools that have zero focus on "how to learn". The "problem" is clearly earlier on in the education system, wherby students are reaching college age not knowing "how to learn", and suddenly finding its important.

Next up - the cost of learning/knowledge material. I know of textbooks from the US being priced in the multi thousand dollar range (or simply not available for student purchase). "Teachers/Lecturers" aren't that important (I say that having graduated with a joint 1st from a top UK university having acquired a lot of warnings criticizing me for hardly ever attending lectures, but I wasn't skipping the material, I was skipping lecturers reading from textbooks).

All that said, I am left feeling these stories are more about attacking education that provides chances for the lower classes in the US to become middle and upper classes. Nothing about this ITT tech story addresses this one way or the other. Where are the employment stats for those who successfully graduate? Where are the interviews with graduates? I just see a ton of hyperbole he said she said. And whenever I come across that I automatically assume its a political power based decision, rather than a rational "good for everyone" one.

I know that all sounds a bit confused - that happens with "immediate thoughts". Its a first attempt at thinking about something we haven't really been allowed to think about.

Why am I thinking along these lines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

Education was set up as a "production line" into large public institutions. But the politicians destroyed the "large public institutions", and education doesn't teach people to be their own institution.

"If you are interested in the model of learning you don't start from this production line mentality"

Post reply on HN