Yesterday ITT Technical Institute announced the closing of all its “schools.” This type of crackdown has been a looooong time coming. While I personally know nothing about ITT, I did make the mistake of attending Devry during my yoot. I first went to a local Junior College to obtain my Associates degree so I had a good school to compare Devry too, but, once you are enrolled you are mostly screwed if you took out student loans. At least back then you couldn’t enroll and after the first week decide you’ve been taken, then transfer everything to a good school. You were faced with taking a year off which really hurts.
Last night I watched the news and saw distraught students saying they couldn’t even obtain their transcripts because ITT took the student portal down. Shame on you ITT, trying to hold students hostage like that. For that act alone your upper management should go to prison. Of course, it was probably the lesser of two evils. For those who don’t know, here’s the other dirty little secret of “schools” which run television commercials to attract students. It is a quote from the linked article.
A note on the website says the school does not guarantee that credits earned at ITT will be transferable to other colleges.
I remember something similar with Devry back in the day. I was nearing the end of my first student loan period and looked into a University where I could both complete my Bachelors and work on my Masters. The Dean flat out told me:
We have to accept the degree, but we won’t accept the classes.
Eventually I did end up going to that University to work on my masters. If memory serves me correctly I was 2 classes and a thesis from graduating before I pulled out. No, life didn’t get in the way. When I enrolled the program was both awesome and affordable. I think it was roughly $900/class plus books and a few lab fees. Full time was 2 classes and I was working full time so it was all good. Then there was an “issue” with about the only tenured professor in the IT program. Oh, not with me. He hated me, but I had nothing to do with this. You see, his knowledge of IT kind of stopped with card reader systems of the 60s and this was the 80s. A major tech company in the area was both paying for classes for many of its employees and providing part time instructors. Those people worked every day all day with what they taught. They could basically do a lecture answering questions while asleep. Legend has it the “issue” developed between the tenured professor and this major IT place. They simply stopped providing instructors and students so the program vaporized. I bailed just before the program went away. The entire situation is a problem with tenure, not a problem with the University.
Not being able to transfer courses from a school which advertises on television to a real University is a problem with the school. It is long past time for the Department of Education to crack down on these for profit entities whose primary objective is to funnel student aid dollars into their own pockets.
Here’s a tip for both parents and students alike. Good schools will sometimes send recruiters to your school to speak with students trying to identify a few good candidates. While some may try to spin that into a nefarious statement, it is not. Someone who wishes to be a doctor or surgeon isn’t going to get much out of Juilliard, but someone looking to pursue the performing arts will. Likewise, someone looking to be a software developer isn’t going to get much out of a medical college if they don’t have a medical technology/device research tract. What all “good” schools have in common is that they don’t need to run commercials on television to attract students. They already turn thousands away every enrollment period.
I have no first hand knowledge of on-line only schools or the newer hybrid on-line + classroom schools.
Some trade schools are necessary. Some people I grew up with went to such schools to learn auto and diesel mechanics. You couldn’t really get much training any other way back then. They wanted it as a fallback in case taking over the family farm didn’t work out for them. Various unions have always had their apprenticeship programs and technical training schools as well. I have a high level of respect for on-the-job education. I have very little respect when it comes to for-profit business ventures focused on channeling student aid into their own pockets.
We can hope the Department of Education will continue down this path cleaning up higher education. If a student is going to graduate with north of $100K in student debt they had better be getting something for it.
