Students said they’ve heard rumors about ITT Tech’s financial problems, but were told their education would be okay.
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In a letter to more than 35,000 students, the Indiana-based parent company ITT Educational Services announced that campuses won’t open for the fall term that was scheduled to begin September 12 – leaving students scrambling for last-minute options since many USA colleges already have started fall classes.
ITT said it also eliminated the jobs of the “overwhelming majority” of more than 8,000 employees on Tuesday.
Brandon Davis and D.T. Collins were students at ITT Technical Institute in Waco, and they said they were beyond shocked when they went to the school to find it closed.
BCCC will hold special information sessions for the prospective students on Tuesday at the college’s Lower Bucks campus, spokeswoman Marta Kaufmann said. ITT is a vocational school with a combination of brick and mortar and online campuses with more than 40,000 students nationwide.
“I’ve been a student here since past year and hearing this news has just been frightful for my friends and I”, said another student, Johanna Delafe.
Enrollment in ITT and the for-profit college sector as a whole has dropped sharply as the government has made moves to more closely regulate the schools. “We reached this decision only after having exhausted the exploration of alternatives, including transfer of the schools to a non-profit or public institution”.
The company claimed that it was denied due process by the Department of Education. While it may provide some relief, concerns about paying off loans and transferring credits remain.
“Being an global student, we actually pay cash for this”, Pinder said.
Martinez received an email from ITT Tuesday morning stating: “We have made a very hard decision to discontinue our operations effective immediately”.
Luckily for the students at ITT Tech, many of them will likely be eligible for discharge on their student loans, and even those who attended before the closure may be able to apply for relief as well. We were not provided with a hearing or an appeal. ITT Educational Services was found to be out of compliance with its accreditor’s standards twice this year, according to the Department of Education.
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This federal action will also disrupt the lives of thousands of hardworking ITT Tech employees and their families.
