ITT Technical Institutes Shuts Down

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-06/itt-technical-institutes-shuts-down-leaving-a-hefty-bill

by jlas • 10 years ago

487 297 10 years ago

dccoolgai3• 10 years ago

"It will now likely rest on other parties to understand these reprehensible actions and to take action to attempt to prevent this from happening again."

Indeed.

peterhadlaw3• 10 years ago

As an alum of IIT (Chicago)... This is extra, great news.

tptacek8• 10 years ago

Why'd you go? What'd you study? What was the experience like?

(I have a single semester at UIC and no other college).

larrywright• 10 years ago

I'm pretty sure he's referring to Illinois Institute of Technology (http://web.iit.edu), and the fact that the name confusion doesn't act in his favor. I didn't attend, but I've been on the campus and it seems like a pretty great school.

jotato4• 10 years ago

I graduated from ITT 11 years ago. Care if I chime in?

* Why did I go? I was just out of high-school and I wanted to be a software engineer. I looked at the local university (Robert Morris in Pittsburgh, PA), but I didn't like their program. I was one of those kids who started tinkering with programming at 12 by making Pokemon fan sites :)

4 Years at a university studying a generic comp-sci degree didn't appeal to me. ITT offered a degree in Software Applications and Programming. It was what I was looking for.

* What did I study? As mentioned, Software Applications and Programming. Aside from the core classes (English, Calc, Trig, etc...) there were 2 OS classes, 2 VB, 2 C++, 2 Java, 2 webdev and 1 data structures class. at 18, this is what I was looking for. A few classes to teach me the basics in those areas and let me chase down the rest.

* What was it like? I don't have a single word to describe it, and when people ask me in person I find that I can take a good 20 minutes describing it. I'll do my best to sum it up.

disclaimer: they kept 3 students on hand as lab assistants and I was one for most of my two years there. Basically, we helped out the professors as needed and offered to help tutor. It paid something like $8/hr. My opinion may be skewed because of that.

- It was 100% for profit, and you could tell. Professors wouldn't really be allowed to fail students. It always bothered me that someone who only came to class on the first and last days was able to "barely pass"

- "Testing out" was frowned upon. You could do it, but you needed permission from the Dean, and meet with the professor and "career services" before you took the test. I was told you had to pass with a 100% to test out - I can't really vouch for that since I never tried.

- "Career Services" was a bit of a joke. It was 3 ladies who would critic your resume and let you know if they had heard of any job opening. Don't get me wrong, they were really nice people who wanted to help. I just didn't get much value from them. Sometimes local companies would come to ITT to post job openings. CS would at least email those out to you if you wanted.

- The classes were basic - "topic for dummies" basic. I'm no genius, but I didn't have to take notes. I don't know if it was that I had already been learning for 7 years before ITT or what, but I didn't really learn many new things there. It was kind of two years of review. I may be wrong on this one; I just don't have any memories of struggling to learn something.

- The professors and staff were nice. They did want to see you succeed.

- Credit transfers. They were upfront most colleges wouldn't transfer credits, but rumor had it the local university would take a few. Mainly the cores (maths, english, etc..)

* Final thoughts? - Would I go again? No

- Would I tell other people to go? No

- Was it worth it? Yes. I did get a degree. It isn't prestigious and I don't care. I was able to have a job lined up (in my field) before graduation. Fast forward to today and I have moved to the other side of the country. I have a great family, a good consulting job, and the confidence I need to build any software you want.

How much of that was ITT, and how much was my own sweat and blood? I don't know. What I do know is I would not have been hired at the same place right out of college. Which means I wouldn't have made the connections I did which led to me moving across the country.

edit:

I see a few topics regarding loan forgiveness because of fraud. I experienced no such thing. Sure, the recruiters made a few statements that I consider un-true. But i wouldn't call it fraud. They did provide an education. (It may not have been the best) and they did try to place you in a job (they can't place everybody!)

Ultimately, it was on me for borrowing money; not the school

jcranmer• 10 years ago

IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology) or ITT (Technical Institutes)?

abrowne• 10 years ago

I think they are implying that now people won't think of ITT when they say they're an alum of IIT.

idsout• 10 years ago

Pretty sure this is why OP is glad ITT exists no longer. Someday people won't confuse their respectable college with ITT.

tickthokk3• 10 years ago

As a 2005 graduate of ITT, I'm glad. This was a long time coming. Now if only I could get my loans refunded :p

jacquesm• 10 years ago

From TFA: "Other former students are pushing to have their debts canceled by alleging that the company defrauded them into taking out the debt by advertising false job-placement rates."

So it looks like you might have a chance.

ianai3• 10 years ago

That seems like something you couldn't sue over and win. At this point the beef exists between student and financer.

Unbeliever692• 10 years ago

Check out the DOE website. You most likely will be able to get some student loan forgiveness.

tickthokk3• 10 years ago

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 internet, but talking them up with potential employers. The only thing $40k of debt got me was the perceived prestige an employer likely already had of ITT. Now that they're defunct there's definitely no up-selling them.

johnward7• 10 years ago

"... cancel any federal student debt ..."

That's the problem. Maybe I'm in the minority but everyone I know has like less than $10k in federal loans and $40k or more in private loans.

I can't figure out how I end up reading about people with $100k in federal student loan debt that get forgiveness for working for the government. How the hell did you manage to get THAT much in federal subsidized money? The only way I could go to school was by using private loans. My wife has private loans at 13% adjustable...

rhino3692• 10 years ago

One way was going to graduate school. You can get federal loans for grad school at up to the entire cost of attendence. For law school or medical school that's 80k a year.

kayla2103• 10 years ago

I really feel for all the students who are so close to graduating and not knowing if they'll have anything to show for it.. And their credits will most likely not transfer to another school because of the different accreditations.

tptacek8• 10 years ago

That their credits had virtually no chance of transferring to any other institution --- a point ITT was forced to make on its own website --- is a pretty good reason not to allow it to be the beneficiary of billions of dollars of public financing.

dionidium2• 10 years ago

It's on this page, for the curious:

http://programinfo.itt-tech.edu/consumerinfo/

johan_larson• 10 years ago

I've seen some discussion of letting credits transfer using something called Prior Learning Assessment, essentially having the student prove they've learned the material taught in various courses at the receiving institution.

http://suburbdad.blogspot.ca/2016/09/friday-fragments.html

Transfer of any sort tends to be tricky. You rarely get anything close to parity, particularly in core courses.

dccoolgai3• 10 years ago

That's true - and as a taxpayer, I don't relish the idea of funding things like this that are taking advantage of people... but I have to admit I feel a little icky at the thought of pulling something that might act as a ladder of economic mobility - even for just a few people - out from under them. It's like we're saying to people that don't fit into the "traditional" mold of college-goer: "You can't go to ITT any more"... OK, but what do they take on to better their station now? I just can't think of a great anwser to that, other than bloviating about theories of "post-scarcity" that do nothing to help these people and it makes me feel bad.

kayla2103• 10 years ago

The fact that credits weren't transferable always seemed so shady to me. That just made it seemed that whatever credits you did earn weren't legitimate or worth anything if they couldn't be equated to credits at another college.

tom_b• 10 years ago

Credits rarely transfer into a major or minor program of study regardless of source institution. Waiving of requirements to opt into higher-level coursework is fine. That's rarely what students want.

ITT is just the worst example of crappy education. There are plenty of schools where a crappy education is still available. Federally backed (edit: guarenteed) money for student loans intuitively seems problematic.

pkaye• 10 years ago

I graduated with a BS degree in the UC system and many years later decided to get another in the CSU system and even then there were difficulty getting transfer credits for base classes to get the second degree.

koolba3• 10 years ago

I really feel for all the students who are so close to graduating and not knowing if they'll have anything to show for it.. And their credits will most likely not transfer to another school because of the different accreditations.

I'm pretty sure the ones that graduated have no chance of their credits transferring either. Only difference is they saved whatever the last couple tuition payments would have been.

ocdtrekkie2• 10 years ago

You can put an ITT Tech degree on a resume. It will be regarded as less than a degree elsewhere, but it's something. But just non-transferrable course credit gets you nowhere. These students may be put back years on their career path.

at-fates-hands3• 10 years ago

I live in Minneapolis and the City Pages did quite an exposé on them back in 2015. It was pretty eye opening and gives a really good glimpse into their tactics:

http://www.citypages.com/news/itt-tech-sells-an-american-dre...

gigatexal• 10 years ago

Yes! What a shameful institution.

JulianMorrison4• 10 years ago

Every student's loans to these slimy operators should be simply struck off with no penalty.

qaq9• 10 years ago

Why should avg. taxpayer take on this burden?

miiiiiike• 10 years ago

Because the federal government allowed ITT to participate in the student aid programs.

warmblood2• 10 years ago

Because the burden on your (so-called) average taxpayer of having a stagnant, debt-crippled workforce is greater and worse to bear in the long term.

slfnflctd• 10 years ago

Better question: Why shouldn't they?

These are almost all going to be, by definition, disadvantaged people who have been lied to and defrauded. Yes, they 'chose' to do this, but the staggering amount of misleading advertising (and the worst kinds of sleazy-salesman lies & emotional manipulation of the vulnerable) leaves plenty of doubt as to how much of a choice they had.

I see very little difference between helping these people and helping storm victims. Nearly all for-profit education (that made a profit, anyway) is an ugly disaster and should never have been allowed to go on so long. The government actually did something right here for once.

JulianMorrison4• 10 years ago

Fuck the word taxpayer, it's a lie hiding in a literalism. It pretends that people are paying for some service and they could stop. No. Society, as individuals on behalf of the whole, has responsibilities. One of those is to pick up the tab when people's lives have been ruined through no fault of their own.

The whole "small government" thing has just been people blowing off their responsibilities.

loco5niner• 10 years ago

Good.

koolba3• 10 years ago

Question for lawyers in the audience: If ITT is shut down because the "education" it was providing was complete shit and not recognized anywhere else, does that mean that the usual rules about education related personal debt surviving bankruptcy wouldn't apply?

tamana2• 10 years ago

There are various ways to get loan forgiveness for these loans, for reasons as you suggest, before the bankruptcy question. But pity the fool who paid off their loan and is now bankrupt.

koolba3• 10 years ago

But pity the fool who paid off their loan and is now bankrupt.

Sadly that's becoming more and more common a trend in this country. It's the same as all the poor chaps who kept trying to pay their underwater mortgages while they're neighbors squatted for free.

Honest Joe seems to never catch a break :(

JoeAltmaier3• 10 years ago

Next, 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.

qaq9• 10 years ago

Given the continuous grows of administrative personal and cutting of faculty positions the quality of the job they do is deteriorating quickly.

GFK_of_xmaspast4• 10 years ago

How about 'fully funding public colleges' instead so that kids don't have to go into crippling debt to go there.

logfromblammo6• 10 years ago

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.

nostrebored• 10 years ago

You're mistaking the purpose of most public colleges -- it is not to educate students, but this is a service that they provide. ITT on the other hand, is only attempting to teach.

VLM• 10 years ago

I'm not sure the money is there to chase. I got an associates from a "public county tech", basically a public non-profit variant of the general ITT model, and it was about 1/10th ITT price, even today. The associates degree was worthless in the market by itself, but 56 of the 64 credit did transfer because they worked very hard with the state uni system and one of the local private colleges and accreditation boards.

If you take the ITT story, make the teachers actually teach to the accredited standard such that credit transfers "work", and cut the price 90%, it's not that bad of a deal. With tuition at $3K or so per semester, its hard to accumulate $50K in ITT style loans at a "public county tech" when a semester of school takes about half a year of part time employment at minimum wage...

I would imagine there are places to live without "public county tech" schools, but without educational institutions and other than importing them from us, where do you get your welders and electrician apprentices and similar?

chris_wot• 10 years ago

So to mitigate the possible effects of the colleges all suddenly shutting down they were told to put up a huge amount of collateral, which caused them to all suddenly shut down?

That's quite a mitigation strategy the government has going on there.

johnnymonster• 10 years ago

And I'm sure they 78mil they hand on hand is going to "disappear" to pay for "shutting down" their offices.

keithwhor• 10 years ago

Reading between the lines: that was likely the intention all along. Better to deflate the bubble now than let it get any bigger.

darkarmani• 10 years ago

They need to call it at some point. They might as well do it before the semester starts to get some of their money back.

joedissmeyer3• 10 years ago

I am personaly happy to see the hammer come down on these for-profit universities. I too feel for the students as I was one of the Corinthian Colleges students a few years ago at Everest University through one of the Florida campuses. My degree program was the A.S. in Computer Information Sciences -- such a waste. Look up the job placement rates for that program in 2010, just insane.

Thankfully I too have been able to take advantage of the Department of Education relief. But I have to go through the process of the “borrower defense to repayment”. It continues to be a tough process but at least it some form of relief for me.

I hope former ITT students are able to find a quick resoluton. This type of school shutdown is not easy on anyone.

On another note, I wonder if this is the start of the 'higher-ed debt bubble' that has been predicted for quite some time now...

the-dude• 10 years ago

start of the 'higher-ed debt bubble

The deflation of it you mean?

joedissmeyer3• 10 years ago

Ah yes, I meant deflation. My mistake.

AdmiralAsshat• 10 years ago

You have my condolences. Corinthian Colleges was a client of a company I worked for. They were...not pleasant to deal with. The board meeting in which it was announced to our team that they were being fined into oblivion by the federal government was met with more laughter than sympathy.

ams61103• 10 years ago

Easy student loans for worthless education is what created the problem of sham for-profit universities to begin with.

lazypenguin• 10 years ago

Yes, I think this is the crux of all our education woes currently. I'd be curious to see how the system would evolve if the DOE eliminated the federal student aid program entirely.

dragonwriter11• 10 years ago

Yes, and the reason that there were easy student loans for worthless education is because of laxity in the accreditation system on which reliance is placed to assure that education is not worthless, and because of a historical lack of accountability for frauds on the part of certain (particularly for-profit, who have the strongest incentive for fraud) institutions.

The recent issues at Corinthian and ITT (including the fraud lawsuits against both and the DOE pressure on accreditors, as well as the ultimately DOE action after the fraud lawsuits and accreditation issues at ITT) are a direct result of efforts to end "easy student loans for worthless education."

rayvd• 10 years ago

Maybe we should have more of them. When they're not meeting the expectations of their students, the students go elsewhere and the school is forced to close.

Far cry from the current entrenched and inflexible education system.

tptacek8• 10 years ago

How is the non-profit school system "inflexible"? You don't have to attend a major research university at all, let alone for your first several years worth of credit hours. There are more than 1,500 community colleges in the US, with flexible scheduling and costs per credit hour that are a fraction of major schools.

The marketing notion that the options are solely UCLA or ITT Tech is part of the problem with for-profit colleges!

ams61103• 10 years ago

Conceptually there is nothing wrong with a for-profit university or vocational training academy. The problem is when there is only profit and no (worthwhile) education or training.

TwoFactor• 10 years ago

I tried googling the A.S. in Computer Information Sciences job placement rates and couldn't find anything. Do you have a link?

joedissmeyer3• 10 years ago

@twofactor --- Yes here you go -

https://www.insidehighered.com/sites/default/server_files/fi...

I found this when doing my research for the borrower to defense repayment act when submitting to the Department of Education. I included a copy of this exact PDF with the URL in my application.

mbesto• 10 years ago

The higher-ed debt bubble already started, it's just about to pop me thinks:

https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AAPOL&fstype=ii&ei=...

https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3ADV&fstype=ii&ei=HvnO...

https://www.google.com/finance?q=OTCMKTS%3ACOCOQ&fstype=ii&e...

BallinBige• 10 years ago

long time coming --- tuition rates have been exceeding inflation for quite some time

jhylau• 10 years ago

thank god

Eric_WVGG• 10 years ago

bad news for late night cable ad revenue

aaronchall2• 10 years ago

The dream: take students who are mostly unprepared to succeed at college and educate & prepare them for success in the real world.

The reality: most of these students will not realize a return on the investment of their time and acquisition of a ton of debt that they cannot discharge in bankruptcy. Many will fail to attend class, fail to take notes, fail to do homework, fail to learn, and will not complete - but because they have already sunk huge costs into the endeavor, will continue incurring more costs in spite of the writing on the wall.

The economics means that these schools are unsustainable. However, some people find success through these schools. How can we continue to serve these people?

Perhaps we could avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater by creating more community colleges, allowing more people to enroll in affordable community colleges, complete milestones at their own pace, while providing more direct subsidies of tuition for the truly needy. I agree that we would benefit from more German-style apprenticeship programs as well. For all of their worker protections, they still have incredibly low youth unemployment.

pgt• 10 years ago

Perhaps apprenticeship programs as are common in Germany, which are more focused on practical skills development than theoretical learning?

at-fates-hands3• 10 years ago

They're actually quite a few apprenticeship programs here in the states. Learning a skilled trade just isn't sexy for a lot of kids and for some reason are looked down upon. Even though you can get a welding apprenticeship and be earning 70-80K right out of the gate.

High schools here are starting to encourage kids to take a more non-traditional route to a career and letting kids know there are other avenues other than 4 year colleges - including more vocational training, apprenticeships and other options like code camps.

Yhippa2• 10 years ago

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.

beachstartup2• 10 years ago

What's the case against community colleges historically?

nothing, but they don't have slick advertising and promise you a $75k/year job, or aggressively recruit you by calling you non-stop and using manipulative pressure tactics like you're buying a $50,000 cell phone plan at a mall kiosk.

JoeAltmaier3• 10 years ago

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. While I saw IIT ads all the time. And they target the same demographic.

logfromblammo6• 10 years ago

Community colleges with regional accreditation and freely transferable credits are not a problem. They serve several niches that large universities may find inconvenient or unprofitable--such as the hobbyist courses you mentioned, continuing education requirements, and remedial courses for students with inadequate high school education, and compete with some larger universities for the non-traditional students.

Spending some years at community college before transferring to a larger university's degree program is a great way for poorer students to save tuition money, and for academically unprepared students to catch up to their age cohort in a reasonable way. The disadvantage lies in the social networking, which is a big part of the value of (4 years of) on-campus university education. At a community college, it is somewhat less advantageous to make contacts with other students and professors, because they are less prestigious overall. Someone with an associate's degree is not as likely to help you get a job (at least for several years after graduation).

Most for-profit schools lack several of the elements I consider to be absolutely essential to qualify as a "community college". Many of them appear to be so horribly parasitic and exploitative that I can't figure out how they manage to get so many students.

kbenson3• 10 years ago

I have no idea, but our local community (junior) college is so highly regarded that our high schools generally recommended it as a good course for many, if not most, students. It routinely ranks in the top 5 of the AMATYC[1], and has transfer programs set up with many of the UC/CS colleges in state so you are guaranteed entry in those colleges if you complete the requirement classes with a certain GPA, regardless of high school performance (or completion!). Guaranteed transfer to UCLA or UC Berkeley as a science major at a fraction of the cost with half your college credits taken care of is nothing to sneeze at.

1: http://www.amatyc.org/

toast0• 10 years ago

California community colleges are pretty affordable (with in-state tuition) and mostly pretty good, but not all states have a similar system: when I was in Wisconsin, community college was much closer to the cost of a four year school.

scarface74• 10 years ago

I see more of a case against going to a four year college for a lot of people instead of just going to a much cheaper 2 year college for the first two years and transferring to get a 4 year degree. Most state four year colleges have a transfer program.

ssharp• 10 years ago

When I was an undergrad, many years ago in my home state of Ohio, community colleges were definitely looked down on as being "lesser" than four-year universities, even if the universities were offering two-year Associates programs.

However, the State of Ohio overhauled how it helps funds state universities, where funds are allocated based on graduation rather than enrollment. As a result, state universities have started shifting more and more students to take low level courses at whatever community college, or colleges, they partner with. In particular, students with higher drop-out risk also get sent over to the community college.

I think that, along with many of the State's public universities slashing tuition on entry-level courses have helped improve the cost burden of higher education, particularly for those high-risk groups where they only take a few classes and fail to complete the program.

thearn4• 10 years ago

I've always been a huge fan of community colleges. Partly because I came up through one.

Nelson69• 10 years ago

I don't know that there is a "case" against them. My guess is that there are a bunch of mis-assumptions against them by proxy. I'm guessing but I think a chunk of people might think or suggest that the college prep education they pay their tax dollars for up with 12th grade is doing an inadequate job if community college or junior college is needed.

That and then there is a general "anti-university" sort of vibe in the world. "They waste a lot of time and money teaching you stuff that you don't need" or "it's just a piece of paper" where as maybe a vocational school might be a more "efficient" option for getting a job. I'm not expert but I believe a lot of community colleges try to offer college prep courses and try to help ease the transition, rather than just focus on vocational skills that can immediately be applied to a job.

cookiecaper• 10 years ago

My experience is that there are plenty of community colleges, but people don't want to go to them because they feel they're stigmatized.

I have to admit that while I'm obviously against exploitative schemes, the shutdown of something that may have been a viable alternative to a traditional university hurts a little. Small trade schools, which ITT presented itself as even if it was in reality just a scam, are much better learning environments than large universities for most of the kind of stuff that hackers do.

I'm worried there will be a small cultural backlash against people without traditional educations on the heels of this shutdown. Since traditional university education is mostly just a massive, deeply-ingrained scam itself, this is disappointing.

liveoneggs• 10 years ago

How is this different from the huge numbers of people who drop out of traditional universities?

nommm-nommm• 10 years ago

Honestly, even though this is harsh, I think your "the reality" description of for profit colleges applies to community colleges as well. Graduation rates at community college are very low (like 35%ish) and more than half of community college students need to take (and pay for) remedial classes before they even start earning credit.

They are comparatively affordable though and you aren't likely to go into crushing debt to go to community college, though it's possible, my uncle did it.

There was one of the "best" community colleges in the country in my hometown. Best ranked by, I have no idea, people in town just talked about how it's ranked high nationally. I took a few classes there the summers I spent in my hometown during my college years to speed up my university degree. The quality of classes and education was seriously lacking in the classes I took. They were not college level in my opinion (even though my credits had no problem transferring). Grades were posted online without names attached and it was shocking to me that half the class was struggling to pass such a basic class. These C community college students are not going to make it in a 4 year university if that's what they are aiming for.

My friend did get her LPN there though and seems like a good nurse so maybe it was ok for more "trade" type degrees.

Community college is not the answer to the kids flunking out of ITT tech. They won't do better in community college, they will just have comparatively less debt. Getting more kids in community college is certainly not the answer. More subsidies is even more not the answer.

pessimizer• 10 years ago

Community college is not the answer to the kids flunking out of ITT tech.

Who's trying to solve the problem of kids flunking out of ITT Tech? One of the problems with ITT Tech is that you can't flunk out of it.

They won't do better in community college, they will just have comparatively less debt.

You seem to think that there's a problem with people doing badly at ITT Tech. The problem is that ITT Tech is bad, not that people are doing badly there. That people are saddled with a worthless qualification and are in crushing debt from the process of getting it is the problem.

Getting more kids in community college is certainly not the answer.

To the question that nobody asked? No. To people ending up in horrible debt with a worthless credential? Of course it is. It would take you 4-5 years in community college to generate the debt that you can in a semester of one of these fake schools. Community colleges are fine. Some are great. I went from community college to university, and a ton of other people did with me, a few to Northwestern and the University of Chicago (I just went to UIC.) I'm sorry you didn't like yours, but you shouldn't judge all Chinese restaurants because the meal you had at the one in your hometown was too salty.

More subsidies is even more not the answer.

To what question?

mathattack• 10 years ago

Your last paragraph is spot on. Community Colleges (supported by MOOCs) and apprenticeship and trade school programs are the way to go.

3rd tier colleges with Ivy League prices aren't, and are only done based on misleading financial aid. I've seen a lot of resumes of people from for-profit schools. The graduates fall in 2 camps: Those who regret the decision, and those who don't realize how badly they were scammed.

90% of the time I see a title attached to someone's name ("Jane Smith, Phd" or "John Doe, MBA") it's from one of these overpriced degree factories, and it's a terribly negative signal.

droopybuns• 10 years ago

It feels like non "for-profit" schools also suffer from the same reality, now that the prices are commonly hovering around 40K per year at smaller liberal arts schools.

tptacek8• 10 years ago

That's not the dream. The dream is to get access to the billions of dollars the Federal Government spends to finance college degrees. Tuition costs at for-profit schools track neither those companies inputs nor the value they actually provide to the market.

The distinction is important. It is likely --- overwhelmingly likely, I think --- that there are programs with "the dream" you site that will work well. They just won't work like government-subsidized for-profit colleges.

jrs2354• 10 years ago

What enabled this greed scheme to work? Government guaranteed loans. The schools and institutions need to have some of their own skin in the game.

ams61103• 10 years ago

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.

jrs2354• 10 years ago

Touche. Perhaps full deferment should be changed to paying back $200 / month even while enrolled. I know this is controversial. But at least then the students might feel the pinch and squeeze that the loans will have on them and it might also help them learn personal finance. If a student is unable to make the payments and go into default then they'll have to take a semester off and make some money (this would also prevent some from going much much deeper into debt). All around its a crappy situation. But most high school graduates probably think Caveat Emptor was some Roman ruler...

azemetre• 10 years ago

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."

Yhippa2• 10 years ago

How was this allowed to go on for so long though? I remember seeing commercials on TV for ITT and ECPI growing up in the 80's.

jrs2354• 10 years ago

Not sure. I would suspect it may have to do with less funding from states helping to offset public state school tuition. This probably made it easier for private for-profit schools to charge high prices and still appear competitive. Now more students "needed"/relied on loans and the government jumped in to support them. It was probably harder to get thousands of people to pay thousands of dollars for a private no-name for-profit college when those that were "qualified" could go to a state school for much less.

whorleater• 10 years ago

Thank god. Next on the menu: University of Phoenix please.

donatj2• 10 years ago

I went to a similar for-profit school in Minnesota who also similarly shut down last year.

I still feel like they get a bad rap. Was it overpriced? Probably. Did I learn a ton and have small class sizes. Absolutely. The instructors had all previously worked in the industry, and knew their topics very well.

On top of all that, after graduation their persistent pestering of "how many places did you apply to this week?" (surely to help their numbers) had a lot to do with me actually getting a job. I didn't want to let the lady that called me weekly down. It took a lot of persistence and interviewing but I finally got my foot firmly in the door about 6 months after graduation.

I've been gainfully employed in the industry for ten years, I'm debt free, and I'm happy. I'm thankful for my time there.

arenaninja2• 10 years ago

I don't disagree that for-profit colleges get a bad rap, but I think it's deserved in the case of ITT Tech and Corinthian.

I think about the government handing out student loans to students who statistically won't be able to repay, and I'm OK with the DOE putting a stop to it. Taxpayers will ultimately be on the hook for these failed loans, and if they know which institutions are largely at fault then good on them for being proactive

jeffdavis2• 10 years ago

"handing out student loans to students who statistically won't be able to repay, and I'm OK with the DOE putting a stop to it"

Right, but ot depends on the facts.

Were they just asked to put up reasonable collateral, foreseeable from what they delivered compared with their responsibilities by taking federal money? Or were they blindsided with an arbitrary number from the DOE that was intended to force them to shut down before they had a chance to save their business?

Probably a little (or a lot) of both. And we should be as wary of the latter as the former.

peterwwillis• 10 years ago

So, if tax payers paying for something they're not getting value out of is of interest to you, what about the 600 billion (well over half) of federal discretionary spending that goes to "defense" which involves contracts that we're aware regularly goes over budget and time with no guarantee of success?

Even if you're fine with the amount we spend, the F35 is just one example of exactly what you're talking about, but in terms of defense instead of education. Should we cancel contracts to Lockheed Martin because of how they fail to deliver? Or perhaps consider that even wasted education spending is probably more productive than wasted defense spending?

It's clear that they deliver an education. The question is whether they then get the people who have an education a job, similar to how a fighter plane maker may make a plane, but it may not do its intended job well. I guess I just find it interesting how a lot less time is spent talking about taxpayer spending on wasted weapons, while the measly education budget gets scrutinized with a fine tooth comb.

SteveNuts2• 10 years ago

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.

donatj2• 10 years ago

Yup. It was just "Brown" at the time. Brooklyn Center campus. I went for Application Development.

swalsh• 10 years ago

I went there for 2 semesters. I cancelled after one of the "professors" showed up hung over. The education was very low quality.

bradleyjg2• 10 years ago

While there may well be more bad (by whatever metric) for-profit colleges there are also bad non-profit colleges. And non-profit itself is a bit of misnomer. It is true that registered non-profits can't pay dividends to their shareholders, but they can and sometimes do pay exorbitant salaries to those that have control over them.

As the gainful employment rule[1] currently stands it exempts degree programs from public and private non-profit institutions. I'd rather see a uniform set of metrics and standards applied to all institutions eligible for student loans.

[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2014/10/31/2014-255...

eli• 10 years ago

Salaries at non-profit must be "reasonable" by law.

There's probably a lot of wiggle room there, but it's not like you can just pay yourself anything.

jayess• 10 years ago

No idea why you're getting downvoted. The same rules should apply across the board.

tadfisher2• 10 years ago

Be careful what you wish for. This would basically kill liberal arts programs and the idea of a well-rounded post-secondary education. The incentive would be to transform universities into job-training programs.

I know there is an ongoing debate about the worth of a liberal arts education in the modern economy, but there's something to be said about the traditional notion of education for education's sake, rather than as a mechanism to improve lifetime earnings.

Something should be done about the high cost of post-secondary education and the untenable burden it places on many students, but I disagree that the solution should be tied to job prospects.

dntrkv2• 10 years ago

Just because you had a great experience does not negate the fact that for-profit college students, statistically, fare much worse.

A common pattern I have seen:

Person does terrible in high school, doesn't get into a good college because they don't have the drive or commitment to get good grades. They go to community college, and surprise, they again get terrible grades and stop going. After a while they want to go back to school, so they start looking into these for profit colleges that promise them everything. These colleges make it sound so much more appealing than community college, because, well, community college isn't trying to sell you a bullshit education. Anyways, these sales people will constantly pester you trying to get you to signup and take out huge loans because for some reason we think that it's ok to lend someone with terrible credit $50k+ in worthless education.

The end result is either them regretting their decision or trying to justify it with some bullshit about it being a good learning experience or something of the sort.

I have seen many people follow this exact path and I am glad to see these companies shutting down. You can get a much better education for cheaper at a community college.

empath75• 10 years ago

I signed up for computer learning center the month they went bankrupt. After 3 weeks of classes, I showed up and they were wheeling furniture out the front door. Dodged a bullet, there.

ohyes• 10 years ago

The end result you describe isn't much different than a number of 4 year undergraduate degrees, PhDs or masters programs (all at "good" colleges).

The best advice I ever received was to not pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy.

It's wrong to think that departments at not-for-profit schools don't have a marketing incentive that is (at best) indifferent to the best interests of the student.

ersii• 10 years ago

Do you have any sources for your statistical statement in the beginning of your comment?

JumpCrisscross• 10 years ago

Do those statistics adjust for the quality of incoming students? That is, would the same student do worse at a for-profit college than a usual university (taking into account expected costs and outcomes)?

Houshalter• 10 years ago

You know that's an interesting thought. That its not the quality of the education, but the quality of the student. Similar to how prestigious schools do better just because they filter for better students.

Shivetya• 10 years ago

oh let us be honest here, graduation rates pretty much suck across the board at colleges and are nothing to be proud of. For profits just got to take the rap because they were easy to demagogue and a few cherry picked examples were truly bad.

but on a whole, even state and private (non profit - now there is the real crime - the non profit colleges) have nothing to brag about https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_326.10.a...

wallace_f• 10 years ago

On the other hand:

Person does terrible in high school,doesn't get into a good college because they don't have the drive or commitment to get good grades.

That was me

They go to community college

That was me

surprise, they again get terrible grades and stop going

Nope, that was not me. I got a 4.0 in communnity college

Anyways, these sales people will constantly pester you trying to get you to signup and take out huge loans because for some reason we think that it's ok to lend someone with terrible credit $50K+ in worthless education.

Essentially, that was also me. I was utterly convinced and sold that going to a high ranking university was the best thing for me

The end result is either them regretting their decision or trying to justify it with some bullshit about it being a good learning experience or something of the sort.

Back to that being me again

You can get a much better education for cheaper at a community college.

My community college education was mostly useless except for a few classes: 2 science classes (although one of the profs had a lawsuit with the school which affected our course quality), 1 course in calc, and 1 course in sociology/economics with a particularly good professor. A lot of the courses taught me either stuff I already knew, could learn easily with freely available resources online, or stuff that wasn't true or had no understandable merit.

TL;DR I didn't do my homework in high school. I got a job at a ski resort out of high school, then went to community college, got a 4.0, went to a high ranking university, ended up unemployed with a 50k+ education. Granted, I graduated during the recession, but this exact thing can happen to you if you are going to good universities as well.

I would rather have skipped community college and uni, spent the money on skiing in Switzerland and taught myself maths and programming while continuing to work in ski resorts and something that involved a summer hobby of mine like mountain biking, alpine hiking, long distance running or with video games.

xorblurb• 10 years ago

Also, I have the feeling that a "great experience" is all relative.

I went to a public engineering school in France, for which the student has virtually nothing to pay, and could secure a job in ~ 2 months after graduation without trying very hard (I did an interview in two companies). I was debt free... all my life. I'm not even talking about a prestigious Grande École, just your random everyday engineering school, which you can find in pretty much every region (with often several different schools in big cities). An Engineering Degree is equivalent to a Master’s Degree, and especially well suited to work in ... engineering. There certainly also are private engineering schools, which some of them maybe are less selective or slightly more recognized, but they are monitored by the state in order for the diploma they deliver to have an official value, and they are still far less expensive than private schools in the USA.

Well, there also are unrecognized for-profit schools with unrecognized (officially) diploma, or even with funny teaching setups (students teach each others...) but I'm not sure they attract a lot of people. Given they tend to concentrate on only technical and practical stuff, its probably even less useful to go there nowadays.

To complete the picture, most people who follow higher education studies in France actually go to the Public University (and not engineering schools) and it is far less selective, so the attrition the first years is quite big - and also it can be less easy to find a job depending on the degree you get and your domain. However, the public university is also obviously virtually free for students (regardless of the prepared degree), and talented students also have usually no pb finding jobs (and at least no insane debt :)

coroutines• 10 years ago

There's a middle ground between your statement and the experience the fellow above had. I'd prefer a good community college with a career counselor that pushes you to make the necessary steps toward employment after graduation.

dimino• 10 years ago

You remind me of their commercials; not that such a thing is bad, it just always seemed to me that some percentage of the people attending these schools must be having a positive experience.

Unfortunately, I think you're in the minority.

I also wonder how much their lack of success could be contributed to the kinds of people who have ITT as their most viable option. You might be able to better speak to this than I, but I've always kind of assumed ITT was a "last resort", where other institutions (community colleges, etc) would be better options if available.

robotcookies• 10 years ago

I believe that all schools should have partial liability for the defaults of their students. You make a good point that this heavy-handed regulation of schools by shutting them down can hurt a few people who may benefit from alternative schools.

If all schools were partially liable for loan defaults (say 50%), they would pay far more attention into creating programs that have good job prospects and less on programs that just sound good. They'd also have an incentive to charge a reasonable tuition instead of maximizing the cost based on what can be borrowed. And they would spend a great deal more effort on job placement after graduation. The government would not have to pick and choose what schools to close down.

kajjffkk2• 10 years ago

I dont want my school hustling me down the likeliest path to become corporate cannon fodder at ABC Corp when I'm trying to build a startup. Not everyone goes to school to "get a job".

clarkmoody4• 10 years ago

It looks like the main problem in this whole scheme is the government-funded student loan program. ITT was wrangling to get access that that loan money as a key to its operations. Failing to comply with the Dept of Ed's requirements caused them to go out of business, since they would no longer have a place at the public trough.

How many state schools and private colleges could survive without government largess? We've seen a massive increase in tuition costs, far beyond inflation in recent years. Such is the result of artificially boosting demand for college on the backs of the taxpayer.

As for forgiving ITT student loans, I say no. Students are responsible for their own loans and (bad) decisions. By that reasoning, shouldn't we just forgive all student debt for anyone who didn't get their dream job straight out of undergrad? What about those who don't finish school but still have loans? For everyone but the far left, these ideas are ludicrous. Let's not make the taxpayer suffer twice for the poor decisions of others.

chadgeidel2• 10 years ago

I'm not disagreeing or agreeing with loan forgiveness, but to claim that going to college is a bad decision is really a poor choice of words.

Everyone you talk to everywhere says that "a college education is the path to a good job" and "college educated workers make - on average - n% more than their non-college-educated counterparts". When these people (kids really at 18) graduate from high school, they are making the best decision they can possibly make.

Yes, we know now that ITT was basically a diploma mill, but for a very long time ITT grads got good jobs in the tech industry.

clarkmoody4• 10 years ago

claim that going to college is a bad decision

Taking on the loans is the bad decision, in the case that the student is stuck with no career prospects and a mountain of debt.

they are making the best decision they can possibly make

That is not true. Going to college is not the best decision for everyone. Many graduates are over-qualified for the jobs they end up taking. Many jobs that should not require a degree now can afford to filter applicants based on completing college, since so many more people are going.

Employers are basically using your years at school as a signal that you are a hard worker. Is that signal worth the time and cost?

Vraxx• 10 years ago

While I agree that I see no reason to forgive these loans as opposed to any other education loans, I just wanted to point out that the taxpayers would not be suffering twice in this case because the only "suffering" that the taxpayers endure is if loans are not paid back. If they are, the taxpayers get their money back plus interest (still in the hands of the government, but it's not "lost").

HarryHirsch2• 10 years ago

How many state schools and private colleges could survive without government largess?

The reason we have seen tuition rates go up at public schools is precisely because their share of taxpayer funding has been cut, they have to make up for the missing funds somehow. You'd wish they would rely less on tuition because then we could do without useless taught masters degrees and with less shiny amenities designed to compete for the tuition income.

Nowadays you see community colleges building dormitories! Neither the student body nor the taxpayer needs that kind of expense so the place can attract students from three counties away.

whamlastxmas• 10 years ago

The reason we have seen tuition rates go up at public schools is precisely because their share of taxpayer funding has been cut

I think it's a bit much to claim this as the sole or even main reason. Tuition has gone up because it can. People are willing to pay it because, who cares, it's just a loan. Not money out of pocket.

Look at the financials from University of Texas for FY 2014-2015: https://utexas.app.box.com/v/annual-financial-reports/1/8167...

Federally sponsored programs UP $20 million from previous year. Local programs up more than $2 million. These more than offset state-level funding being down $6 million, and that $6 million is a drop in the bucket of $1.6 BILLION in operating revenues. Over $200 million increase in net worth in that year alone, and over $1 BILLION in net increase the year before.

Schools are not hurting for money. Tuition students pay is less than half of the money they make. Tuition does not go up because it needs to, it goes up because they want it to and because it can.

UT could make tuition and fees literally $0 for everyone and they'd still be profitable over the past two years.

mhurron2• 10 years ago

Neither the student body nor the taxpayer needs that kind of expense so the place can attract students from three counties away.

And if the county their from doesn't have a community college, or the community college in their county doesn't offer the programs they want?

ocdtrekkie2• 10 years ago

I absolutely think the government should forgive these students' loans. Arguably, it was the government's decision that rendered those loans useless. ITT Tech may have been a shoddy school, but it was still school.

tzs2• 10 years ago

We've seen a massive increase in tuition costs, far beyond inflation in recent years. Such is the result of artificially boosting demand for college on the backs of the taxpayer.

There's nothing recent about it. Tuition has been rising far beyond on inflation going back to at least the 1920s. Take Stanford. For each decade here is the factor tuition actually rose from that of 10 years earlier divided by the factor it would have risen by if it had only risen by the inflation rate:

I've only worked this out for Stanford because they were the only school I was able to find tuition information on going back that far. It would be interesting to see numbers for other schools.

clarkmoody4• 10 years ago

That is interesting indeed. Thanks for finding that data.

coredog64• 10 years ago

Fingers crossed that UoP is next...

xenadu02• 10 years ago

Federal student loans shouldn't be available to any non-accredited institution. If your credit hours won't transfer then it isn't a real College or University.

dragonwriter11• 10 years ago

Federal student loans shouldn't be available to any non-accredited institution.

ITT was accredited by an accreditor recognized by the government (though, among their many other problems, that accreditor has, this year, been formally recommended to be removed from that list of recognized accreditors; and even if they weren't removed, they had notified ITT that ITT's accreditation was in jeopardy -- that jeopardy was, in fact, the main direct basis of the recent DOE actions against ITT [the other direct basis is the risk associated with the fraud lawsuits against ITT, which are also the basis for the accreditation risk].)

If your credit hours won't transfer then it isn't a real College or University.

Transferrability is a different issue than accreditation, and often differs strongly from receiving school to receiving school.

johnward7• 10 years ago

Transferability is a different issue than accreditation, and often differs strongly from receiving school to receiving school.

Yes but basically no regionally accredited school is taking nationally accredited credits. There is no way to transfer to a "legitimate school" in that case.

SilasX2• 10 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but most 300+-level classes won't transfer either. My mechanical engineering degree's MEEN 363: Feedback Control of Dynamic Systems won't transfer to other universities because NIH. (Or rather, NTH, I guess.)

emeraldd• 10 years ago

That's less than two weeks from when the Title IV "death penalty" (Assuming I have my titles right, it's been a while) was assessed. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12361737 )

mikestew2• 10 years ago

I'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. But we don't like them. How much cash do they have? Double that amount and tell them we need this much for 'collateral' or we shut them down."

Can anyone fill in the blanks that Bloomberg didn't? What basis does the government have to make such demands (as it appears to me) out of the blue? Why make such demands knowing going into it that it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy? (That last question is kind of rhetorical.)

syntheticcdo• 10 years ago

ITT Tech received > 70% of it's revenue from federal student loans. As soon as their business plan became "take as much money from taxpayers as possible because we know our 'graduates' will never be able to pay this back" they opened themselves up to this.

antisthenes• 10 years ago

What basis does the government have to make such demands (as it appears to me) out of the blue?

The utilitarian argument is that the taxpayers should be secured against paying for useless education. I guarantee you schools like that are a net utility loss for the public and the government obviously doesn't like that.

Not out of the blue at all.

dragonwriter11• 10 years ago

"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.)

mikestew2• 10 years ago

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

Ah, thanks, that clears it up for me.

rufius• 10 years ago

Good.

dbg31415• 10 years ago

What disgusts me most about the for-profit schools -- not to come off as too much of a snob -- is that the money we the taxpayers put into their pockets would be better spent improving community colleges and state schools.

I get not everyone needs to go to an Ivy League school, but for vocational basics -- what people are going to these for-profit schools hoping to gain -- community college should be "good enough."

I'd look at Bellevue Community College as a great example of a strong vocational tech school. That should be a model others could strive for. When I was younger I learned a great deal in BCC classes -- knowledge that was immediately beneficial to my day job as a software developer.

In contrast, the classes at BCC were far more hands-on training than what I got at the school I eventually graduated from. Educationally, community college I feel was better... but certainly for connections and networking the "name-brand" schools pay off.

ianai3• 10 years ago

I agree. People going to ITT should view a community college as a more than fair replacement. Further, anytime you introduce profit you introduce cost reduction and "keeping something back" from what the customer paid. i.e. In order to make profit they must be giving you a product that's worth less than you paid to them. That's wasteful.

aerhakr• 10 years ago

My wife had worked as a temporary at ITT here in Calfornia. It was the most degrading work I have ever seen. She was teaching English courses, and 98% of the kids plagiarized, not even trying to cover it up. When she gave failing grades to the papers, the students fought back and the director at her location told her she can't do that. She quit that week.

brightsize• 10 years ago

Related: "The Law School Scam. For-profit law schools are a capitalist dream of privatized profits and socialized losses. But for their debt-saddled, no-job-prospect graduates, they can be a nightmare." http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/09/the-law-...

Unbeliever692• 10 years ago

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.

dragonwriter11• 10 years ago

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.)

rhino3692• 10 years ago

It's not just for profit schools. There are a ton of private non-profit schools that operate the same scam. Instead of paying off shareholders, they operate to keep the organization going for all the people who make their living off it. Even many public schools run programs that are scams or just deliver such a terrible education that they aren't worth operating.

Geekette• 10 years ago

Too little, too late; ITT and a whole legion of similar schools should have been erased long ago, given glaring evidence of their mismanagment, often misleading/fraudulent advertising, almost no value delivered (e.g. dismal grad job stats), waste of public money, etc. The pressing question is how long before ITT re-opens under a new name; I highly doubt it'll just go away.

matchagaucho• 10 years ago

It's one thing for a school to recruit students that aren't prepared for the curriculum, and subsequent debt.

But it's quite another problem if the school loses their accreditation and is unable to deliver a quality education.

zomg• 10 years ago

people are so quick to make this a "for-profit" college issue, when it's not.

they shut down because the u.s. department of education banned them from enrolling new students who use federal financial aid.

what do you think would happen to "not for-profit" colleges if the u.s. department of education did the same to them? i'd argue it's the "not for-profit" schools who are driving tuition prices up because the government won't stop loaning money to anyone with a pulse.

dry up that loan money and watch prices fall from the sky.

sytelus• 10 years ago

There is a startup opportunity here. It actually shouldn't take a lot of resources for this kind of technical education. Get a community hall, few experienced volunteers and have them teach skills for free to anyone who is interested. Students just promise to pay portion of their income if and when they get job. A startup gets little cut for coordinating whole thing.

coev• 10 years ago

I believe a lot of hacker schools do exactly this

tzs2• 10 years ago

For IT degrees (bachelor and master) for those who cannot go to a "normal" college for four years, an option to consider is the online non-profit Western Governor's University [1]. It is especially interesting if you already know much of the material through work or self-study.

It was founded by several state governors about 20 years ago, and is accredited by The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.

It's pricing is interesting: $2890 per six-month term, regardless of how many classes you take or credits you earn during that term. If you want to take a heavy load to earn the degree faster and save money, you can.

Each degree program has a particular list of skills that you have to demonstrate competency in to earn the degree. They offer, of course, all the necessary classes to learn those skills, but you are not required to take those classes--you are just required to demonstrate the skills. If you have already acquired some of these skills elsewhere, you can take the test or do the project that demonstrates it and that will count toward the degree.

For most of the IT degrees you also earn several widely recognized third-party IT certifications, at no extra cost. For example the IT bachelor's program in network administration includes these certifications: MSCA Windows Server, CompTIA Linux+, CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+, CompTIA Security+, and CompTIA Project+.

(The offer more than IT, BTW. The also have bachelor and master programs in teaching, business, and health).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Governors_University

KevinEldon• 10 years ago

Stop federally funding education. In the US we have 50 different opportunities to learn about how to create the best education system: all of these systems could learn from each other. When we allow federal funding of education we get much less diversity and innovation; we promote a mono-culture.

spudlyo• 10 years ago

Have you ever worked with anything ... High tech?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l31I9RvluEA

I asked that once during an interview, and was met with blank stares. Haven't asked it since, but I feel like it could have been hilarious.

ryanlm• 10 years ago

Not being able to transfer credits seems to be a good example of Vendor Lock-In.

colindean• 10 years ago

I was an IT instructor at one for two quarters in the late 2000s. AMAA.

tomohawk• 10 years ago

They should have spent the $18 million.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-bill-clintons...

EDIT: Not sure what the downvotes are for. ITT gets shutdown, but Laureate does the same thing, but even more so and gets a pass. The only difference appears to be these kinds of payoffs to politicos.

ramblenode• 10 years ago

Students now enrolled at the company's technical schools will be able to cancel any federal student debt they incurred for their education if they decide against transferring their credits elsewhere... Taxpayers will record a loss on those debt cancellations.

This seems very unfair to taxpayers, who are essentially forced creditors. If the college reneges on its contract with students, then the students should seek to reclaim their losses through a class action lawsuit against ITT. The government shouldn't be covering losses on what were, arguably, bad investments.

ben_jones• 10 years ago

If you wanted to you could also point out that we're forced creditors on the trillion dollar F-35 program... doesn't get us very far.

__pid_t• 10 years ago

How's Devry? I worked with a person that got a degree from there. It's for-profit too. I can't imagine it's any better than ITT with it's vendor lock in.

arikrak• 10 years ago

Instead of the government trying to protect their loans and end up doing the opposite, maybe the government shouldn't be in the business of lending money to individuals? Government + lending + a supposed social benefit = disaster. First it was with helping people own homes, and now it's with helping people go to college. It sounds nice, but by lending money the government can just hide the true cost of what their doing. (Meanwhile government loans for housing have gotten worse: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21705317-americas-hous...)

walrus01• 10 years ago

The entire concept of a corporate death penalty (in this case enforced by ITT no longer being eligible for federal student loans) is something that is not implemented nearly as frequently as it should be.

paulddraper2• 10 years ago

This is an instructive lesson.

"Free education" they say. "It will solve problems" they say. "Education will be better" they say.

No, it won't. Free education -- or subsidized loans -- puts a disconnect between education and its cost.

If the person paying is not the person deciding, a poor decision will be made. It's just like how HSAs prompt people to think about what they're spending their money on.

ITT would not exist but for government spending. Sure, some will beat the dead horse of more regulation. But the real answer is STOP SUBSIDIZING. Stop subsidizing education, stop subsidizing mortgages, stop subsidizing GM, stop blowing decisions sideways by removing the universal language of cost from the discussion.

themartorana• 10 years ago

Stop subsidizing education? Do you propose this for just higher education? Or is it all education you'd like taxpayers to stop paying for?

Unsubsidized education either a) means more private loans somehow now exempt from bankruptcy proceedings or b) education is now only for those that can afford it.

I am the complete and total opposite of your position. How it is that we provide 12-14 years of education for free, but then burden the economy with an insane amount of unsecured debt for the last four is insanity. It places our economy at risk, it severely stunts upward mobility, it burdens our youngest minds with mortgage-sized debts, and it sinks people into a lifetime of debt.

If college is, in general, required to actively participate in our society, it should be paid for the same as (Pre)K-12.

Edit: I'd like to say that I agree that subsidizing activity as a direct pass through of money from government to for-profit enterprise is a bad idea. Don't subsidize for-profit colleges. But they were never needed to begin with.

paulddraper2• 10 years ago

The average college grad makes something like a million dollars more over his lifetime than a non-college grad. If that last 4 years cost the most, I can see why.

Anyway, option B. Having a restaurant is only for those who can afford it. Owning a house is only for those who can afford it. Starting a start-up is only for those who can afford it.

Fortunately, we have a system that allows people to pay each of those costs over a period of time (in some cases, even over a lifetime, as you pointed out).

Maybe your restaurant goes under, or your house goes underwater, or your skills aren't valuable, or (however unlikely) your start-up fails. I don't know what to tell you. Reality's a bitch. Hopefully your research and efforts are enough for you to make the right decisions.

It's quite possible for a $20k education to produce a $1 million payoff. In that case, anyone can afford it. It's also possible for a $150k education to produce a $90k payoff. In that case, few can afford it

I'm not going to tell you what to do, pay for it, or take your earnings. You alone can make those decisions.

peter303• 10 years ago

Will coding academies go down the same route as for profit colleges? Right now they are the darling of politicians who think they could solve the country's unemployment and tech shortage problems. But once your put Wall Street in charge and scale them up handle large numbers of students, I wonder if they will become the next ITT.

WheelsAtLarge• 10 years ago

Yes ITT was a money grabbing parasite and I'm glad they are gone. But the glamorous 4 years schools aren't as great as they set themselves to be.

Many students come out of the great schools owing thousands and having a very hard time getting a job.

This is not new. The fact is that universities weren't created for job training. Their job was to expand your knowledge. That's why you can get a degree in Greek mythology or Latin or whatever.

It was really a way for rich people to spend their time in something constructive. Somewhere the idea of a university and job training came together but universities aren't very good at job training so that's the big problem. We as a society don't have a great way to train the massed for society's jobs.

Community college focus on getting you to a four year college but they need to do a better job at job training.

For profit schools have tried but they focus on profits and lose sight of the students.

We blame the institutions but students also need to take responsibility. If you can't take the time learn don't expect to get a job where someone needs to have a productive employee to keep the business going.

Also the K-12 schools need to do something to fix the problem. How is it that a student goes through 13 years of school and not learn to be a productive employee? That the real shame.Yet we put the blame elsewhere.

Politicians love to argue the effects of same sex bathrooms but they aren't willing to take on why schools are failing society.

We need to fix that.

ITT Technical Institutes Shuts Down

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