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

251–260 of 325 posts

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#251

Post by TheCoelacanth »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #181
colechristensen wrote: post #171

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?

> they are defrauding their students by calling themselves Universities

Yes, that is what I think

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#252

Post by h4nkoslo »

trentmb wrote: post #234
h4nkoslo wrote: post #55

One aspect of ITT and its ilk is that the students often only sign up so they can take out "education" loans for living expenses, with the class work as a very secondary concern.

That's not unique to ITT.

Hence "ilk".

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#253

Post by autotune »

antisthenes wrote: post #249
bane wrote: post #205

One of the things that's very interesting to me is how information asymmetry helps drive people to these kinds of companies. I don't know everybody's story, but when I was just out of high school, there was no chance (I believed at the time) that I'd be able to go to a traditional school. I had bad grades, my family was poor and nobody in my family had gone to university except for my father, who had quickly abandone…

Community colleges are a hidden treasure in the United States. Many of them have very good professors, are cheap and have the benefit of having transfer programs into a big name university for the last 2 years of your 4 year degree. I'm not sure why schools like ITT or Phoenix even exist or how they attract "customers/students". This may sound arrogant, but for me, an ITT or Phoenix degree is worth less than the piec…

It's not arrogant at all, as being able to do some basic research is a big part of any IT field you get into. If you can't be arsed to google for the reputation and qualifications of a "degree" from a for-profit "school" you're investing thousands of dollars in, what does that say about the potentially critical type of purchasing and general infrastructure decisions you'll be making on the job?

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#254

Post by PhasmaFelis »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #121
neffy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly that. I told them I wanted to be a programmer, and they told me to do CS--I was lied to.

CS is the only field where this happens, as far as I can tell. There's plenty of degrees that aren't really useful career prep, but they're generally well-known--no philosophy major expects to graduate into the highly-paid world of professional philosophy. But if you're studying law or medicine or architecture, you absolutely do expect to be learning career skills.

There's this bizarre hole in CS where students come looking for a law degree and somehow get philosophy training instead. And then we have a thousand blog posts complaining about how fresh CS grads can't code FizzBuzz, and nobody at the universities ever makes the connection.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#255

Post by PhasmaFelis »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #159
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the stuff I mentioned has essentially zero application to writing a server script or a website backend or a commercial application, is the thing. It's like knowing car engines backwards and forwards, but never actually getting to drive one. I should mention, also, that our programming exercises were in C++ exclusively, on the campus Unix system exclusively, and the only development environment we were ever offici…

It's unfortunate that you're getting downvoted, because I think you're speaking the truth. I had a similar experience as someone who was trained to be a computer engineer 10 years ago, but actually make my living doing modern web systems development. Don't get me wrong, I had an awesome experience in undergrad on all fronts. But it would be inaccurate to say my course work was particularly applicable to my actual pro…

I also think there's a lot of people who feel protective about "pure" computer science, in the same way a philosophy major might feel about their degree, and look down on people like me as mere technicians. They don't seem to realize that we need technicians, and they have to be trained somehow.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#256

Post by brianwawok »

ensignavenger wrote: post #250
brianwawok wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.edvisors.com/ask/faq/use-stafford-for/ Highlights include > Transportation (cost of travel to/from school, but not for purchase of a vehicle) > Room and board costs can include one of four allowances, depending on where you live: > On-campus in housing that is owned or operated by the college > At home with parents (only applies to students without dependents) > In housing on a military base or for which…

That is very interesting, in many years of dealing with student loans for myself and my wife, I have never heard sucha thing! For example, the Department of Education publications usually say somthing like: "You may use the money you receive only to pay for education expenses at the school that awarded your loan. Education expenses include such school charges as tuition, room and board, fees, books, supplies, equipme…

Transportation means buss fairs not cars.

I was given paperwork when I got my undergrad student loans, and it was very clearly spelled out.

If the loans are private, I am not 100% if all of the same rules apply.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#257

Post by [deleted] »

euyyn wrote: post #129
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,…

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".

[deleted]

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#258

Post by st3v3r »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #61
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…

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.

They've already had several chances to better themselves. They haven't, and so they don't deserve another chance.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#259

Post by st3v3r »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #215
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If we need these people in society, let their salaries increase. There is no reason to prefer debt ridden graduates paying higher interest rates at lower salaries with government soaking up the cost of defaults to the benefit of employers and their direct customers.

Yes, because everyone has that perfect negotiating power to do so. There are no school districts that are struggling or can only afford to pay so much for teachers, and hospitals that can't afford higher salaries for nurses.

The "invisible hand" is not what should be guiding society. The "invisible hand" has declared that it's more worthwhile to be a Kardashian than it is to be a teacher or nurse.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#260

Post by st3v3r »

dragonwriter wrote: post #248
djsumdog wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> It's the only contract you can enter into under 18 and you can never declare bankruptcy on them. Please stop repeating this myth. It is, in fact, possible to discharge student loans in bankruptcy. (It is particularly difficult to do so compared to other forms of debt, but there is an enormous difference between that and "you can never declare bankruptcy on them.") See, e.g., http://www.studentloanborrowerassistance…

Technically it's true. But reality says that it's highly unlikely, and so it's just as good to say that you can't declare bankruptcy on them. The odds that you will be able to discharge them are incredibly low.
Post reply on HN