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posted by takyon on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:36AM   Printer-friendly
from the transfer-time dept.

Today, ITT Educational Services, Inc. (ITT) announced that it is closing all of its ITT Technical Institute campuses. For most of the world, that news will be covered as a business story or a political one, but I know that for you it is deeply personal. You are probably wondering what this means for your future; how it is going to affect your finances and your ability to continue your education.

In recent years, ITT has increasingly been the subject of numerous state and federal investigations. In August, ITT's accreditor, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) determined that ITT "is not in compliance, and is unlikely to become in compliance with [ACICS] Accreditation Criteria." This came amid increasingly heightened financial oversight measures put in place by the Department over the past two years due to significant concerns about ITT's administrative capacity, organizational integrity, financial viability, and ability to serve students.

[...] Whatever you choose to do, do not give up on your education. Higher education remains the clearest path to economic opportunity and security. Restarting or continuing your education at a high-quality, reputable institution may feel like a setback today, but odds are it will pay off in the long run. There are people and tools – like our College Scorecard – out there to help you pick a program that gives you a real shot at success.

I am proud of your hard work and dedication, and we will do all we can to continue to provide information to you on your options.

Sincerely,

John B. King Jr., U.S. Secretary of Education

Source: Department of Education


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  • (Score: 2) by mendax on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:02AM

    by mendax (2840) on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:02AM (#398536)

    Well, I can't complain, given that that school has been a diploma mill for quite some time.

    In any case, there is something inherently immoral with the idea of running a school for profit, especially with the fees ITT charged! Yikes! Now, let's see how fast it takes the feds to nail the University of Phoenix to its cross.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:12AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:12AM (#398539)

    Profit is exactly what is wrong with modern education! In fact don't call it education, call it TRAINING, because that's what nearly all of it is - they are training you to perform the given tasks of a particular job, and nothing more - and if that job evaporates, which many do, you wasted your time and money. An education is meant to leave you with mental and intellectual assets that make you ready for all of life's challenges, it's meant to to teach you how to think. I remember our lecturer said "I am here to teach you how to think, how to approach a problem, how to critically appraise. I am not going to show you any facts or details, it's your job to go home and memorise all of that."

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:18AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:18AM (#398541)

      it's meant to to teach you how to think.

      But, what if you don't want to think? What if you just want to make money? You know, it kind of hurts to actually think. It is better to just say whatever comes into your head at the moment and call it negotiation. There should be a University for people like that, a University that would surpass all other Universities, a University that would be huge, like a . . . . .

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by redneckmother on Wednesday September 07 2016, @03:39PM

        by redneckmother (3597) on Wednesday September 07 2016, @03:39PM (#398740)

        But, what if you don't want to think? What if you just want to make money?

        Then run for a political office, preferably at the Federal level.

        --
        Mas cerveza por favor.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:26AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:26AM (#398547)

      You know, an education is more than just one thing.
      Learning how to learn is part of an education.
      But learning how to do is too.

      A well-rounded education doesn't just kick you outta the dorms after 2 or 4 years with no practical knowledge. Even the liberal arts majors have a ton of experience in their fields - film school kids write, direct, shoot, etc films, lit majors write, write, write, poli-sci majors have run through a few student election cycles, etc.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:41AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:41AM (#398553)

        You know, an education is more than just one thing.

        But that's the issue. Too many colleges and universities focus primarily on job training and rote memorization over actual understanding of the subject.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @05:06AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @05:06AM (#398569)

          Haven't really seen that.
          As a point of pride no accredited university would want to get a rep as a "lowly" vocational school.
          Actual vocational colleges, sure. But nobody is getting fooled into expecting a liberal education when they attend a vocational school.

          • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Kell on Wednesday September 07 2016, @06:31AM

            by Kell (292) on Wednesday September 07 2016, @06:31AM (#398588)

            As an engineering professor, I consider it my imperative to give my students what they really need to know as practical professionals in the field. Sometimes that's critical thinking skills, sometimes it's technical skills and sometimes it's obvious stupid life skill stuff like "How to dress for presentations and attend meetings without being a boor". We've found that if we don't tackle both sides of the problem, either we produce engineers who are great at technical stuff but useless in the work place, or else we produce excellent drones with no critical thinking skills. Unless you're already rich, you're going to university to better yourself and get access to a career path. Preparing a graduate to be unemployable does them no favours - you need both "education" and "training".

            --
            Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @01:53PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @01:53PM (#398690)

            Haven't really seen that.

            Many people don't even see how their K-12 educations were garbage. If you're raised in a culture where abysmal-quality educations are the norm, it can be difficult to see the problem.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:04PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:04PM (#398694)

              Since many people just see college/university as a means to an end (a way to get a good job), it's no surprise the situation is like this. When education isn't your absolute first priority, the quality of the education suffers. When your schools are filled with shallow people who have shallow, impure motivations, education again suffers. Accredited universities can avoid a bad reputation by simply being a bit better than the lowly vocational schools, because they appear good by comparison even if that is not so.

              Only the best-of-the-best schools have anything to offer.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:08PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:08PM (#398697)

          Too many colleges and universities focus primarily on job training and rote memorization

          Wow. I think you're problem is you need to get on with your life if you've been to enough universities and colleges to be able to draw a conclusion like that. I've only been to two: undergrad and grad school. I've got to wonder, how many colleges and universities have you been to ?? Sometimes you professional students just need to graduate and get on with life.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:56AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:56AM (#398562)

      Gee, if the great unwashed masses could only be as insighful and cultured as you.

      Given private education is generally more expensive than public, you'd have to wonder why people are willing to pay more.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @08:27AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @08:27AM (#398617)

        Given private education is generally more expensive than public, you'd have to wonder why people are willing to pay more.

        Why? This is an easy one. They could not get accepted into a real accredited school. That is why the private schools cost more, they are dealing with desperate rejects of the educational system. Of course, that is also the reason they can charge more. No mystery.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @05:02AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @05:02AM (#398565)

      Employers don't give a shit that you can think, that's likely more of a negative point for them. What an employer want sis replaceable cogs that come TRAINED to work with the tools the employer has chosen to use (and who disappear and turn into a ham sandwich and $1m when they are no longer needed).

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Wednesday September 07 2016, @06:23AM

      by bradley13 (3053) on Wednesday September 07 2016, @06:23AM (#398587) Homepage Journal

      I'd like to take AC's comment apart, because there are a lot of issues all munged together here:

      Profit is exactly what is wrong with modern education!

      Why? Just like any business, you can have good ones and you can have bad ones. Our local painter is in it for the profit. He does a damned good job, because happy customers tell other potential customers, who then come and give him business. He could do crap work, rake in the dough short-term, but it would kill his business.

      State-run schools, are those better, because they're run by the government? I teach for one, and it's a good, solid school, but you get all the disadvantages of any government organization. We also have financial incentives of various sorts, different from those a privately run school would have, and possibly even more out-of-line with educating our students.

      Or were you thinking of non-profit organizations? Non-profits are no guarantee of pure intentions. Too often, they are just a way to dodge taxes. The Clinton Foundation is a non-profit, 'nuff said.

      Profit is not an evil word, and there's nothing special about the education business. Apparently ITT was crap, just like there are bad painters in the world. Fine, go find a better place to spend you money.

      don't call it education, call it TRAINING

      Fair enough, those really are two different concepts. A general education vs. training in a particular trade. The thing is: there's nothing wrong with that!

      If you want to learn to be a painter (to continue the earlier example), you don't need to read Shakespeare. Instead, you need very specific information on paints and colors, and lots of practical, hands-on training. It's frankly no different for being a network admin, or a sys-admin, or a db-admin - those are the hands-on, practical jobs of IT, and "training" is exactly what you need.

      The fact that ITT provided lousy training is not a valid criticism of the concept.

      --
      Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:15PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:15PM (#398701)

        Both you and op seem to miss that management by numbers produces little more than nice numbers. If the number is profit, at least someone's making bucks.

        The local public tech school (basically ITT, although with accreditation and about 1/10th the cost and something like 56 of my 64 credits transferred in some way or another to a 4 year school) has its own "management by numbers" problems, although at least the numbers they're managing by isn't profit or revenue.

        So... my county funds a public tech, and the county to the east funds a county tech, and I always kinda figured ITT was for people who live in areas without good public education, along the lines of one way or another you're gonna pay.

        Also technically ITT wasn't in the education business any more than my local credit union is in the house building business... they're just loan originators / packagers.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Wednesday September 07 2016, @07:39PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 07 2016, @07:39PM (#398838) Journal

        Education should not be a business. (Neither should running a prison.)

        There should be craft training for those who want to learn crafts. Ideally that should lead to a job, but don't count on it anymore. Still, plumbing, cabinet making, etc. need to be taught by those skilled in the art. Apprenticeships had their points, but they had lots of bad points too, and anyway few craftsmen are willing to take on a 12 year old and teach him for 20 years, and 12 year olds can no longer be bound to that kind of a contract. There are reasons why master craftsmen have disappeared, and the reasons aren't all bad.

        There should be academic trade training for those who want to learn those trades. Computer science, Engineering, etc. Ideally that should lead to a job, but don't count on it. University based liberal education shouldn't be a requirement for those only interested in learning a trade.

        There should also be university based liberal education for those who want to learn something about everything.. One can hope that this will lead to a job, but don't expect it.

        These should all be done as social good, not as businesses. And rapidly advancing automation implies that nobody should be required to devote years learning something and be required to know in advance that it will be needed when he graduates. That's impossible. Too many unexpected jobs have already been automated out of existence, or de-skilled to the point where a trained pigeon could do them. Nobody should end up worse off for having made the wrong commitment to a skill. Education should, if not earning a salary, at least be free, including texts...but this doesn't mean easy. If society is paying the bill for the education, students that don't measure up to the requirements should be kicked out of the class. Perhaps they can try again in a few more years, or in a different school...but no sooner than next school year. This would mean that finals are more important, and probably implies the quarter system, or perhaps even a shorter term.

        --
        Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:20AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:20AM (#398544)

    I just read this article about Big Data manipulating people [boingboing.net] which had, tucked away in one small paragraph, the claim that U of Phoenix spends about $1B/year on marketing which works out to $2,225/student, but only $892/student on instruction.

    Meanwhile the states have been defunding non-profit community colleges because nobody in power thinks education is a public good any more.

    Greed is Good!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @05:02AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @05:02AM (#398566)

      nobody in power thinks education is a public good any more

      Education must be a waste of time because rich powerful influential celebrity Rambull Manho made a successful career from "one weekend messing with perl" [xkcd.com].

  • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:35AM

    by dyingtolive (952) on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:35AM (#398551)

    The quality of people from ITT Tech was pretty astounding too. We hired one (in spite of my protestations based upon the technical part of the interview) and the stupid bastard couldn't explain the difference between tcp and udp to me. For a network related support position. NETWORKING WAS HIS FUCKING FOCUS IN SCHOOL.

    Eventually we got to the point where I just asked him to explain to me "everything he knew about networking," with whatever that meant to him being totally valid discussion material. I was responsible for training the dumbshit and I figured I might as well have a fun story to hand off to his manager when I was done. I don't remember exactly what he said, but I recall he got through mangled bits and pieces of an explanation of http and dns, and that was about it. I'm not sure if the guy was actually retarded, didn't even care enough to be able to pretend, or what.

    --
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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:45AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:45AM (#398555)

      We had a saying 25 years ago when I went to college. (fuck I am getting old...)

      If you cant hack university there is always community college if you cant hack that there is always ITT.

      I had considered it here and there for a class or two. But usually just ended up self learning anyway. Like I was taught at university.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:49AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @04:49AM (#398559)

      UDP is the "Unreliable Datagram Protocol" because datagram delivery isn't guaranteed like segments of a TCP stream. Not only do I know the difference between TCP and UDP, I've debugged a System V STREAMS driver too. It's pretty obvious why nobody uses STREAMS anymore, way too much overhead complexity.

      It's also clear to me that I know too much and you only hire dumbshits. Fuck you very much, job creator!

    • (Score: 2) by mendax on Wednesday September 07 2016, @05:32AM

      by mendax (2840) on Wednesday September 07 2016, @05:32AM (#398575)

      I'm only a lowly programmer and even I know the difference between UDP and TCP. Of course, this is perhaps because I'm written some code that has used BSD sockets. But geez! This is incredible.

      --
      It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
      • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday September 07 2016, @12:53PM

        by dyingtolive (952) on Wednesday September 07 2016, @12:53PM (#398666)

        Well, that job was something else. Officially, we were actually providing support for low latency market data systems; Software developed in-house. However, in reality we were doing just as much Solaris/Linux support and network troubleshooting as we were actual software support.

        It's so damned hard to find anyone around here who had the perfect combination of a frightening amount of knowledge and desperate enough to work for peanuts that often times we'd take on anyone we could get, just on the off chance that they'd pan out when we (I) trained them. Of the probably 20 or so interviews I sat in on for the technical part of the interview, there were probably about 2 people that I actually liked enough to give the thumbs up for initially. Of those 20 or so, we hired 5 of them, including my 2. I guess to be fair enough to the system, all but that one moron worked out well enough that we kept them on, but I think they're all still doing first level support except the 2 I gave the thumbs up to. One of them left after about 4 years for a better job, the other one got a promotion to what was basically my "lead escalation" position after I left for QA.

        --
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 07 2016, @02:05PM (#398696)

    BS! there's something immoral about charging a large sum of money for a half-assed education. nothing immoral about charging for a better education than one could get at a socialist indoctrination center.