Unfortunately, ITT is just the visible tip of the iceberg. There are MANY more for-profit schools of the same ilk as ITT that will fleece the same archetype of education-seeker. This isn't over by a long-shot. These schools are everywhere and they are probably chomping-at-the-bit to get their mits on displaced ITT students and all others that are susceptible to the type of manipulative and deceptive marketing practices that ITT, and many other for-profit schools, use.
ITT Technical Institutes Shuts Down
141–150 of 304 posts
Re: ITT Technical Institutes Shuts Down
#142What enabled this greed scheme to work? Government guaranteed loans. The schools and institutions need to have some of their own skin in the game.
The students too. If they are spending their own money they will (at least be more likely to) care more about what they are spending it on.
How are students able to determine if the education they are paying for is valid or not? How are students that are in at-risk populations able to differentiate between valid accredited solutions and predatory schemes?
It's very easy to take advantage of certain people. I'm glad the government is doing its job protecting people from unfair practices.
If information asymmetry wasn't so exceedingly common maybe we wouldn't have to deal with consumers making poor mistakes because they "should have known better."
Re: ITT Technical Institutes Shuts Down
#143I'll preface this with my lack of any love for ITT, but there's a piece of the story that bothers me: "Last month, the feds demanded the company produce an additional $153 million in collateral—nearly double its $78 million in cash on hand—to cover possible losses that the government might incur if the company were to suddenly fail." Here's how that sounds to me: "Well, ITT technically hasn't done anything illegal. B…
> "Well, ITT technically hasn't done anything illegal. [...]"
The DOE action is based on a risk of business failure produced by fraud lawsuits by the SEC (for securities fraud) and CFPB (for consumer fraud) against ITT, both directly and because the costs and potential fundamental issues with ITTs then-existing business model revealed by those lawsuits also led to the risk of losing the accreditation from its accreditor.
(Incidentally, that's an accreditor whose notorious laxness in enforcing standards on private universities has led to the recommendation that it be no longer accepted as an accreditor by the Department of Education, a recommendation which may result in action this month removing it as an accreditor.)
Re: ITT Technical Institutes Shuts Down
#144Next, go after the public colleges? Other than brand, do they do a better job? Spend more than 30% of income on actual educational expenses (like IIT does)? I doubt it. {edit} Seems like US Universities are about 1:1 faculty vs staff. Up from 2:1 40 years ago.
How about 'fully funding public colleges' instead so that kids don't have to go into crippling debt to go there.
Judging by history, this would be seen as a license to artificially inflate costs, such that the university system would become a machine for extracting money from the public treasury and placing it into private hands.
You must have some feedback control, wherein the amount of public funding is dependent upon some objective criterion that measures the extent to which the public college provides a useful service to the public.
For instance, give the college a percentage (that decays exponentially) of the income taxes collected from their alumni. Schools that focus on teaching the knowledge and skills that actually make students employable would then be able to more freely provide tuition discounts to students, expecting that the recurring revenue stream after graduation would make up for the lesser amount collected up front.
They all hound their alumni for money all the time, anyway.
Re: ITT Technical Institutes Shuts Down
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks, I took a look, and that's great information for any current student, or students with outstanding loans. However, I was mostly joking; I've actually already paid them off completely, years ago, which wouldn't have been possible without my lovely wife. So the word "refund" was used purposefully, and getting one is likely improbable, haha. For years it was always a struggle of bashing ITT with my colleagues/the…
I graduated in 2005 from ITT in Pittsburgh and the total cost was a hair under 28K. I got a few grants, but had less than 20K in debt when I graduated. Was the pricing really that different where you went? Also, that was over 10 years ago. I haven't had any employer really care that I went to ITT. Honestly in the last 5 or 6 years no employer even asked where I went. Where I am now most care about real world experien…
Pittsburgh 2006 and I had about 40k in loans. Paid off my loans and have about 20k left to pay on my moms parent plus loan.
As for the employment situation. I think I might get filtered out simply for not having a BS sometimes. Sometimes I leave education off my resume and then I can discuss it when the recruiter calls and explain WHY I went there.
Other than that I just climbed the industry ladder over the last 10 years to put me into a decent position (six figures). At this point I do think the experience is way more valuable than the degree but I do lack some basic CompSci knowledge. I can't justify going back to school since the credits don't transfer and I make too much to justify additional debt. The ROI just isn't there.
The classes at ITT Greentree were laughable. I learned more just tinkering on my own. They were so easy to pass and you could tell the instructors were used to underachievers. I don't think they were allowed to fail anyone, even for lack of attendance. There seemed to be a large presence of ex-military spending their grants on the school too.
I had 1 instructor that was really good but all the students hated him. Another was fired for doing lines in the bathroom after I graduated. He would always stop class and send people to get little ceasar's cheesy bread. I knew he was on something. One day he went into a rant about how beautiful our hardback RDBMS book was. He never had us actually open the books but told us how gorgeous they were. That guy was so high.
I'm highly interested in seeing if there will be any forgiveness of debt for fraudulent practices.
Re: ITT Technical Institutes Shuts Down
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the case against community colleges historically? I graduated from university a while ago and still take a community college course from anything from math to photography when I have the time. I have been largely impressed by what they have to offer.
My local one has cut back on everything in the last few years. No more counselors - just use the online tools! And they're mostly about getting federal financial aid. Placement consists mostly of 'apprentice' positions which means a vanload of students running the back end of a restaurant somewhere all summer and sharing an apartment meant for 2. Strangely they don't advertise at all - at least in the media I see. Wh…
Community colleges have an inverse relationship with the economy - when the economy is in a slump they do well, when the economy is on the rebound their admissions go down. There's a bunch of reasons for this - people go to school when they're out of work, people who are going to school anyway may not think they can afford a "real" university when the economy looks ill.
Once the economy picks up people have jobs so they stop going, those who want to go to school feel good about their odds of taking on a ton of debt and go to a larger school.
(source: father was a professor at a vey large community college for ~40 years, mother is a prof at a university)
Re: ITT Technical Institutes Shuts Down
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sanford Brown (or just Brown)? Same here... I loved it and it got me a great job. Is it prestigious? Nope. But it got the job done and I was done in 2 years.
I went there for 2 semesters. I cancelled after one of the "professors" showed up hung over. The education was very low quality.
I live with a person who works at a public university as a physics professor. He doesn't show up hung over, but he only puts in about an hour a work a week outside of class.
What I am trying to say is there is crap talent in every industry.
Re: ITT Technical Institutes Shuts Down
#148Unfortunately, ITT is just the visible tip of the iceberg. There are MANY more for-profit schools of the same ilk as ITT that will fleece the same archetype of education-seeker. This isn't over by a long-shot. These schools are everywhere and they are probably chomping-at-the-bit to get their mits on displaced ITT students and all others that are susceptible to the type of manipulative and deceptive marketing practic…
> Unfortunately, ITT is just the visible tip of the iceberg. There are MANY more for-profit schools of the same ilk as ITT that will fleece the same archetype of education-seeker. This isn't over by a long-shot.
Its not over, but the writing is on the wall, not just with the Corinthian and ITT actions, but more with the focus on ACICS (the accreditor of both Corinthian and ITT, and a vast number of other for-profit schools) which has formally been recommended to be removed as an accreditor recognized by the DOE (a recommendation which, I believe, must be acted on by the end of this month.)
Re: ITT Technical Institutes Shuts Down
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the case against community colleges historically? I graduated from university a while ago and still take a community college course from anything from math to photography when I have the time. I have been largely impressed by what they have to offer.
My local one has cut back on everything in the last few years. No more counselors - just use the online tools! And they're mostly about getting federal financial aid. Placement consists mostly of 'apprentice' positions which means a vanload of students running the back end of a restaurant somewhere all summer and sharing an apartment meant for 2. Strangely they don't advertise at all - at least in the media I see. Wh…
Advertising is really expensive, so most community collages advertise to a limited degree because that's about all they can afford.
Re: ITT Technical Institutes Shuts Down
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sanford Brown (or just Brown)? Same here... I loved it and it got me a great job. Is it prestigious? Nope. But it got the job done and I was done in 2 years.
I went there for 2 semesters. I cancelled after one of the "professors" showed up hung over. The education was very low quality.
Sounds like a lot of hit and miss with these schools. With the rise of bootcamps as well, I wonder - is there any organization / website / agency compiling and auditing a list of these types of schools? It'd be great to be able to say "I want to become a pipeline designer" and knowing with Better Business Bureau level of confidence that I was choosing a good training program.