California bans ITT tech from accepting new students • Hacker News Board

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#221

Post by ensignavenger » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 1:51 PM UTC

awongh wrote: post #190

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…

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

A better comparison would be to a two-year community college.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#222

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 1:52 PM UTC

sandmansandine wrote: post #25

electic wrote: post #11

What about coding bootcamps? Aren't they worse? They try to make you a "coder" in a couple of months and promise people jobs if they finish the course. It sounds eerily the same thing as ITT...

It looks like BPPE has their eye on them as well, at least they did in 2014 http://www.wired.com/2014/01/california-hacker-bootcamps/

That's not an "as well", BPPE is the California government agency that acted here. An article with more details, including a link to a full copy of the emergency order, is here: https://consumerist.com/2016/08/29/california-bars-itt-tech-...

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#223

Post by ensignavenger » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 1:55 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #198

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…

Technically illegal to use school loans for things like cars or houses.

From the way I understand it, you can use student loans for any expense related to going to school, including living expenses.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#224

Post by ensignavenger » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 1:57 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #123

selectodude wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

On the other side of it, they are the only loans I know of that offer income based repayment, and complete loan forgiveness after a certain amount of time while on such income based repayment plan.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#225

Post by ensignavenger » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 1:59 PM UTC

coredog64 wrote: post #217

culturestate wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "default," GP means simply not paying - not bankruptcy. If someone can't afford to pay their student loans, they probably don't have assets in excess of their debt anyway.

I'm not going to claim it is an epidemic, but I know a few people in this boat. Generally speaking they are able to get by with a few life hacks: Cohabitate rather than marry, work jobs under the table, and/or be the stay-at-home parent.

Why would they allow their student loans to default in such a situation instead of enrolling in an income based repayment plan? If they have 0 income, they would have a payment of 0 dollars, still get their tax refund, and have their loans forgiven after a some time on the plan.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#226

Post by coredog64 » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 2:04 PM UTC

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…

> My only critique is that they accept ANYONE. This leads to a large number of dropouts. You have people that haven't been able to grasp basic algebra and they bust their butts learning basic math and then hit Cal I, Cal II, Signal Processing, etc and they just can't hack it. By the time they flunk out they've wracked up tens of thousands in student loan debt.

I went to a private ABET certified school for an Aerospace Engineering degree. My class was maybe 80-100 students when I started, and at graduation there were only ~20 of us. Everyone who left early was also stuck with a metric tonne of student loan debt.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#227

Post by ensignavenger » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 2:04 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #138

greggman wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this arguably the real issue. I'm all for the government funding education as long as it's effective education and not overpriced. In the case though they effectively put up a "Free Money" sign with nearly zero strings attached.

Like in UK? Where everyone gets a student loan from the government, but no university(and that includes Oxford and Cambridge) is allowed to charge more than 9k(roughly $12k) a year? You also don't start paying back until you have a job that pays more than a certain amount per year, and you have 40 years to pay it off - if you don't, it's forfeit.

Income based repayment plans are even better in the US- if you have low income, you don't pay anything the same as you describe, payments go up with income... and loans are forgiven after 10-25 years, not 40!

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#228

Post by cloakandswagger » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 2:13 PM UTC

cgearhart wrote: post #213

cloakandswagger wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> colleges have transformed into bloated profit machines, happily ratcheting up tuition in response to this inflated demand Colleges aren't really "profit machines" though, and growth in tuition hasn't paced enrollment increases, so it is more likely that aid levels are being increased in response to rising tuition, rather than tuition being raised due to increased aid. Interestingly, one of the dominant factors in t…

It seems like a chicken or egg problem. If there were no student loans beyond what you could get from a bank or friends and families, fewer people could afford current tuition costs and colleges would be forced to lower them to attract new "customers".

It's Keynesian demand-side stimulus at its core. With the national dialogue focused on how college should be available to everyone, along with unlimited, federally guaranteed student loans, demand skyrockets and prices rise to meet them.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#229

Post by coredog64 » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 2:15 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #53

bko wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard stories like that before. Serious question, what do those people actually do? Are they just so far removed from these general type of questions that they can not answer them or do they have no programming ability at all? It just strikes me as bizarre

Never-ending projects that never deliver, and management that never looks at the code. Also, cheating your way through college - which is basically a requirement for a lot of programs that offer a vertical learning curve, programs spoiled by the fact that many of the people who take a CS program have been hobbyist programmers for years. After the second semester, CS students divide into three groups: 1) stressed out…

My colleague theorizes that many of the developers that we're interviewing with 12 years of experience actually have the same year of experience 12 times. That is, they move from job to job after 12 months and do the same stuff again and again without any kind of growth.

Re: California bans ITT tech from accepting new students

#230

Post by coredog64 » Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 2:19 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #62

Kadin wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

To keep with the analogy, do you think the Robespierre will arrive to usher out the age of neofuedalism?

Minor nit: It was an English admiral that was killed to encourage the others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Minorca_(1756)