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California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

latimes.com

181–190 of 325 posts

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Almost all universities public and private in the US are 501(3)(c) nonprofit organizations. (Some public ones are more or less an extension of the government and don't count) For-profit universities ... aren't. They're owned and operated by for-profit companies, the accreditation is usually terrible and in no way comparable to other universities, and they deceive students into thinking they'll be getting something si…

So, this seems to me like a problem that is almost perfectly amenable to market solutions.

University has poor standards? Don't hire their graduates, or at least, don't weight their qualifications as heavily.

I don't understand why you think Government action - that is, force - is necessary here. Or is it that you think they are defrauding their students by calling themselves Universities?

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#182
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ITT is accredited by an organization recognized by the US Department of Education. It's a shitty accreditation, but it's there. (Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools)

Good point. I guess I should have said reputable accreditation. From ACICS's Wikipedia page: "the U.S. Department of Education formally recommended that the accreditor's recognition be withdrawn. (June 15th 2016)" So I guess they won't be accredited for long.

.... so what's the problem? Serious question. Seems like things are working as they should.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Working well can also mean that the sector doesn't exist when it shouldn't.

But to give an example: lots of people in lots of countries traditionally get support from their families for education and are expected to help out their parents financially later in life. This kind of financing never even hits the markets---but on the other hand, parents are probably the people knowing their kids the best.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#184
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Programming is to CS what telescopes are to astronomy. I understand that this is not obvious to an 18 year old outsider, so in that sense you may have been misled by an admissions counsellor who probably didn't understand it either, but no - studying CS won't make you a software engineer by itself. At all.

Unfortunately, in most cases, it's the option you have. An actual software engineering degree concentration would be better for what most people actually want, but it's a rarity. You'd have to entice professors with industry experience (who are good enough to know what they are supposed to teach), and you aren't doing that on typical faculty pay scales.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all universities public and private in the US are 501(3)(c) nonprofit organizations. (Some public ones are more or less an extension of the government and don't count) For-profit universities ... aren't. They're owned and operated by for-profit companies, the accreditation is usually terrible and in no way comparable to other universities, and they deceive students into thinking they'll be getting something si…

So, this seems to me like a problem that is almost perfectly amenable to market solutions. University has poor standards? Don't hire their graduates, or at least, don't weight their qualifications as heavily. I don't understand why you think Government action - that is, force - is necessary here. Or is it that you think they are defrauding their students by calling themselves Universities?

The main reason is that the government is the one holding the pursestrings that enables the whole system to operate. If federally-guaranteed student loans cannot be used by these places, their business model collapses entirely. And a big chunk of these terrible for-profit universities are also preying on veterans using their GI Bill benefits.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#186

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…

The U.S. is slowly moving towards tying repayments to income, though with less generous thresholds than the UK model. As of 2015, people with direct federal student loans can opt into "revised income-based repayment", which caps payments at 10% of income for a maximum of 20-25 years: http://blog.ed.gov/2015/12/your-federal-student-loans-just-g...

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#187

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 indu…

[deleted]

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#188
post #149

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…

Did you get anything out of your experience there?

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#189

I agree with a lot of the complaints I've heard about ITT. They seem to broadly fall into three camps: 1) They are expensive and rely on their students getting gov't loans, 2) They don't adequately prepare students for the work place, and 3) The teachers aren't very good. I think those are all great reasons to not go to ITT. But, I think those reasons could also apply to a whole lot of other schools, profit, non-prof…

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…

I hate it when people would rather impeach sources than talk issues. At the same time, a casual look at the site you linked shows quite a few advocacy groups who obviously have an agenda to push. http://higherednotdebt.org/about/

So I would check those stats with a careful eye looking for bias.

Meta: I actually prefer opinion pieces to news articles. In an opinion piece, the author has to state a thesis, then defend it with facts and an argument. Makes for honest reading. What I don't like is the proliferation of persuasion pieces masquerading as news items -- and it is by no way limited to political action groups. Even the MSM gets in on the action.

So as far as I know these guys may have a point. But they also carefully choose what to present with an eye on influencing public opinion. This is not the site that would ever have an article saying "Ooops! Turns out ITT Tech wasn't so bad after all!"

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#190

I agree with a lot of the complaints I've heard about ITT. They seem to broadly fall into three camps: 1) They are expensive and rely on their students getting gov't loans, 2) They don't adequately prepare students for the work place, and 3) The teachers aren't very good. I think those are all great reasons to not go to ITT. But, I think those reasons could also apply to a whole lot of other schools, profit, non-prof…

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…

What's the default rate for private student loans for a public 4-year school?
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