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

161–170 of 325 posts

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#161

Post by WalterBright »

yamike wrote: post #149
nylsaar wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing a 4-year college and a technical school is heavy-handed. Neither share demographics, nor business model. As one of 'We the People', it is also disturbing to read 'stealing money from the federal government'.

As someone who attended ITT Tech I feel that their recruitment practices were at least somewhat predatory. The same sort of practice whereby used care salesmen will tell you what you need to pay per month without ever making it clear what the total cost is. All the while of course they knew that most of the money would come from federal student loans. These happen to be loans that the students can never escape. Buyer…

> The same sort of practice whereby used care salesmen will tell you what you need to pay per month without ever making it clear what the total cost is.

The instructor of my accounting class was a former used car salesman. He said that his customers didn't want to hear about total cost, they were only interested in the monthly payment. He'd try to explain, and they'd cut him off and go for whatever had the lowest monthly payment.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#162

Post by ne01 »

I don't like our current educational system and really hate for-profit schools like ITT, so I'm kind of happy to see them fail.

Unless you really add value to the learning process, it is ugly to charge someone to teach them something they can easily learn on their own and most of the time ruin their curiosity!

In the future more people will learn on their own and just take a free test to get a certificate! Oh and books will be free (or very cheap) with government subsidies.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#163

Post by semi-extrinsic »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #141
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,…

This is in part because the federal government has decided that student loans from private banks were too expensive and so the government themselves should offer them cheaper, for great justice. As such, the private student-loan sector in the US is no longer a going concern, and no student loans accurately price risk - a neat little wealth transfer to buy votes from students. It's also a scary credit bubble; apparent…

Can you point out a country where a private student-loan sector is working well?

One thing the government does that the private sector won't is prioritise the needs of society over financial results. Say, for instance, that "teachers" and "nurses" were underperforming groups of student-loan takers. Private sector would say "OK, stricter controls on student-loans for those!" Meanwhile the government would say "OK, but we really need more teachers and nurses in society, so we'll keep giving them student loans like today." This is of course a fictional example, but you get the point.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#164

Post by chatmasta »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #143
iamdave wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

GPA, extra curricular activity, criminal record, intended major, savings, jobs worked and the duration they were held, etc. Of course, none of this is as accurate an indicator as a FICO score which is why student loans are federally guaranteed, otherwise who would offer them? All of this goes to underscore just how destructive the "college for everyone" concept is. The government is making junk loans so that naive yo…

A FICO score is pretty meaningless for someone just graduating high school. They likely don't even have a credit card yet. And for those who do have a FICO score, what if the very reason they're applying to ITT tech is the same reason their score is bad? You also want to avoid "discrimination."

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#165

Post by Animats »

dmd wrote: post #12
increment_i wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to hear what you would expect as bare minimums for a "basic entry level technical role." I've heard of recruiters being dumbfounded at CS grads not being able to code FizzBuzz and to be honest I can't believe it.

I've personally interviewed applicants for a "senior developer" position who claimed on their resume 5+ years of jobs where their primary job was supposedly programming, and who could not come up with code to sum the odd integers from 1 to n.

You don't need a program for that, as Gauss figured out in elementary school.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#166

Post by BinaryIdiot »

Klinky wrote: post #93
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.

Would they do that or just become more aggressive at debt collection?

Maybe? But I'm not sure what good it'll do them. When someone can't get a job they're not exactly going to be paying back debt faster, even if they wanted to. I can't see how them being more aggressive could really help the situation much if at all.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#167

Post by WhatIsThisIm12 »

As someone who graduated from an Ivy Leage school, and boarding school before that, all on full financial aid with zero loans, I count myself incredibly lucky. I also see the student loan system as incredibly fucked up.

The worst aspect of it to me is that the most predatory loans go to the lowest qualified students, who are the ones who get the lower paying jobs. Top universities are the only ones with loan-free, need-blind financial aid programs. Yet they're the ones with students who would be most qualified to pay any loans back. Meanwhile lower tier universities charge tuitions almost as large as the top tier ones, yet send students to $40k/yr jobs.

The students who need the money most don't get it.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#168

Post by yuhong »

Kadin wrote: post #54
imh wrote: post #21

I think this is a fantastic step in the right direction, but what is the legal justification here? ITT is in no way alone in being evil and predatory, so I'm surprised I keep hearing about crackdowns for them but not for anyone else. I'd love to see some new rules to keep all of these predatory places from operating instead of what kinda seems like a picking out a scapegoat. (Or is all this recent news more general a…

California would probably like to ban all of the for-profits, but can't. ITT, however, stepped so far beyond the pale that it gave regulators an opportunity to punish them. California is basing its move on a US Department of Education decision, which itself was based on a history of previous litigation, which started because of concerns over ITT's accreditation. Basically: no accreditation, no loans, which given ITT'…

I think the story began with more attention being paid to ACICS after the Corinthian College fiasco, forcing them to finally act. In practice, I don't think there would be that much new enrollments after they killed student loan funding anyway (remember that the high tuition fees they charged was sustainable only because student loans cover them).

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#170

Post by dagw »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #157
colechristensen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very big difference between a private university and a for-profit school.

Educate me ;) Seriously, I'd be interested to know what you see the difference is.

The two big differences are that (most) private universities are accredited by some recognized body, meaning your degree from a private university will be recognized as valid by other universities if you want to transfer or continue your education somewhere else. Most for-profit schools are not accredited and thus their degree isn't recognized by other universities.

The second difference is one of structure. For-profit universities are, well, for-profit companies, meaning their top priority is to hit earning targets and satisfy shareholders, many of whom may very well put their own short term financial interests ahead of the long term well being of the school or its students. Private universities tend to be set up as non-profit trusts, answerable to a board of trustees who's priorities should be more aligned with the long term reputation and well being of the school.

Of course this is all on some sort of sliding scale and there may very well be well-run accredited for profit schools with share-holders with a long term vision for the school and there are no doubt terribly run private universities with trustees whom try to use their position to wring out personal profits. But that is the basic gist of it.

Post reply on HN