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ITT Tech Is Officially Closing (gizmodo.com)
Reader Joe_Dragon shares a Gizmodo report: ITT Technical Institute is officially closing all of its campuses following federal sanctions imposed against the company. The for-profit college announced the changes in a statement: "It is with profound regret that we must report that ITT Educational Services, Inc. will discontinue academic operations at all of its ITT Technical Institutes permanently after approximately 50 years of continuous service. With what we believe is a complete disregard by the U.S. Department of Education for due process to the company, hundreds of thousands of current students and alumni and more than 8,000 employees will be negatively affected."
ITT Tech announced it was closing all of its campuses just one week after it stopped enrolling students following a federal crackdown on for-profit colleges. ITT Tech and other higher education companies like it have been widely criticized for accepting billions of dollars in government grants and loans while failing to provide adequate job training for its students. Last year, ITT Tech received an estimated $580 million in federal money (aka taxpayer dollars), according to the Department of Education.
ITT Tech announced it was closing all of its campuses just one week after it stopped enrolling students following a federal crackdown on for-profit colleges. ITT Tech and other higher education companies like it have been widely criticized for accepting billions of dollars in government grants and loans while failing to provide adequate job training for its students. Last year, ITT Tech received an estimated $580 million in federal money (aka taxpayer dollars), according to the Department of Education.
Now if we could just get the balls to crack down on obvious corruption in other mainly government funded industries. Looking at you defense.
So when are the FEDs going to shut down the big Universities? $180,000 of student loans and NO JOB prospects ... They aren't being honest either.
Good, this company was worthless and everything they offered was worthless. Thanks for the degree! I really need it as a farking custodian...
Don't worry. The same people will have already started a new company, under a new name, which does exactly the same thing as the old company. Bonus points if they also have ITT Educational Services, Inc. sell all the trademarks for "ITT Technical Institutes" to the new company.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
Now people can take a look at their local community college options without being distracted by ITT ads.
If the feds could arrange to move the the $580 billion to the community colleges to fund more technical programs, they might find they get value for money.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
How much money goes to the favored public and private institutions from the federal government? There are plenty of worthless degrees you can get at any institution. None of their promises of employment or employment at a particular wage are worth anything.
Why is it all right to go after the technical schools and not go after everybody else?
They should just stop the funding and let all the colleges adapt. The more they've subsidized students costs of attending, the higher the tuition has been priced. Just stop already.
>> received an estimated $580 million in federal money (aka taxpayer dollars)
Heh - as if what we paid came close to what the Feds spent. If you're going to use snide-ness, why not try "a.k.a. yet more debt"?
On the other hand, where do you think all those "job training" dollars that a lot of people keep demanding go? The Feds feel pressured to spend them on...well...something...regardless of actual results.
It would be great if the Department of Education would impose the same scrutiny on the so-called non-profit state and private colleges...
Ken
I had a friend that worked at the office of one of these campuses. She told me that 99% of the time they didn't even have a teacher for the class until the day before it started, let alone lesson plans or anything else. She quit after the second FBI raid and never looked back.
"permanently after approximately 50 years of continuous service. "
Should be:
"permanently after approximately 50 years of ripping off the American taxpayer and tricking it's so called students"
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Having gone to ITT Tech AND then having gone to get my BSEE from an accredited university I can say without doubt those schools are designed to let you pass with a minimum amount of effort. HOWEVER, you CAN get a tremendous amount of knowledge IF you step up to do the extra work, which is what I did. That being said if you are willing to step up and be that self motivated to do that much work then it's no harder to go to a normal uni and getting a real degree.. which I did 2 years after going to ITT tech.. it was an expensive waste of time and energy that would have been better put to something else.... like a real degree. I did find the first few years of EE classes pretty easy due to what I had previously learned... but the path I took mistakenly took is not one I would recommend for others.. It REALLY wasn't worth it in time or money.
good riddance.
Future healthcare workers.
This is the way it used to be. You learned a trade and went to work.
Not everyone is cut out for University and have no reason to go - other than accumulating large amounts of debt
I was a student there. That was the best 7 years of my life -- good friends, better drugs, best sex. I'd drink a red bull and viagra on Friday afternoon and fuck 10-15 dudes before Monday came around. I'm working as a fullstack junior web engineer at a SF startup so there's just as much, if not more, sex, but I miss the drugs and friends. Skipping work because I'm hungover isn't quite the same as skipping class because I'm hungover.
I plan on doing my own startup in a couple months, once I get a cofounder, raise a series A and find an idea. I wouldn't be here without ITT so this is a little sad for me :(
As an Employee out in the world, I would have to have some fear now if I held an ITT Tech Degree if my Employer would now scrutinize and review my placement in the company. I am sure most level headed Employers will still look at their actual performance, but I'm sure some man/woman out there in a position of power will look at this as a legitimate way to "trim the fat" Course I have to wonder how ITT Tech compares to the H-1B Contract people in terms of knowledge.
Where else can I go and do very little and get a degree that no-one takes seriously if they close down ITT Tech.
Thank goodness I still have the University of Phoenix to go to.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
ITT was a bunch of trade schools. Not good ones.
Like anything else, there are shades of grey. Good schools teach you how to learn independently for life _and_ teach you valuable skills. Bad schools indoctrinate. Many of the schools that claim 'life training' are, in fact, the worst indoctrinators (*studies programs in general).
Trade schools are better than indoctrination centers. At least you don't come out stupider than you start.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I haven't heard anything about Devry in a long time but I had a friend that went there in the early 80s, he worked on the internals of teddy ruxpin while he was still in school.
In the form of federal grants? GI Bill Tuition payments? Or, the most likely form, as federally guaranteed student loans - which aren't really "taxpayer dollars" until the student fails to pay their loan payments.
Ken
devry & ITT used to be good. But collage for all push made it so you needed an degree so they kind of got roped into the degree system. Now for real good accreditation you needed the full load of filler and fluff with I think masters or higher / phd level professors.
Now unlike the trade schools the professor at the collages they for the most part have little to no real world work experience (out side of the ivy tower)
https://www.dslreports.com/for...
I used to know an Programer who went to an state school got an job and I used some of the stuff he worked and it was very buggy so he did not last to long and got fired / forced to quit and then moved back home. I am not in QA or work for the place he worked at but some of issues where like how that did get passed testing / qa?
I know ITT Tech and other for-profit schools fill a gap in the education system, but this whole sector seems perfectly positioned to scam uneducated people out of student loan money, VA benefits, trade adjustment benefits, etc. and give them very little in return.
The vast majority of potential students would be much better served going to community college, or if they're in a strong union state, joining a trade's apprenticeship program and actually getting paid while learning.
There should be a simple rule, NO federal loans going to FOR PROFIT institutions. It does not make sense to give out federal loans to institutions that exist mainly to make money out of their students.
It doesn't help that congress has been steadily removing funding from universities all in the name of fiscal responsibility or some crap like that. If employers want people with accredited education, they need to be taxed appropriately and help pay for college so that it is actually within reach. The plan instead though is to throw up their hands and say we are not getting hwat we want, and let's get some H1Bs instead! The whole thing is one big scam, and we Americans are being screwed over.
my god man. what skool did you's go to for lerning to spelling?
I want to make damn sure my kids do not land in the same place!
People now have no excuse to choose to go into debt to attend one of these places. If there are still people open to a pitch like this, what else can be done? Sure, go after the colleges but they're like moles. It's buyer beware and take some responsibility. Frankly, I would choose a state university or community college or some other option that enables you to get a decent education without too much debt. It's not worth the crazy debt levels and everyone should now know that the for profit college space is more than a bit sketchy.
So when are the FEDs going to shut down the big Universities? $180,000 of student loans and NO JOB prospects ... They aren't being honest either.
You do realize that you don't have to go to an expensive private university, right? Anyway if I go get a Harvard degree it will cost me a lot of money but I will in all likelihood have gotten an actual education along the way. You can argue that it isn't a good deal financially but you do get something at the end of the day. If you can't turn a Harvard degree into some sort of job you're doing it wrong. Comparing Harvard to or even a state university to ITT Tech is ridiculous.
Companies like ITT (I don't really think of them as schools) basically provide a near worthless degree which nobody respects and doesn't open doors. They do so knowing that a large percentage of their customers (students) will fail out. They exist to load credulous low income people with debt while failing to provide them a real education. They prey on people who probably really aren't the sort of people who are college material in the first place. College is great but it isn't the right path for everyone. Trade schools would serve many of them much better and there is a clear need for skilled trades.
I'm sorry but state colleges give garbage degrees. My brother just graduated from the University of Maine degree with a liberal arts degree and is sweeping floors at a gas station.
No, your brother chose a garbage major, and chose to spend a lot of money on an education that doesn't align with a career doing anything but sweeping floors at that gas station. It's not the state college's responsibility to make your brother face reality and study something that's actually challenging. If he wants to take on debt so he can spend four years on poetry or Russian literature or on women's studies, that's his business, and HIS debt. Quit whining - yourself, and on his behalf. You're as bad as he is, if you're blaming anyone other than him for his absurd choices.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
The federal government is helping people understand where the good schools are !
Just like the IRS is helping people choose political parties.
Just like the DHS is helping the outcome of the next election.
Just like NASA is helping reach out to muslims.
Just like the EPA has been helping write laws without Congress, and helping to "crucify" people who don't comply with them.
Just like the state department is helping people who donated to the right campaigns. And Chris Stevens.
You might think it would help to shut down the atrocities at PUBLIC schools (rapes, drugs, teachers who don't care, etc), but you would be wrong. Just helping with some naked assertions.
So thank the federal government for all the new kinds of help they have extended to us over the last 8 years. I feel like we are just beginning to learn how much help they can provide!
But a degree in Liberal Arts won't get me me a high paying job
Basically nobody has a degree in Liberal Arts. Liberal arts is a group of subjects which includes many of the the STEM fields. If you have a degree in Physics you have a liberal arts degree. Same with Mathematics, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Biology, plus of course Languages, Literature, Psychology, Philosophy, Social Sciences, Arts, and more.
Some liberal arts degrees are more valuable to employers than others but saying that liberal arts as a whole = no jobs is to misunderstand the term.
"We live in a society that does not value education at all,"
1) We have a society that effectively mandates education for a minimum of 12 years
2) We spend more per pupil than any country in the world to educate people
3) The subsidies to universities number in the hundreds billions of dollars
4) We encourage everyone to go to college. Everyone.
If you're whining that you don't get college for free, keep in mind that if you lived in a society that pays for "free" college, the admission standards for college would have to be raised so that only the 10% of the smartest people are allowed to go to college.
You would likely be excluded from any sort of higher education based on your complete lack of ability to even articulate a problem properly.
The new version is you pay to get a degree. Learning the trade is extracurricular.
So what about all of the universities that operate with the same motives? I happen to know that the drive to get more Adjunct
Faculty is money/profit driven. As are all of the fees ( Parking, meals, activity, recreational, computer, lab, etc... ).
They scream for tuition and fee hikes while having billions of endowments and holdings...
Graduate students are used as cheap intellectual laborers...
Most Universities ask a job applicant (technical only, in my experience ) "How much money can you bring in?"
Research money pays a lot of bills...
So, in my opinion, most universities have shifted from behaving like educational institutions to behaving like corporations.....
This is a big mistake. Really Big.
But the world will go on, and after the excrement structure falls apart, small conclaves of educators will begin rebuilding
education from the rubble left.
Just before the dot com collapse of the last century, I was just getting started with a couple years of freelance PC tech stuff and minor web design under my belt as I worked my way up the business desktop support chain at Gateway dreaming of more challenging things. These "schools" were hot stuff then. I foolishly decided to go for it. I don't remember the name of the place, although a lady friend of mine I met there insists to this day it was a satellite office for Stanford University. Needless to say it is not, she does not work in IT, and the school went poof shortly thereafter.
As a testament to their teaching, in the Linux class, I had to show the instructor how to compile source code and so on. By the time I was thinking about calling quits, it was obvious that I was now effectively teaching the more general A+, Network, 50+ student class. The day before an open note test, the lady mentioned above asked to xerox my notes. When I came in the next day, every last student had a copy of my notes. Why? Because they had zero confidence. I walked right out.
So now I am just reminiscing but you get the idea.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
DeVry and ITT both have ripped off so many of my classmates. People, mostly from working class families, tried to get a technical degree they could use right away. But instead they got a mountain of debt and a degree that was often not of any value once the person got even a year of industry experience. Getting that first job with just a DeVry degree is a matter of luck, luck that employers didn't simply throw out your resume.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Most schools offer shit degrees, and shit people take shit degrees. Then they end up with a shit load of debt and a shitty life. It's the cycle of shit.The problem is that we loan them our money, so they can be stupid shits and continue the cycle of shit. This shit needs to stop.
What we need is shithawks to cull these shitrats, before the shithurricane buries us all in a shitslide. You hear that, Bobandy? A SHITSLIDE.
Part of the problem is that there's a push to put as many high school students into college (even 2-year college) as possible, even those who would be better served going to vocational schools.
I could not agree more. I have a staff full of people who are definitely not college material but would be (and are) served well by a vocational education. There is always a need for skilled trades, welders, machinists, etc. Trying to turn everyone into a computer programmers regardless of aptitude is just idiotic and counterproductive. Not to mention costly.
Protip: You can't outsource blue collar work.
Care to wager on that? Ask the folks who work the assembly lines in Detroit if blue collar work cannot be outsourced. There are plenty of blue collar jobs that are very vulnerable to outsourcing when you live in a place with high labor costs like the US.
"ITT Tech received an estimated $580 million in federal money (aka taxpayer dollars),"
The wording in the article and summary make it sound like government just wrote them a check. Wrong. The school received the money because its students, like 70+% of the rest of the students in the country, are taking government loans and grants to pay for their schooling.
Too bad the story wasn't about the Department of Education closing its doors forever.
Uh... "liberal arts degree" it's not the college, it's the degree field....
Sounds like your brother isn't too smart. But by the looks of it, neither are you.
> devry & ITT used to be good
I can see exactly why you'd think that just from the quality of your own writing.
I was considering applying to be faculty at ITT. I figured at this point in my career if I can no longer be part of the solution I might as well be part of the problem, right? I'll have to find a different for-profit college to go after instead.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
What part of "ITT Technical Institute" makes you think that you're not going into a program that's functionally at the trade school level?
Perhaps because they don't advertise themselves as being a trade school? Or because they aren't one. ITT Tech advertises having 6 schools. Please point out which one is the trade school:
School of Electronics Technology
School of Drafting and Design
School of Information Technology
School of Business
School of Criminal Justice
Breckinridge School of Nursing and Health Sciences
Not one of those except maybe nursing is fairly described as a trade school. No cooking, welding, plumbing, carpentry, machining, or anything else that you would normally find in a trade school.
People are ragging on "for-profit colleges" as some hideous evil, but whatever your experiences with Brightpoint, Ashford, or some other trendy places, ITT and Coleman have been around forever and shouldn't be lumped together with these.
I've actually lectured at an ITT Tech school. Yes they absolutely should be lumped together with the rest of the the scumbags. They take a lot of money and provide little in return to a lot of people who often don't know any better.
I went to the University of Maine and starting almost immediately afterward I've been working with Harvard-trained people, on AAA PC video games in Boston, and now as a full-time college math lecturer in New York. I always felt that you got out what you put into it.
There's a legitimate debate to be had whether a student like your brother would be better off if they'd been flunked out or not accepted by the university in question. Most of the cultural pressure, however, is to pass those students on.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
You know, the for-profit university system that paid Bill Clinton $16 million "while Hillary Clinton’s State Dept. pumped at least $55 million to a group run by Laureate’s founder and chairman, Douglas Becker, a man with strong ties to the Clinton Global Initiative."
I'm friends with a guy who (weirdly) got a full scholarship to DeVry, graduated with a bachelors in three years, and pretty quickly got a good job at Siemens. At the time, the rest of my circle of friends (most of whom went to the state engineering research university) laughed at him for picking a shitty school, but in retrospect he was the smartest of us all...
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I haven't heard anything about Devry in a long time but I had a friend that went there in the early 80s, he worked on the internals of teddy ruxpin while he was still in school.
Devry is also facing a lawsuit for deceptive advertising for saying they have an 90% placement rate. Also with declining enrollments (due to people being more skeptical about for-profit schools like Corinthian), last year DeVry closed 14 campuses and moved the students on-line. The writing is probably on the wall for them as well...
In the Engineering schools it is almost unheard of for a professor to not have at least 5 years in industry. Long and old tradition.
But that is engineering, CS is different.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Good riddance.
This will end one of the major sources of hacky/bad programmers.
In my personal experience, employers are looking for work history over education. I spent two years at DeVry (as a EET), but for family reasons I transferred to a "traditional" university to finish up. I graduated with a decent enough (3.3-ish) GPA, certainly not top of my class, but high enough to prove I wasn't an idiot. I had nearly zero trouble getting into a job in my industry (once I got out of the tiny town I grew up in). I can't say whether or not the place where I got my degree made a difference in the hiring process, but I can tell you that it wasn't even mentioned in my interview. They were more interested in my work history than my education. I had worked various shit jobs since I was 15, including some that were mildly applicable to my degree.
As far as the quality of the education... I'd say it was a horse apiece. Both places had good instructors and shitty instructors. Both had classes I would use and ones that I would never use in my life. All said and done, it would have (probably) been smarter to just start out at the University, more from a financial standpoint than anything.
They already made that TV show too. TwoTacoCombo is a trailer park supervisor. Must have graduated from ITT.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
So you want free labor?
Germany has a good apprenticeship system that mixes real paid work with a trade school like classroom. That is what is needed in the USA and not years of pure class room at an high cost.
It's not a good sign when in the first week you find out your Electronics instructor's work experience amounts to Laser tech in the military and former cop in CA. It's even worse when he spends way too much time making jokes about "Siemens" (as in conductance).
Sorry not sorry, fuckers.
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
No education is garbage.
The purpose of education is not employment.
The purpose of education is education.
if we're supposed to be entering this world where leisure is abundant because robots replace us, where we're free to pursue our own interests, why do so many people insist on keeping us stuck in dark ages where "your purpose in life is to make someone else money and be a cog in the economy" ?
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Yeah like a nice mcse in mouse click systems engineering. Haha that is a joke in certification and something to be ashamed of getting outside HR as managers filter those out.
CCNA are even worse. Do they even know what a vlan is?
Certs therefore are not the reason either
http://saveie6.com/
No, but the pay cap is about $8-10/hour and it can't fund healthcare benefits. Paying $15/hour when investing so much in a person (18-20 year old child) just doesn't work. Honestly, I would prefer to pay $5/hour plus pay for some formal courses for them to take (of our choosing).
There is a way to do it, but it takes a lot of paperwork and you need to prove they aren't doing billable work or something. It ends up being more community service than anything-- which I don't really object to, but there isn't much in the way of a business benefit.
I replied to the GP, who connected his brother's liberal arts education with his brother's employment sweeping floors. To the extent that he concludes that his brother's education was a poor fit for the available jobs, I'm pointing out who is really to blame.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
most internships I found were not paid or below min. wage. and they wanted 40hrs a week and you were not allowed to work another job. kinda made it hard to try when i was living on my own with roommates and was unable to move back home. I had a coworker lose his internship because they found out he was working part time at another job so he could pay rent and have food, since it was a unpaid internship. I would of loved to have been able to have done a internship though. hear they are really helpful if you do them when your just out of high school.
Germany has it right they divert people into trades schools and do not push for college for all. The real killer is the lack IT / TECH apprenticeships as it's more trade like. also the must have an degree and then the you went to X tech school = passed over BY HR.
Then the tech schools did poorly on the degree part leading to the HR that went to an real school and likely had an 4 year party to not like people who where not able to cut it an real school. Even when the tech schools are way more hands on and tech real work place skills vs lot's of theory. I have seen HR say we want an CS degree and not an IT / MIS / etc one for IT admin rolls. It very school to school but some CS ones are very theory loaded.
that is why an apprenticeship system is needed and gov can take that grant / loan funds to fund it. But not the big corps want the locked to job H1B's that they can unpay and work 60-80 hours.
Say you pay $5/hr and grant covers other costs / the student has to cover their class room costs and you can kick in if you want to.
You do realize that you don't have to go to an expensive private university, right?
I agree in principle, but its not that simple. I'm in the Pittsburgh region, and there is no cheap public option for 4 year degrees. University of Pittsburgh and Penn State are private-public hybrids with high tuition even for in-state students (starting at $20k, more on if you need room/board, etc.). Carnegie Mellon is extremely expensive private university. We have a few smaller private universities that are also expensive liberal arts schools: Carlow, La Roche, etc. Even the small Point Park University in the city is $27k per year and I'm pretty sure its private too. There's NO public city/state university with ~$5k tuition as other regions/states have, they all cost as much as an average private school. If you try to go to a cheap out of state school, you pay out of state tuition which is -- surprise! -- much more expensive and unaffordable. If you live here, you have to be relatively rich (expect ~$100k student debt when done, at least), or you don't go to college. (Well, there is community college but that isn't sufficient if you are pursuing a career like engineering that requires 4 year degrees).
Only recently did they start the "Pittsburgh Promise" to help pay tuition for residents, but that only applies to people that live within the city proper as far as I know. If you live in metro area but outside the city, you still don't get any help (If someone knows more, please feel free to correct me; I would love for their to be a good public option for everyone that I can refer people to. But as far as I can tell, students that grow up here are screwed unless the qualify for federal aid, but even a modest income disqualifies you for most aid. You pretty much have to be minimum wage to get it, and even then Pell Grants are capped at I believe ~$6k per year so wouldn't cover most of your tuition anyway).
They and devry used to be good & they had night school as well (now days a lot of the big schools do not really like to have night / adult education)
community colleges are very hit or miss on what class they offer / have trades / tech class. Some even let you take tech school like class as dropin / non degree track needed.
For an employer, it makes the decision a lot easier for taking a junior/green person if they have a relevant college degree, preferably from a good college. What has happened is some of these for-profit technical schools have such a bad reputation that employers can rank a junior person a bit lower because of it. I'm not certain the reputation is deserved, to me it smells a little bit of classism. In the end, going to a university is probably the better deal. I'd compare it to buying furniture on a lay-away plan, in the long run you end up paying a lot more just because you were too poor to raise the money up front.
Some people go to a big university for that "college experience", because they'll want to join a fraternity/sorority, they'll have the excitement of college sports (either as spectator or athlete), etc. And you won't really have those things as ITT. I don't value those things myself, but many people do.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
And those were great 19th & 20th century trades
They're still great trades today. If you think otherwise you don't understand them. A good welder or CNC mill operator can make a very decent living in the US. I'd be happy to introduce you to more of them than you care to know. A good skilled tradesman who works hard and hustles a bit can make a six figure income. I have some plumber and electrician friends who make very comfortable livings, albeit with substantial hard work.
The 21st century trades are IT, networking, programmers, etc.
If your point is that some of those things have become important jobs then you are correct although only to a point. If your point is that we no longer have a need for welders and machinists and plumbers then you couldn't be more wrong.
There needs to be an badges system to fill the gaps in the overall system and it needs to fix the real issues without the all of the other stuff that dragged down ITT and the other tech schools.
The coder boot camps seam to be acting a lot like ITT and others with the employment numbers and right now are at where devry & ITT used to be. But there cost is an little high and unlike devry & ITT you don't even get an degree.
Why can't there be an badges system that add up to an degree?
Community college where your 2 year degree = full credit at any 4 year school for at least 2 years?
The coder boot camps seem to get the idea that all stuff can fit into the old 2/4/6+ year system.
This has been my experience. I graduated from DeVry with a degree with a similar GPA. I enrolled in 2005 right about the time the deregulation of the student loan industry occurred. I don't remember hearing anything bad about private colleges or how bad student loans were. I was out of high school and I didn't expect to go to college in the first place.
After some work experience it never became a topic of conversation for any prospective job. No one cared about where I got a piece of paper. What was a concern was whether I could do the job and fit in with the company. That first job was probably luck but it was the reason I haven't had issues with finding a job.
Fast forward and I have taken various other courses at public universities and my wife is currently getting her B.S. in Biology from a state university. She tells me her experiences which mimicked mine; it is hit or miss on the teacher and class. Some are great. Some are awful.
This isn't an apology to those institutions. It is the experience I have had with private colleges and state universities.
sounds like some university's that tech out the book and have the same type of errors,
That sounds like lot of the theory stuff that people forget / don't know on the spot but can look it up / say can you tell me the issue that needs to be fixed?
Since at least the 1990s (when I first became aware of them). Basically the modus operandi is you found a school in some field where students can get college loans, preferably government-backed since a lot of the students aren't very credit-worthy. The students apply and are accepted into your school, pay their tuition with government or government-guaranteed student loans, and you "educate" them in the promised field. Net effect is you get the loan money, student gets the debt, and the government is on the hook for any debt the students can't pay back. You're effectively using the students to launder the money you're receiving from the government (they are listed as the recipient, not you).
The problem is this is the exact same MO as a legit school. There are supposed to be accrediting organizations which audit the schools' programs and confirm that they are legitimately teaching students marketable skills. But some of these accrediting organizations aren't very good and should've been removed from the authorized list decades ago. Basically the same problem that led to the housing bubble - the bond credit rating agencies which were supposed to investigate mortgage-backed investments (because the average investor/student has nowhere near the resources or skill necessary for a through investigation) shirked their duties and just rubber stamped them as low-risk when they were anything but.
It's ok to put a high-performance engine into your car. But you damn well better be sure the instruments and gauges monitoring that engine are working properly, lest it blow up on you.
Education for the sake of education is fine - if you're rich enough. Personally, if I'm spending $$$,$$$ on a degree, I'd expect a lucrative job from that.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
http://gizmodo.com/itt-is-offi...
And nothing of value was lost.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Last I heard that friend was doing something electronics design in aviation for the airforce in the 90s.
This is generally not true. Sometimes it's a matter of people picking the wrong degree. But these days a bigger problem is just people who graduated around 2008-2010. A huge fraction of the pain of this most recent crash fell squarely on the shoulders of recent grads, and this had nothing at all to do with their skills or the quality of their educations.
Today, new grads are doing better, though we're still not back to healthy levels. What we need for this kind of issue where it relates to education policy is that education should be publicly-funded to the point that it's free or nearly free, so that people can go to school without fear of winding up deep in debt and unable to pay that debt. Having better macroeconomic policy at the national level to prevent or mitigate this kind of crash would also be nice.
From the number of commercials ITT Tech had on television last year, my guess would be that they spent all that Federal money on ads.
I'm glad I won't have to watch any more of their inane commercials.
Most students were not prepared to enter such a fast-paced and terrible environment, and did poorly.
Isn't that true of most college students though? Quite lot do poorly in the first year, even at "real" colleges.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I went to uw madison, getting a comp-eng degree, now making 130k at 31 doing consulting.
Nobody cares where you went to U, unless it was Phoenix, ITT, or Devry.
You could go to podunk U, and still get hired.
I've seen hiring managers reject resumes when they saw the applicant's degree was granted from DeVry.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
not my experience, I have two friends who went to ITT. one is SAN engineer making $130K and the other does virtualization (vmware) for $120K a year. I think it's what the particular student does with their education that is deciding factor on whether it was worth the money. With all the price gouging by the colleges and Universities in my area (chicago) for degrees for jobs that will have miserable pay I'm not understanding the hatred for ITT or why the feds singled them out
Yes, but how would that have worked out if you'd chosen to pursue Medieval Philosophy at the same school? See how that works?
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I will say that the ITT I attended (15+ yrs ago) actually had teachers that were interested in making sure you learned what you were supposed to and had fun doing it. But, that was when they had CAD and Electronics Engineering courses, not that myriad of options available 2 weeks ago. We Built/Designed Circuits from simple voltage regulators to Amplifiers, including broadcasting FM down the hallway of the school (1W). Programmed Allen-Bradley PLCs w/ ladder logic and an 8bit motorolla processor for machine coding. The PC side of the course was basically, take it apart, put it back together, load DOS in the lab, and learning about the interfaces, designs, whys and hows, for the classroom side.
That said, I went there because I didn't apply myself in High School, and it was no problem to get in knowing that I just needed a piece of paper to get past HR.
I went to ITT and graduated the first time in 2009 and the second time in 2011 and we learned the same things in the electronics program, I also took software application programming and we created a platform agnostic banking application for multiple users that operated on a network with multiple levels of user and administrator access to track customer bank accounts, net worth, interest on savings and loan eligibility. I built a robot for my final project in my associates electronics degree that mapped the floor plan of a building by just driving around and using a laser grid to map where it could go and couldn't go (basically the entire surface of a floor) In my bachelors program we made a serial digital radio where we could implement data logging from sensors within a mile range such that each system had the whole system of data to implement a multi node control system (in our case controlling heating elements to maintain and data-log temperature at multiple points over digital radio.)
HR at companies I have applied to acknowledge almost none of this because it is over their heads, the piece of paper is devalued because it says ITT.. which is sad. usually when I see that look on their face when they talk about ITT I start getting ready to get up and thank them for their time.. usually though when they see that I have spent half a decade working for IBM and working on 911 phone systems, they get interested again.. but usually ITT works against me from what I see which is something that should not happen in my view. Don't let it get you down though, It is the sign of a good company, that they would actually look at your achievements rather than just looking at what school you went to and basing their decision off of that. IBM was a good employer and I learned a lot from them and they acknowledged the skills and my quality of work and time at ITT. It is sad that IBM seems to not be the company that it was a decade ago also. I don't know what has happened that has caused their decline, but I chalk it up to mismanagement. This can bring down any company.. when the bean counters start thinking that because they make loads of money they are somehow qualified to make technical decisions.. this is why disasters like the Challenger accident happen.
I went to the University of Maine and starting almost immediately afterward I've been working with Harvard-trained people, on AAA PC video games in Boston, and now as a full-time college math lecturer in New York. I always felt that you got out what you put into it.
There's a legitimate debate to be had whether a student like your brother would be better off if they'd been flunked out or not accepted by the university in question. Most of the cultural pressure, however, is to pass those students on.
Indeed you are right about getting out of it what you put into it. This is true no matter where you get your education from.
I have a serious interest in electronics and computer programming and my money was well spent learning about those things at ITT Tech while I was working full time and supporting myself. I did very well at ITT tech and though ITT tech was not Harvard, I got what I needed to move on into the workforce and have a good understanding of what I can do for a potential employer. I love my work and I have continued by auditing classes from MIT and Harvard and Stanford using Open Courseware and other services. From my experience using Massive open online courses I have realized in retrospect what a value my ITT education actually was and how much of it was at the same time, dependent on my interest and effort. ITT was convenient because I was able to go to work in the morning and get off work at around 5 pm and get to school and take classes until about midnight and then get home and get to bed then rinse and repeat day after day.. This would not be possible if I were going to a 4 year school, I would have had to have paid my own way to get through school and then get a job after graduation. That would not have been possible in my situation because I could not hold off paying rent or eating or having medical care for the few years it would take to get such a degree. Anyone who looks down on me because I went to ITT tech, well they lose respect in my eyes.. and how dare they? I worked hard and I did well and asked nothing of anyone other than the freedom to work and go to school. Looking at ITT like it is some sort of ghetto high school, is part of the problem with the economy, and the devaluing of the American workforce that is leading companies to H1b employees. H1b employees are cheaper, but I fail to see how American companies that expect information security to be respected are going to not be in for a rude awakening by funding people from india and china and elsewhere to come in and work on sensitive systems for pennies on the dollar..
I find it funny though how I get less interested employers looking at my resume now that I have ITT tech on it. Just as an experiment I think I am going to stop listing ITT just to see if I get more hits.
Nobody cares where you went to U, unless it was Phoenix, ITT, or Devry.
You could go to podunk U, and still get hired.
I've seen hiring managers reject resumes when they saw the applicant's degree was granted from DeVry.
Lazy hiring managers are part of the problem with the economy. Wasting time looking for the perfect employee is the enemy of hiring a good employee.
I wasn't cut out for collage, it was too fast paste so I didn't stick with it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
There are few 'production' machinists these days. I remember rooms full of lathes being operated by ex-cons producing the same part over and over. Not that's all CNC.
No it is most definitely not all CNC. I deal with machine shops and production metal fabrication all the time. While CNC is heavily utilized there still are plenty of old machines that don't have a computer of any sort still in use. Many of these are skilled labor jobs too. My father-in-law owns a company that has about 40 presses and machines of various sorts and only a handful of them are computer controlled in any way. I routinely go into plants that have machines that predate WWII which are still spitting out plenty of parts. No CNC machine is going to replace them in the foreseeable future either.
But you still need prototype machinists. If you want 1 relatively simple thing made right away, there is unlikely to be a faster way than a machinist on manual machines.
Depends on what you are making but as a general proposition there is truth in what you say. However the implication that there is no need for production machinists in a country like the US with high wages is simply untrue and demonstrably so.
While that's true, there are only a few prototypes made for each product. What of all the machinists who used to crank out production parts? Those jobs are gone forever...
News of the death of machinists is greatly exaggerated. Even in high wage areas. According to BLS statistics there are approximately 400,000 machinists in the US. While that is a far cry on a percentage basis from days of yore, there still is steady demand and it isn't going to go away any time soon. Manufacturing has become a little like farming. The percent of the workforce directly involved has decreased as productivity has increased but the same jobs still exist and there still is substantial employment opportunity.
Manufacturing is almost all CNC now, and consumer products are either non-repairable or last longer than they used to.
It is untrue that manufacturing is all CNC. It's not even close to all CNC. I am in metal fabrication plants on a routine basis and there are plenty of plants with numerous machines without any computer controls at all. People who think everything in manufacturing is computerized are almost invariably people who don't work in manufacturing. CNC is widespread and important but it has not and will not eliminate all non-CNC manufacturing any time soon. I've worked a plant with 50 turret lathes that date from around WWII - still going strong today. No CNC machine is going to drive them out any time soon for economic reasons if nothing else because CNC is expensive.
Anecdotally, my father in law has an entire plant filled with machines that require skilled operators. Most of the machines he owns are older than most of the people reading this, myself included. He has CNC machines too but they aren't universal like you are implying. In my plant roughly half our presses are computer controlled and the other half aren't. We aren't going to replace the non-computerized presses either - they are built like tanks, are fully depreciated, easy to repair, and work great for numerous applications. It would be economically stupid to replace them.
Even in places where there are CNC machines you still need a skilled machinist in most cases. CNC machines are not plug and play and you need people who understand fabrication to get the most out of them, set them up, diagnose problems, etc.
Now unlike the trade schools the professor at the collages they for the most part have little to no real world work experience (out side of the ivy tower)
Depends on the school. The University I went to was not a research school and had a fair amount of professors who had worked in industry and encouraged professors to take sabbaticals for a year or two to go and work in industry as well as bringing in professors who had recently retired from industry to teach. My father-in-law did the latter after retiring from working in the semiconductor and taught several courses over the next 7 years doing it part time as did a number of others. There were some professors who did do research as well but even they were accessible to undergrads unlike the ones at a standard research university.
Time to offend someone
At my old job, the "manager" who stood between everyone and getting a raise was the ass kissing best friend of the Information Technology VP.
He was even better than an ITT grad: he was an almost ITT grad, left before completing his program.
I hear he's now currently a Director. I may call him up and hassle him about this.
Lack of diversity and sensitivity training courses.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
If he wants to take on debt so he can spend four years on poetry or Russian literature or on women's studies, that's his business, and HIS debt
If the leftists who want to make public universities "free" get their way, it will no longer be his debt. His education will be paid for by the taxpayers who didn't choose garbage majors.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
This story made me happy. My parents pressured me into enrolling when I was fresh eighteen, and I was burned out after one year and dropped out. I liked the education and was all about electronics, but I had never held a job before then, and should have gone that direction instead. What followed was mostly twenty years of working in different places and moving on when the Department of Education would catch up to me. I should have bankrupted myself out of it before they created that lovely exemption for student loans when I had the chance.
Oh well, I lived, learned, and found work that paid well enough to let them siphon my hard-earned money for almost a decade while barely getting by. Three years ago it finally ended and I no longer had to be creative with my taxes so I was always paying $10-$50 at the end of the year so they had nothing to garnish beyond my paycheck. At that point, I bought a van. The cost of payments, insurance, and gas was equal to the price of a monthly bus pass and what they were taking out of my paychecks. My last van payment will be next March, and I plan to celebrate and start building my bank account faster than ever with an eye towards using my electronics and programming knowledge to become self-employed.
While much of this was my own fault, ITT still robbed me of a good portion of my life. I'm glad to see them go, and maybe more stories like mine will make the next generation think twice before getting trapped in a student loan. Looking back, working and paying for college is a smart thing to do, but going in the direction of Entrepreneurship is even better. There will always be a limit to how much money you can make if you're working for someone else. There are no guarantees, but there is always the possibility of raking it in with the right product or service, and the education needed to run a business doesn't have to be expensive. What good is being a lawyer if you're paying thousands every month for your education until you're in your sixties?
"The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games." - Eugene Jarvis
When I took the MSCE in 2000, you had to know (among many other subject) how to super and subnet a network segment. Like actually how to do the math and figure out the broadcast and network addresses, and what the subnet mask should be.
I don't think you know what the MCSE ever took to achieve, as it is far more in depth than you would expect.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Wow, (Score:5, Smackdown)
Very well said, sir.
For better or worse, in this economy education is pretty much vocational. Unless you are very wealthy there is no value in pursuing a liberal arts degree since there are very few jobs that require one.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife