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El Reg reports
For-profit college chain ITT Technical Institute is facing further sanctions as the US government and the state of California have ordered the school to stop accepting new students.
Citing ongoing financial problems with the school, the US Department of Education (DOE) has barred the school from taking any new students who rely on federal aid money, out of concerns that the school will go under before those funds can be repaid.
"To protect prospective students and taxpayers, we're no longer allowing ITT to enroll new students with federal aid", the DOE said.
"In addition, in case the school's actions cause it to close, we're increasing the amount of cash reserves it must send us and we're ending its installment payment plan for the amount previously required."
This, after the DOE said it has spent the past two years working with ITT to get its financial matters in order and address concerns from creditors that the school may not be able to stay afloat and pay back its debts.
[...] Students who are already enrolled at ITT with financial aid will be allowed to continue courses and will have the option to transfer to another school that accepts ITT course credits.
The DOE added that those who have already graduated from ITT will continue to have their certifications recognized as valid credentials.
[...] The state of California, meanwhile, is taking things a step further by ordering the school [PDF] to stop accepting any new enrollments at its 15 California locations as of September 1.
The decree, issued by the Department of Consumer Affairs, Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education, cites the financial issues and says "there is a substantial failure by the Institution to meet institutional minimum operating standards related to financial resources and accreditation standards".
We have previously discussed other for-profits in hot water.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @01:12AM
A co-worker just finished his "degree" at ITT. He's told me some of the horror stories. They are an institution that does not care about excellence in education. They care about profit only. Likewise, the students don't care about getting an excellent education, either. They care about getting the piece of paper only.
One example. We were going through the sample test before one of his finals together. It was all multiple guess. About every fifth question had a completely incorrect answer set in the software as the correct one. I won't remember any exactly, but something like: which protocol controls routing on the internet? A. ARP B. UDP C. BGP D. FTP. "Correct" answer would be D, FTP. His instructor didn't give a rip, and he didn't really care either since he could remember the ones that were wonky and get that A.
There is something very rotten at work in the American society that such an institution could ever flourish. Maybe it's the ballooning expense of a real degree? Maybe it's the increasing number of jobs that demand you have a degree of some kind when none is really needed? (Also speaking to the fact that the high school diploma has now become worthless there.) I hate to go there, but maybe it's a lax attitude about false advertising and regulation? Maybe it's the old American "hard work by your bootstraps" cargo cult backfiring when so many people value the degree over the education it represents?
More and more indication that American culture is a house full of condiments and no food. How embarrassing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @01:47AM
Capitalism is a system that rewords people who can provide a product or service demanded by paying customers. That's what these online IT schools were providing.
Capitalism is a great system, but it's not perfect. Government bureaucracy and regulation is often terrible, but sometimes it's necessary to temper the weaknesses of capitalism and other human institutions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday September 01 2016, @02:36AM
Capitalism is a system that rewords people who can provide a product or service demanded by paying customers. That's what these online IT schools were providing.
Yep, there are people who just really demand fake Rolexes and Gucci bags, and they will pay real money for them. There are also those who demand fake college degrees, maybe because they could not get into a "real" University, or they are too busy, or they are MBA types who just cannot stand all the brainwashing that comes with studying actual history, science, sociology, and logic. So is it such a crime for an entrepreneur to fill this demand, for a slightly lesser amount of actual learning than what a legitimate college degree would entail? And if they can get the government to fund the hole operation by non-dischargeable student loans, well, who is really harmed?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:06AM
This is why I fear for the USA. What will it take to reinstate the values you grew up with?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:22AM
Capitalism is a system that rewords people who can provide a product or service
Nope. That's called "business".
There doesn't have to be a Capitalist anywhere in the loop for what you described.
A Capitalist is someone who makes money from money.
He EXTRACTS money from the system.
He does not have to PRODUCE anything.
Workers produce goods and services.
A Socialist workers' cooperative which has no money and has nothing but LABOR and which produces goods and/or services fits your silly description.
Paris Hilton sitting on her ass, waiting for a check to arrive is an example of Capitalism.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @05:01AM
Paris Hilton sitting on her ass, waiting for a check to arrive is an example of Capitalism.
Paris Hilton does not appear to be sitting on her ass. [youtube.com]
OK, point taken. [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday September 01 2016, @11:36AM
Capitalism also has as one of its features a need for the proletariat to believe that by hard work and self-sacrifice they or at least their descendants can become capitalists rather than workers. This is why the news will occasionally highlight stories along the lines of "laundromat worker retires as a millionaire" or "working-class person you might be able to identify with wins the lottery".
This story is, for the most part, bunk.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:47PM
A Capitalist is someone who makes money from money.
No, that's not capitalism.
Maybe words have multiple definitions.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday September 01 2016, @05:24PM
It's not so much that words have multiple definitions, though they do, as that technical terms (economics is a form of technical) lose precision when they move into common usage. You are right, the better term for someone who makes money from money is financier, but such a person is ALSO a capitalist, as capitalist is a more inclusive term than financier.
A capitalist is one who makes "money" from capital. The capital can be durable goods, a factory, land, or money. A laborer is someone who makes "money" from his personal effort, his labor. And a manager is someone who makes "money" by organizing things. These definitions are exclusive, but the categories are never pure. E.g., a manager devotes personal effort to managing, and often depends on the capital of and MBA.
Also note that I put money in quotes in every mention in the previous paragraph. I mean it in the most abstract sense, which includes, but is not limited to, currency. It also includes accrual of capital in the wide sense that includes political power.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:00PM
You are right, the better term for someone who makes money from money is financier, but such a person is ALSO a capitalist, as capitalist is a more inclusive term than financier.
Right, but that doesn't have bearing on the definition of the term "capitalism." Capitalism doesn't just mean the activity that happens with capitalists/financiers. It is used by many people to mean an economic system that provides certain freedoms (or absolute freedom). There's nothing in the definition of capitalism (at least the one most people use, including the one many economists use) that means capitalism only pertains to activity undertaken by financiers, which is what the gp post was asserting.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @08:30PM
You appear to be conflating the term businessman|entrepreneur with "Capitalist".
As an example, the 6 worker-owners[1] who founded Mondragon in 1956 were entrepreneurs.
Their model, however, does not rely on borrowing from / debt to / dependence on a Capitalist.
Their profit comes from their labor and their operation runs strictly from that profit (and the worker-owners decide democratically how that profit will be disbursed).
This is very unlike top-down Capitalist operations which have a money-man layer of individuals who PRODUCE *nothing* but who skim off the cream.
Your premise is flawed because your vision is too narrow.
You are still using the term incorrectly.
[1] Mondragon now has over 100,000 worker-owners.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday September 01 2016, @08:49PM
You appear to be conflating the term businessman|entrepreneur with "Capitalist".
I think the problem is you are conflating the term "capitalism" with the concept of capitalists. Yes they are etymologically related, but no that is not how people use the word.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @05:34PM
I'll bet that you think "Middle Class" is also a useful term.
It isn't. It's something Lamestream Media made up.
Ask a group to each mark his own graph delineating the "Middle Class" and each will put the marks in different places.
"Middle Class" is just a divide-and-conquer mechanism meant to manipulate The Working Class.
There are only TWO classes.
The Bourgeoisie AKA The Idle Rich AKA The Capitalist Class has enough wealth that they don't need to do any labor.
The Proletariat AKA The Working Class must exchange labor for sustenance.
If you **have** to work to make a living, you are NOT a Capitalist.
The whole point of Capitalism is for the Idle Rich to remain idle and to get someone else to do all the work.
The term "The Country Club Set" is typical of the paradigm.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:01PM
I'll bet that you think "Middle Class" is also a useful term.
Not really, no.
There are only TWO classes. The Bourgeoisie AKA The Idle Rich AKA The Capitalist Class has enough wealth that they don't need to do any labor. The Proletariat AKA The Working Class must exchange labor for sustenance.
Those terms aren't useful to me, either.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @02:33AM
They are an institution that does not care about excellence in education
So... no different from a grand majority of colleges, then. Many people--if not most--go to college primarily so they can get access to better jobs and therefore make more money, rather than to obtain an academic understanding of some subject. So, many colleges (not just for-profit ones) have become corporate training facilities that focus on rote memorization and pleasing employers. It's funny because many people complain about the poor teaching standards of K-12 schools, but then when colleges have similar standards, suddenly some people think it's instantly superior. Our culture does not value education; it values money, power, looks, and fame.
If you want a good education, and you want to obtain it formally, you have to go to a top-of-the-line school. Don't fool yourself into believing most of these community colleges and such offer anything more than substandard corporate training.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:02AM
Suppose you want to fly a plane for the Air Force. You'll need a degree, any degree. It could be from the San Francisco School of Mortuary Science, which in fact offers exactly one degree in exactly that subject. It could be a degree in dance, art history, trombone, black studies, or whatever. You just need a degree. Get it, or you don't fly planes.
Suppose you are a second grade teacher. In many states, you need to get continuing education credits. Never mind that you may have been teaching for decades; that just makes it worse! You know, these 21st century kids need different edubabble buzzwords.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:27AM
Anyone who 'just wants the paper' shouldn't be attending colleges or universities at all; they don't have an academic mindset. Sounds like they would be better served by trade schools, if the situation wasn't so terrible at least.
Also, employers aren't going to stop requiring degrees for everything under the sun if people keep mindlessly complying with their desires. And this desire for degrees hurts education because it makes colleges and universities scramble to please employers, which doesn't always result in an academic education.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:02PM
It doesn't work that way. You can't just say "i'm not going to get a degree and that will force employers to drop the degree requirement". It has to be the people with degrees who become the hiring authority and then remove that requirement. But they don't.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:05AM
Suppose you want to fly a plane for the Air Force.
I'm colorblind, you insensitive clod! How will your needful paper help me now?
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 01 2016, @02:26PM
The heck? He said it was *a* requirement, not the only one.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:01AM
> There is something very rotten at work in the American society that such an institution could ever flourish.
Its the financialization of the student loan program. The government guarantees payment even if the student defaults so there is no risk to the "college" in matriculating even the least qualified students. Consequently graduations rates are in the shitter. And if most people drop out before graduation, what does it matter if the courses are shit or not?
As a double-whammy, the government guarantees payment to the college, but student loans are the most difficult debt to discharge in bankruptcy. So all those drops out are fucked with near permanent debt that got them nothing. The giant face-sucking vampire squid of wallstreet strikes again...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:47AM
It's not flourishing, it's dying. That's what the article is about.
There's always going to be slime-bags and corner cutters. Most eventually get caught in the longer run, but many humans take foolish gambles because that's what humans do.
In the USA we are more likely to let market forces do the filtering rather than government inspectors. Government inspectors sometimes screw up or slack also.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:31AM
Even better. One of the guys running one of these "institutions" is running for President.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @10:18PM
I'm pretty sure that Trump-U never qualified for the federal student loan program.
His salesguys were trained to convince their marks to max out their credit cards instead.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Sunday September 04 2016, @10:18PM
The reason that ITT stuck around so long is because they had a business model that worked for a long time and that was using active recruiters who were trained to navigate the financial aid system and they were calling and advertising to people who weren't sure what to do next. Daytime television watchers, recent highschool grads, recent veterans who had access to tons of funding. Many people never heard they could go to college in their whole lives and it seemed like a distant dream to be the first in their family to graduate.
They walked them through how to collect money and then charged for as much as they could and they had high pressure quotas to meet. That's what really sunk them they would make more and more money the more they cut corners and the more pressure they put on their recruitment system.
Now they're shoving people through the system who can't graduate without lowering standards and they have to get them to graduate or they're losing their accreditation. Their reputation slowly sinks because incompetent alumni are hitting the market. They go from being an ok enough way for a busy person to crack into a new career into being kind of a black mark, if someone is dumb enough to get sucked into ITT maybe I don't want them twidgeting on my diodes.
Now students are pissed that they can't get a job and they want to sue, they're exposing the school's greed and incompetence and the whole house of cards collapses.
They'd be ok now if they didn't get so greedy.