back to article US tech college ITT is not pining for the fjords. It is no more. It has gone and met its maker

For-profit US-wide college ITT will shut down in the wake of a government decision to bar it from accepting federal student aid money. The technical training school said Monday that effective immediately, it will be ceasing all operations and terminating most of its staff. "The actions of and sanctions from the US Department …

  1. asdf

    good riddance assholes

    >"The actions of and sanctions from the US Department of Education [DOE] have forced us to cease operations of the ITT Technical Institutes,

    Wasn't the DOE who decided on a business model of false advertising and high pressure sales to minorities and veterans of way overpriced "education" for worthless degrees paid for directly and indirectly with tax payer money. Hopefully the big bad DOE will be able claw back some of those ill gotten gains from these scam artists. If anything the DOE acted far too late.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. asdf

      After review ITT wasn't as bad as some of the other scam for profits so the government shut down financial aid less because of fraud and more due to their business no longer being a going concern due to the market finally catching on to the ROI of these online for profits. Still hardly going to shed a tear for them.

    3. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: good riddance assholes

      Not the DOE, but Congress who made this decision.

      Namely, the GOP. You know, free market, smaller government, less waste and all that. It was literally another handout to Wall St. through financial companies.

      Speaking of which, there have been recent early warnings of the collapse of the student loan resell and re-packaging market. Remember the CDOs of the housing collapse? Yeah, that.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Couldn't they have shut them down at the start of summer? That would have given all involved some time to sort something else out for this academic year.

  3. oiseau
    Thumb Down

    Well ...

    .

    This is what happens when you put education in the hands of the *market*.

    1. Eddy Ito

      Re: Well ...

      Depends on what you mean by *market*. Harvard, MIT, Caltech, etc. are all in the hands of the *market* and tend to do as well if not better than schools in the hands of government. We won't even bother to address local public schools such as elementary or secondary which tend to be between abominable and wretched.

  4. a_yank_lurker

    What about ripoff schools and majors

    ITT may be a sleazy operation but what about colleges that offer even more worthless degrees with no job prospects? Shouldn't they be shut down also?

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: What about ripoff schools and majors

      They are being systematically shut down and this has been ongoing for several years now.

    2. Fan of Mr. Obvious

      Re: What about ripoff schools and majors

      In a word, yes.

      The sea of "tech schools" (which includes automotive, welding, etc.) is mostly high-dollar bull. Twenty to forty thousand US per year (maybe more?) is insane. Unfortunately they prey on people that are not sure how to enter a field, feeling lost, do not think they can make it at a regular school, looking for a quick fix, etc.. Not to bash the students, but I have worked with a couple of ITT graduates - I feel bad for them as they were taken for a ride.

      My personal opinion is if it were not for the US government being the recipient of default student loans, this would not even be an issue for them. Also, since these "schools" are not big enough to have their own lobbyist, and public colleges have unions, I do not think this same thing will happen with public institutions regardless of tuition costs or value of the degrees, but more private "schools" will go under.

  5. FuzzyTheBear
    Mushroom

    Special ed kids

    I asked Frank's teacher why they weren't making a honest effort to teach him how to read and write ..

    " We need people to pick the garbage up in the city ( Jacksonville Nathan A Forest High School ) .. that's what we're preparing him for "

    Need i say more of the US Education system ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Special ed kids

      Please please don't judge the whole US based on the 3rd world asspit sandbar swamp that is Florida. Iowa of all places full of farms and not much else actually has (or did at least when I was a kid) a public education system I would put up against nearly any in the Western world. In the US it really does depend on your zip code far more than it should the quality of the public education.

    2. Hollerithevo

      Re: Special ed kids

      Note the name of the school! An astoundingly brilliant soldier who was also a breathtaking racist even for those times.

  6. Androgynous Cow Herd

    Union jobs

    One of the ideas of a trade union is to have a way for an apprentice to enter a technical field and grow it into a career the best way - through education from more skilled workers. Debt for education is the current version of indentured servitude.

  7. Andrew Tyler 1

    Co-Worker

    I have a co-worker who went to ITT. He has managed to excel since he's intelligent and works hard and now has the experience to do all sorts of things, but he definitely has nothing good to say about ITT. For his questionable associate's degree, he ended paying about two-thirds of what I did to ultimately get a BS in engineering from a respected private university (although it did take me six years and a fair amount of shuffling credits from local public community colleges). It seems to me that anyone who was signed up for the fall term was saved from making a mistake. With what they'd pay for that, they could probably start over again from scratch towards an associates at a community college, get a better education with credits that will transfer if they want a bachelors later, and still have a fair amount of money left over for living expenses and books. It sucks they were taken advantage of in the first place and wasted time, but it's probably for the best in the long run. I can see the appeal of the idea, and it's sort of a shame there aren't actually two-year programs that are worth what ITT charges for those who that would suit best (got a kid, need an education ASAP etc), but ITT is shady and good riddance.

  8. Dave Hilling

    Half the schools in the USA

    Many public schools in the US are guilty of the exact same thing...how many comm majors are there? How many journalism majors? Whats the difference between worthless journalism degrees or worthless criminal justice degrees? The fact is education does not ensure success in anything, hard work does...I have a degree from "a for profit" school there was nothing wrong with the education could it have been a little better sure, but guess what I also went to a state school and the quality of education in some ways was worse. I have received both my associates and Bachelor's from a *gasp* for profit school, I then went to a state school for my Master's that accepted my credits and guess what, there really was no difference. Now are all these schools this way probably not, but I heard classmates say oh the education sucked....funny I make 6 figures with the same education. Stop blaming the school for your failures, school gets you in a door, hard work proves your worth. Oh and I know people who graduated from ITT tech and one is the GLOBAL security director for a fortune 500 company. So again its probably not completely the education so much as personal failings, I am sure if you did a similar survey even for well known schools the percentages of people doing extremely well vs not so well probably would be pretty huge too. I guess all I am saying while the education may have issues too, its probably more a factor of the types of students they pursue and that may be where the issue truly lies.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Half the schools in the USA

      The public schools don't sell you IT courses with a guaranteed job - which turns out to be in a call center.

      They don't change the name of courses regularly so that you have to redo pre-requisite courses.

      They don't pressure students into taking top-up loans from lenders that are wholly owned by the college - purely to skirt regulations on proportion of government student loan their students are on.

      1. Dave Hilling

        Re: Half the schools in the USA

        Well my argument to that would be public schools promise the same thing. I worked for a DIV 1 NCAA school as the IT administrator for the Journalism school. I worked there several years, I saw hundreds of students come through there every single one was sure they would be an anchor on CNN, or some other news network.

        I have to ask why they thought that, well because the school often led them to believe that and I heard in many times from teachers during lectures "When your working at CNN, etc" its the same hope BS that students are promised at every school. I was only in my 20's at the time and I became friends with quite a few of the students and I can't tell you how many came back and went for a different degree after a few years when they realized their degree was nearly worthless... most seemed to go into Nursing where at least they knew they could find a decent paying job.

        No degree is a guarantee of success you have to work, for IT most all of us started in a help desk/phone support role or as a junior programmer. We worked hard, we kept learning, kept clawing, and eventually our hard work is rewarded and we were paid. I have worked with people from all over the world who went to possibly hundreds of different schools and I can tell you for a fact where you graduated from had zero to do with how good you were at your job as in what seems obvious even people graduating from the same school often had very different work ethics and on the job performance.

    2. Jamie Jones Silver badge
      Headmaster

      Re: Half the schools in the USA

      I assume your degrees weren't in English!

      'Punctuatuion is free, you know? :-)

      1. zappahey

        Re: Half the schools in the USA

        "'Punctuatuion is free, you know? :-)"

        And so are spellcheckers. ;-)

        1. Jamie Jones Silver badge
          Facepalm

          Re: Half the schools in the USA

          Oh bugger. I asked for that!

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Half the schools in the USA

      Did they teach you about paragraphs at the public/private institutions you attended?

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Half the schools in the USA

      "I make 6 figures with the same education"

      You understand that we normally don't count the two after the decimal point? ;-)

  9. Nolveys

    On The Job Experience

    Being neck-deep in a shaky, slime-ball operated outfit that suddenly turns into a mushroom cloud actually sounds like pretty decent prep for employment in the IT world to me.

    1. herman

      Re: On The Job Experience

      "pretty decent prep for employment in the IT world" - Sure, but they neglected to teach their grads the most important IT job phrase: "Yah want fries wizzat?"

      1. Fatman
        Thumb Up

        Re: On The Job Experience

        Dammit, you beat me to it!!!!!!!

  10. ivorb
    Pint

    Ripoff rates for dubious qualifications

    So when are they going to re-investigate Trump 'University' and refund all the suckers who were ripped off?

  11. redneck

    H1Bs at ITT

    I find it surprising that ITT Educational Services had 17 requests for H1B visas:

    http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Itt+Educational+Services+Inc&job=&city=&year=All+Years

    And ITT Technical Services needed H1Bs to hire instructors:

    http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Itt+Technical+Institute&job=&city=&year=All+Years

    Their own graduates were weren't technically capable of filling ITT Ed's needs?

  12. ma1010
    Headmaster

    Don't hate all private colleges

    Years (quite a few) ago, I went to a private college, Heald Business College. At that time they'd been around about 80 years or more, and were fully accredited with (I think) about 6-8 campuses in California. You got a very good, practical education there. It was exactly what I was looking for as I was coming out of a really bad period with a failed marriage and physical injuries that made it impossible for me to pursue my former occupation. I needed to get myself sorted out and prepared to work in a totally different field and do it quickly.

    They got me started in IT and accounting and found me my first job (where I worked for 15 years and did quite well). They were an excellent school, and well worth every penny I spent there.

    Unfortunately, a few years ago, they were sold to some other corporation that used their name but *destroyed* the school. After a few years of that debacle, the new owners went bankrupt, and Heald is no more. They were killed by the leading reason for the death of great businesses: management greed and incompetence.

    I don't know a lot about ITT, but perhaps they were good once, too.

  13. Mike 16

    Heald and others

    Indeed. Heald used to be a pretty reliable source of tech employees who actually knew something. Then the practice of shady outfits "merging with" (or outright buying) smaller established colleges with decent reputations (yes, the liberal arts and religion-based ones too), as a way to buy accreditation. The rest was inevitable, although having folks like DiFi's hubby in the biz probably kept the heat off for a while.

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