For-profit college chain ITT Technical Institute shuts down

[Bleedingyamato]

39 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Let me put it to you this way, their standards were so low in the game design program that for one class I took they required one book and for that one book it had literally 0 lines of code or even coding theory written inside that book. The entire class that book was for revolved around writing code and making games. You had to google like a madman to even come close to figuring shit out for that class.

Yikes that's messed up.

[suicidalfranco]

3 hours ago, Lurick said:

Let me put it to you this way, their standards were so low in the game design program that for one class I took they required one book and for that one book it had literally 0 lines of code or even coding theory written inside that book. The entire class that book was for revolved around writing code and making games. You had to google like a madman to even come close to figuring shit out for that class.

wow, and i thought that that actually was a good school 

 

TFW my high school was a technical Institute... industrial technical institute... public industrial technical Institute. Graduated in electronics.

[Sephiroth]

10 hours ago, djdwosk97 said:

That's actually not really an issue.... For profit programs have a tendency to run better (think UPS vs. USPS) since their profits depend on how well they run. Private institutions tend to be better than their publicly run counterparts (and yes, I understand private isn't quite the same as for profit).

 

The issue with ITT tech is that their marketing was misleading and people are idiots. 

In other instances maybe, but For Profit schools are an extreme drain on the US Education system. They accept literally any student because they are guaranteed the Federal student aid money. They don't care if the students learn, they just focus on having as many as possible because more students = more $$$$$$ that the government guarantees. It's a cancerous business model which just leads to more and more student debt leaving many of the students unable to repay it or effectively contribute to society.

[Nowak]

16 minutes ago, Sephiroth said:

In other instances maybe, but For Profit schools are an extreme drain on the US Education system. They accept literally any student because they are guaranteed the Federal student aid money. They don't care if the students learn, they just focus on having as many as possible because more students = more $$$$$$ that the government guarantees. It's a cancerous business model which just leads to more and more student debt leaving many of the students unable to repay it or effectively contribute to society.

This. For-profit schools contribute nothing to the US educational system, other than making it look like even more of a laughing stock.

[Kevin11]

11 hours ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

I mean, I would highly disagree with the assessment there, esp considering the entire point of USPS historically was to get to places that others won't (and to this day UPS and others often subcontract the less than optimal deliveries to USPS instead.) 

 

But the point remains that ITT Tech was an absolute trash heap, and getting sued into oblivion is a good precedent against similar institutions across the country.

 

Also it's pretty funny that US Media is highly highly biased against public colleges in the US while they are extremely well respected worldwide... As is evidenced by the disparity between the Time World University Rankings and the CWUR Rankings...

 

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2016/world-ranking#!/page/0/length/100/sort_by/rank_label/sort_order/asc/cols/rank_only

http://cwur.org/2016.php

 

this is true a lot of my packages from ups are given to usps once they reach my city and usps delivers it to my door

[Zodiark1593]

    I should confess. At one point (approx 3 years ago), I did a tour of an ITT Tech campus over in Folsom, CA, primarily for curiosity's sake as a student loan I find to be in poor regards, and to satisfy my grandparent who suggested I do so. The term, "Too good to be true" strongly came to mind throughout the walk-through. One of the "teachers" for 3D design didn't even know what Blender was, which stood out as peculiar as that is a fairly popular program for 3D hobbyists.

 

     A major red flag was raised upon the tuition, which so happened to just max out the federal loans and other aid. (the school's own "grants and scholarships" supposedly cover beyond federal aid limits).

 

    After the tour, I stopped by a gas station to throw away all the brochures and papers. The experience left a somewhat bitter taste. While I'm hardly the best judge of character, the teachers there strike me as Snake Oil Salespersons than actual teachers. Imagine my amusement when I looked up the reputation of ITT Tech after the fact.

[Nowak]

13 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

    I should confess. At one point (approx 3 years ago), I did a tour of an ITT Tech campus over in Folsom, CA, primarily for curiosity's sake as a student loan I find to be in poor regards, and to satisfy my grandparent who suggested I do so. The term, "Too good to be true" strongly came to mind throughout the walk-through. One of the "teachers" for 3D design didn't even know what Blender was, which stood out as peculiar as that is a fairly popular program for 3D hobbyists.

 

     A major red flag was raised upon the tuition, which so happened to just max out the federal loans and other aid. (the school's own "grants and scholarships" supposedly cover beyond federal aid limits).

 

    After the tour, I stopped by a gas station to throw away all the brochures and papers. The experience left a somewhat bitter taste. While I'm hardly the best judge of character, the teachers there strike me as Snake Oil Salespersons than actual teachers. Imagine my amusement when I looked up the reputation of ITT Tech after the fact.

I also toured an ITT Tech campus, in Norwood, MA. Didn't get to meet any "teachers" because classes weren't in session when I visited, so I didn't get much information out of the visit. Although, yeah, I agree that a lot of it seemed too good to be true.

 

I ended up going to New England Institute of Technology down in East Greenwich, RI instead. ITT Tech was very, very low on my consideration list. Don't regret it. Helpful teachers who really care about what they're teaching, all my classmates have been great and educational quality has been overall pretty great. At this point, though, it's gone on for too long (pretty long story), and I'm looking forward to graduating in a few months.

 

I'll miss their shitty, cheesy ads, though.

[patrickjp93]

12 hours ago, Daring said:

A lot of American for-profit schools are notorious for giving students a piss-poor education while leaving them $100k or so in debt and a degree that won't get them a job.

 

One of my teachers used to work for ITT Tech and he hated it there, saying it was run more like a business than a school. He was also none too pleased about the extremely low educational standards. I mean, there's a problem if you can get straight As and a GPA of 4.0 just by submitting anything. You don't even have to put any effort into your work, you can submit a noodle recipe instead of a thesis and still get an A. If one student is to be believed, anyway.

 

I'd say the problem with ITT Tech was the way how it was run. Putting profits over educational standards. I was looking at ITT Tech during my college search, and now I'm really glad I went to a non-profit school instead.

Profits can also be driven by having very high educational standards. This is a case study in doing it wrong.

[QueenDemetria]

Every time I see this thread I read it as: "LTT technical institute", not sure if my mind is messing with me or if I'm messing with my mind...

[Zodiark1593]

1 minute ago, QueenDemetria said:

Every time I see this thread I read it as: "LTT technical institute", not sure if my mind is messing with me or if I'm messing with my mind...

Perhaps Linus should consider expanding into education in technology, and form a non-profit chain in both Canada, and the States.

[afarmerin70062]

I feel bad for the students that received federal student aid and are told to cash the aid refund check from ITT tech and send the money to "Direct Loans". It sucks when they go to cash the check only to find out the check bounced and ITT tech's bank accounts got seized.

[NumLock21]

On 9/8/2016 at 1:44 AM, Zodiark1593 said:

Perhaps Linus should consider expanding into education in technology, and form a non-profit chain in both Canada, and the States.

They were talking about it a few years back in another wan show. Not technology doe.

[Okjoek]

I think taxes should go to education.

[BuckGup]

Their commercials always looked like a scam too

[Prysin]

On 07/09/2016 at 6:54 PM, Daring said:

 

For those of you not from the US, ITT Tech is (or, was) a for-profit technical college chain based in Indiana, with 130 campuses across the US at the time of its closure yesterday. They were rather notorious for poor educational standards, higher default rates than graduation rates and placing thousands of students in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt with a degree no employer sees as legitimate. This shutdown comes weeks after the company lost federal financial aid rights for students. Since at least 1998, it has been no stranger to legal issues and criticism from former and current students, the media and federal government, and the company behind the schools has been sued multiple times for fraud. It was also subpoenaed by the governments of Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Washington between 2004 and 2014. AND is known to the state of California to cause cancer since 2010.

Fixed it for you

[Zodiark1593]

46 minutes ago, Okjoek said:

I think taxes should go to education.

Where is it you think federal aid and grant money comes from? 

[Okjoek]

Just now, Zodiark1593 said:

Where is it you think federal aid and grant money comes from? 

What do you mean? Federal government gets money from us by taxes. What I'm saying is I think college should be paid for collectively by the people through the federal government using our taxes.

[79wjd]

4 minutes ago, Okjoek said:

What do you mean? Federal government gets money from us by taxes. What I'm saying is I think college should be paid for collectively by the people through the federal government using our taxes.

Yeah, no thanks (the government can't handle the tax money they already get, they don't need any more to waste). I pay enough in taxes as is. It's cheaper in the long run to pay for school than it is to pay higher taxes for my entire life. (as it is, a portion of taxes goes to higher education)

[Okjoek]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

Yeah, no thanks. I pay enough in taxes as is. It's cheaper in the long run to pay for school than it is to pay higher taxes for my entire life. 

I disagree, but okay.

[Trik'Stari]

This is hilarious to me, because I know several people who went to ITT, they all say the same thing.

 

that the education they received there, was better. Why? Because ITT cut out all the bullshit college classes that "approved colleges" require you to take. Shit like PSY 101 and "Intro to College 101", things that the schools charge you for, even though they have nothing to do with your actual career path or degree choice. According to them, ITT replace these moronic classes, with classes that actually had something to do with your degree and or career path.

 

The DOE is going after them because of this, because the teachers unions have gotten the DOE to require pointless classes, so that teachers who got pointless degrees can have jobs. (think "getting a degree to teach art history", similar to that)

[Nowak]

1 minute ago, Trik'Stari said:

This is hilarious to me, because I know several people who went to ITT, they all say the same thing.

 

that the education they received there, was better. Why? Because ITT cut out all the bullshit college classes that "approved colleges" require you to take. Shit like PSY 101 and "Intro to College 101", things that the schools charge you for, even though they have nothing to do with your actual career path or degree choice.

 

The DOE is going after them because of this, because the teachers unions have gotten the DOE to require pointless classes, so that teachers who got pointless degrees can have jobs. (think "getting a degree to teach art history", similar to that)

But then what about all the allegations against ITT Tech for extremely low educational standards and accepting literally anyone because it makes them money?

also hello again thread

[Trik'Stari]

2 minutes ago, Daring said:

But then what about all the allegations against ITT Tech for extremely low educational standards and accepting literally anyone because it makes them money?

also hello again thread

The DOE's standards are, supposedly, based on making sure teachers have a job, not on making sure that the students get the best education possible.

 

I have to agree, as there were a number of fucking pointless classes in my Network Security degree program, that had absolutely nothing to do with Network Security. PSY 101, Business 101, "intro to college (the most pointless fucking class of all time that EVERYONE has to take)" etc.

[OptimisticRealist]

Don't you guys get it?! How else were they going to afford those amazing and innovating commercials?!

[OptimisticRealist]

Next up, University of Pheonix!

[KuJoe]

As a graduate of ITT this didn't surprise me. The teachers were pretty awesome because they actually worked in the industry and were really smart compared to the other colleges I've attended but the finance side of things was a mess and borderline illegal (and it looks like in some cases they crossed that border). It sucks how many number of students and teachers this impacts. Corporate greed is devastating.