Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/09/06/itt-technical-institute-to-clo.html
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I have an ITT degree. At the time I was such a bad student I thought wasting my tuition at an unaccredited technical school was worth it for one last shot at an AAS degree. Well, those credits are meaningless and don’t transfer. So I spent two years getting a degree that counts for nothing if I wanted to get a BS somewhere else.
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It didn’t help you get a job? I know a few people who got degrees from DeVry, which is a similar institution, but maybe better?
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Not for another two years after graduation.
The week I turned 24 I suddenly started getting callbacks. Up until then I was considered too young to hire on the actuarial tables during the great recession.
I’m lucky I could go without a job for those two years. If I didn’t have it so unreasonably good I’d probably be homeless or dead and without a job.
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Here’s hoping that the Art Institutes, all those schools run by the Career Education Corporation, and other similarly scammy organizations follow suit soon.
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I went to Art Institute, which is ok i suppose but they definitely gouge students and get them to take out more financial aid than necessary and they have some fairly predatory practices. Their credits don’t really transfer to other schools, some classes might but for the most part it can be a loss… even between Art Institutes, but i’ve heard that they’ve since run into a fair amount of trouble like ITT has. If it were up to me i’d love to see them go under, having been taken advantage of financially by them and having seen other friends experience the same i have little sympathy for these for-profit colleges.
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But I’m only halfway through my course in Refrigeration Repair Management!
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Our friend went to ITT back in the early 90’s for electronics… He never had much trouble getting jobs, but he is a really good technician.
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Do you list it on your resume these days? I don’t think it would be liability if you could stack job experience on it, but who knows?
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Yeah, it’s on there. But some of my certs are expiring soon, and I think those had a much stronger impact than an AAS in desktop and network support. Freaking degree in helldesk.
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So do you feel ripped off? Did you learn anything? Sorry for all the questions, but I toyed rather seriously with the idea of a helldesk degree from ITT for similar reasons to your own (sounds like it, at any rate.)
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I did learn quite a bit, when it comes to stuff like IP addressing, and the OSI model, and configuration of Windows Server 2008. But none of that counts toward a real degree.
They promised that their networking course was adequate prepwork to take the CCNA exam. And it may have been, but I decided to take the exam six months after graduation and flunked. Stupid choices I make.
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However its the same information. Sounds like you learned something. My assumption was always that if you want to learn you will.
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It doesn’t sound like you wasted your time. I tried to learn these things by self-study and couldn’t hack it that way. Sometimes, accreditation or not, you really need someone to stand over you that you’re accountable to.
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DeVry in my opinion is slightly better since it functions more like a normal college (aside from missing things like sports, wild parties, etc). Last I knew, it still suffered a bit from being a very for-profit institution, with its curriculum focused more on whatever the current hot thing is without much of a view towards future viability of the students. I haven’t paid much attention to DeVry recently, though, so that may have changed somewhat?
They’ve been in and out of hot water since the mid-90s for similar business practices. Earlier this year they were specifically taken to task by the FTC and the Veterans Administration for deceptive marketing.
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Hmm, I guess the Kansas City Art Institute is a separate entity. Which is good, I guess. I have heard good thinks about the KCAI. http://kcai.edu/
Yeah, I’m not familiar with that one but avoiding association with the other for-profit organization can only be a good thing. They are shady as hell and have little regard for the wellbeing of students and faculty alike.
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So what’s going to happen to their football team?
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It seems like all vocational schools are corrupt, and I have a theory. The basic idea is good - just teach job skills to people who really don’t want to compare Cervantes with Shakespeare. Makes sense for people switching careers, which is everybody any more.
Maybe they’re all corrupt because the DOE decoupled the cost of education from the benefit. My niece just graduated from a private university with almost a quarter million dollars of student loan debt and a degree in Journalism. She’s bright, maybe she will revolutionize the world of journalism, but chances of her ever paying that back are slim.
So there’s effectively unlimited money available for a service that’s not real hard to provide. And we wonder why they went bad?
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