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Federal Dept of Ed forces school to close

We’re here to help you: Because of constant regulatory harassment by the federal Department of Education, ITT Technical Institutes, a private college-level school system that has been operating for more than 50 years providing technical vocational training, has been forced to shut down.

The actions of and sanctions from the U.S. Department of Education have forced us to cease operations of the ITT Technical Institutes, and we will not be offering our September quarter. We reached this decision only after having exhausted the exploration of alternatives, including transfer of the schools to a non-profit or public institution.

Effective today, the company has eliminated the positions of the overwhelming majority of our more than 8,000 employees. Our focus and priority with our remaining staff is on helping the tens of thousands of unexpectedly displaced students with their records and future educational options.

This action of our federal regulator to increase our surety requirement to 40 percent of our Title IV federal funding and place our schools under “Heightened Cash Monitoring Level 2,” forced us to conclude that we can no longer continue to operate our ITT Tech campuses and provide our students with the quality education they expect and deserve.

Their press release adds the following:

We have always carefully managed expenses to align with our enrollments. We had no intention prior to the receipt of the most recent sanctions of closing down despite the challenging regulatory environment that now threatens all proprietary higher education. We have also always worked tirelessly to ensure compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, and to uphold our ethic of continuous improvement. When we have received inquiries from regulators, we have always been responsive and cooperative. Despite our ongoing service to this nation’s employers, local communities and underserved students, these federal actions will result in the closure of the ITT Technical Institutes without any opportunity to pursue our right to due process.

Any business that has successfully provided services to its customers for fifty years has definitely proven its worth — except to the hardcore leftists in the Democratic Obama administration. Employing 8000 people and providing worthwhile training to thousands more, and doing it privately outside the control and power of the federal government? We can’t have that! Better to destroy it!

Update: In related news, more than 80K coal mining jobs lost during Obama’s tenure. The article also notes this important fact:

And now Hillary Clinton is running to be his successor, essentially promising a third term for Barack Obama’s vision. And what did she tell us during the primary? “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”

It’s so nice to know these Democrats support unemployment and bankruptcy.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

10 comments

  • Cotour

    There will be no school in America that will be independent and that does not teach what “must” be taught.

    I have two contributions here. One is an article that I found this morning about how a university in California will create segregated housing for black students, and my response to an article by a “Child Development Specialist” that I read in my local community paper. Enjoy.

    1. http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/28906/

    2. I read an article in the September issue of my local community paper written by a “Child Development Specialist” about “White Privilege” and teaching children and had some thoughts on the subject.

    “We live in a time when racial tension is everywhere.” Was written, and I could not help but think that that sentence might have been more correctly structured. Maybe it could have more realistically read “We live in a time when racial tension has been purposefully fomented everywhere. “.

    And to be clear, I am not at all suggesting that “racism” in all of its ugly forms does not exist in America to varying degrees. But from my point of view “race” and “racism” has been purposefully crafted today as a political tool to further divide and not to bring together the people and children of America by specific subversive political interests promoting certain international political agendas counter to the spirit and interests of America.

    And then the writer continues on suggesting different ways of teaching children how to take in, interpret and deal with this “White Privilege” cultural condition we find ourselves immersed in. Again from my point of view it is my life’s conclusion that it is far better to first understand (and teach children) the difference between an individual being subjective and objective, and to respect all of the people that you find yourself interacting with every day. No matter their race, religion or persuasion and then attempting to understand life from another’s point of view. Respect, mutual respect and reality based education is in my opinion the way to better understanding and equality, not tying ones self into a new manipulative cultural term of guilt and division. Remember, all good relationships begin with respect, giving respect and expecting the same, its a life long philosophy to a positive future.

    The writer goes so far as to draw an analogy to WW II and how the existence of favorable mortgage assistance and education opportunities in the form of the G.I. Bill for the men (mostly white) and woman who risked their lives in that war to preserve the freedom that we all enjoy today from the Nazi menace, with government assistance to those who might be in need. In my eyes that really is a very poor analogy, as a matter of fact to my thinking one has nothing to do with the other. One is a reward and an incentive for a dangerous job well done and well deserved for the individuals who risked their lives in the military accomplishing it, and the other is social assistance for people in need. Other than each being a function of the American tax payers ability to provide such rewards and assistance because of the system that we are lucky enough to live under they really in my opinion have no other contextual connection. As a general rule all boats rise together, more or less, in America and people are generally limited by their ambition (or lack of it, no matter their race). The argument continued that because of these benefits a “White” culture of financial advantage and education was created ONLY for the “White’s” in America. This is a specious argument, again attempting to under pin the idea that “Whites” have been given by the government something that they did not deserve, and the “Black” Americans have suffered for it. Last time I looked there were a hell of a lot of very successful and affluent Black Americans in our country. From where did they come? Did government give them their ambition to achieve their affluence? How insulting to those fine Black Americans who have personally made sure that they became educated and struggled and have come so far to suggest that their accomplishments are less valuable. And where is the positive aspect of this line of logic if indeed one is concerned with teaching children the value of hard work, self respect, respecting others and sacrifice? I do not see it, all I see is an agenda of blame, undeserved generational guilt and ultimately pitting child against child.

    I think if you are going to go that far in attempting to create equivalencies in talking to your children about such things you must be honest and endeavor to explain the culture of dependency that the political class has transformed these well meaning programs of assistance into. As I understand it the black population in America can be reliably counted on by one political party for 92 percent of their votes. Why is that? Maybe because over the past 60 or so years in America, the self interested political class, to ensure their long suffering dependents and dependable voters there “incentives”, they have done just that, created a reliable and less educated dependent class? This in my opinion is comparable to the long enduring and “well meaning” political class being the new modern day “masters” to their economically captive constituency, what ever race they may be. (It is a well proven strategy on the road to acquiring political power and retaining political power, create dependency) A well meaning compassionate intent in the form of various social programs perverted into a political advantage and incentive program of its own. This political perversion in my opinion is the height of 1. Disrespect, manipulation and isolation for those who have been entrapped in it, and 2. An abuse of power and the misuse of the American peoples hard earned tax money in pursuit of political advantage. And I am in no way suggesting that anyone in America that is in need of assistance should not receive it in the many forms that it exists, no matter their race, religion or persuasion. But not when it has been become a “normal” part of a destructive and captive culture of political dependency.

    The writer continues, “why do we balk when this is about people of color”? I balk when someone, who I am sure has the best intentions (Don’t all politicians and social agenda engineers and experimenters, of both political party’s, always have the best intentions?), seems to be promoting analogies to children about race and guilt and being “White” that are not quite making the cut to make their point. They in my opinion are misleading through calculation and do a great injustice to everyone. And I balk when someone representing the status quo bureaucracy who may not fully understand the full spectrum of the implications of the political lifting for the self interested political powers and internationalist social engineers that be and their agendas that they have undertaken.

    These new politically generated and socially manipulative terms like “White Privilege” and “Social Justice”, etc. that are being shamefully force fed to the children of America are clearly about division and fear and guilt and manipulation and not about equality and most of all not about teaching children respect for one another, no matter their race. These social / political manipulations under the banner of “fairness” and “equality” are at the minimum naive and misguided and at the maximum are dangerous agendas that are designed to erode the American Constitution, American sovereignty and the generally peaceful existence that Americans as a rule enjoy today.

    To what end I ask those who promote such offensive and divisive thinking and agenda, what are you really teaching the children and why? Do you even know or understand?

    Just some thoughts on a story about “White privilege” and how the children of America are actively being taught that I read the other day.

  • wayne

    –I must put in a word for Hillsdale College at this point, a truly private College.
    They do not accept any government money at all, including student loans. Cost my wife & I a small-fortune, but we sent our daughter their for undergrad. Best money I ever spent in my life.

    –ITT has been in the cross-hairs for more than 2+ years.
    And, the other un-reported little dirty-secret, is what happens to any ITT student with guaranteed student-loans. (We just covered all those guarantees, with our taxes.)

    The democrat’s talk-big on “vocational training,” but that does not include in large measure, privately-delivered vocational education.

    Tangentially– I actually contracted with the SSA to provide vocational-services to folks on SSDI, in the early 2000’s. (The “Ticket to Work program.”)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticket_to_Work
    –this is an attempt to reverse the perverse counter-incentive rules coming out of the SSA as it relates to SSDI recipients.

    The object was to secure high-quality, permanent, work-opportunities, for folks on SSDI (disability).

    In exchange for actively participating (and when I secured an appropriate job-match, no easy task in the economy of Michigan), the recipient and I, would split their SSDI payments for up to 5 years & they were not subject to earning-rules, and could keep their Medicaid. After 5 years of continuous employment, the SSDI payments were ended, although the people could rapidly re-apply if they lost their job at any time.

    That was a real eye-opener, anecdotally maybe 20% (max) of the SSDI recipients I encountered were actually interested in re-entering the work force & those were older folks who understood the value-of-work & wanted a better life than simply collecting their disability payments.
    (In contrast, did extensive work with private-insurance “disability” after I got out the Ticket program, and they demanded a high success rate, or they didn’t pay us. It was pure perform-or-starve.)

    Let me pivot on one last tangent– Look up “Maximus Corporation,” they have master-contracts to provide a number of government-services in the Human Services realm (and worldwide).

    I can’t state for a fact, that they are Pure Crony’s, but I would suggest it strongly.
    http://www.maximus.com/federal/contract-vehicles

  • Joe

    It occurs to me that ITT is a vocational tech school, they teach people to work with their hands and minds, that you need reasoning skills to understand and repair things is not allowed in this country any longer, this is part of going to a high tech economy that our leaders have been talking about for the last 3 decades, thus, there will be no production of things we need, and when things we need need repaired, they will be disposed of, regarding coal, it is only used for creating electricity, with out people, you don’t need electricity. Sarc!

  • Joe

    That was meant to read as, when things need to be repaired. iPhones are not suitable as computers.

  • chrisr

    Wayne – you’ll notice the Maximus Corp website solicits the audience to “Follow Us” on Twitter, yet inexplicably links to the @TwitterAPI feed. I chuckled. The webmaster must be paid handsomely.

  • Dave B

    Vocational / technical educations, while perhaps not accredited engineering, information technology or nursing degrees; ITT is providing useful technical education for the working world. Not everyone can dedicate the time or is capable of the rig-gore of a full accredited degree in these areas. A degree from this this institution that develops critical thinking in technical areas is important to many people and the economy. This is much more valuable that an accredited degree from a liberal arts degree with majors such as revised American history, Women’s studies and and so on; probably about as challenging and difficult. But I need folks who can fix my companies server, CAD design my car parts and work supporting the medical fields. In fact I’ll state it, that completing a accredited degree in Liberal Arts is easier than a vocational technical degree. This is just denying many people the opportunity to demonstrate there level of knowledge and accomplishment, following their federal rules that weight school of Art is equivalent to technical subjects. The injustice of Liberals.

  • Rocco

    This relates a little to the school systems as well.

    This entire “white privilege” subject was constructed to distract everyone from the real issue of the outdated Affirmative Action laws. Races other than “white” get all kinds of “rights” with no regard to qualification or education, for jobs, housing, and other free hand outs. In the military races other than white got promoted and not for a job well done, but for being a race other than white.
    So I say again…This entire “white privilege” subject was constructed to distract everyone from the real issue of outdated Affirmative Action laws.

  • Cotour

    Yes, “white privilege” is about redefining the terminology in order to reintroduce the “new” and “improved” concepts to the young people of America.

    Pure Saul Alinski / community organizer manipulations.

    If you control the minds of the young, eventually they grow up to be supportive voters. Its going on right in front of and under the noses of the parents, and they can do little, other than re-instructing their children as required. But time and mass of conditioning is against them.

  • wodun

    If I understand this correctly, ITT was required to pay 40% of the tuition for students requiring financial aide. This money would later be reimbursed to them by the federal government.

    This is a little different than how things are supposed to work, according to the Department of Education, http://ifap.ed.gov/fsahandbook/attachments/1415FSAHbkVol4Ch1.pdf. All of the funds are supposed to be withheld until the school proves the students qualify for benefits.

    This whole process is subjective as there isn’t any specific criteria for being placed in HCM2 and because requirements to comply vary on a case by case bases.

    Schools in HCM2 are subjected to a yearly audit in addition to an audit when they request reimbursement for Title IV payments. Part of requesting the reimbursement is proving that students are eligible for financial aide but isn’t this done when students go through the FAFSA process? The feds should already know. It has been a while since I went to college, so maybe I am missing something.

    The online material doesn’t say how long it takes to approve reimbursements or on what time frame they are paid out. Depending on how long this process takes, it can be a big hit to a school’s finances. It also shows that ITT was operating on slim reserves, hardly the big money privateers they are accused of being.

    Take a look at the list of schools on the HCM2 list at this website, https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/about/data-center/school/hcm They are almost all occupational schools for things like hari dressing. Its kinda funny because politicians require that people have licenses and accreditation for things like braiding hair, same with participating in the realty industry. Something like 7 out of 66 schools on the list are public.

  • wodun

    Something else to consider is the quality of the school. Reading some reviews at Yelp and GradReports doesn’t paint a very rosy picture. But, it should also be noted that many of these same types of complaints are often made about state colleges.

    How many people go to state colleges and drop out after incurring debt? Who get degrees that don’t lead to a job in the field they studied? How many of these students had teachers who taught poorly?

    It seems to me that if we are going to really improve education, then we need to hold all schools to a higher standard and not just occupational schools.

    One last thing, many commenters on Yelp noted that you can get a similar education to what ITT provides for much cheaper at your local community college and IMO, the same is true for what many state colleges offer.

    An Associate Degree is often based on learning real world skills that you use in the job market while Liberal Arts degrees have several extra years of learning things outside of your field of study to help “teach you how to think”. This is useful but it would be more useful if the time spent in a major was as practical as what an AA program provides.

    In today’s society, anyone can become well rounded by indulging in their intellectual curiosity on the internet. Certainly a structured environment helps most people but the problem with many of today’s liberal arts colleges is that they have dumbed down the liberal arts portion by substituting cultural marxism for in depth study of Art, History, Literature, Science, Math, and the Humanities.

    http://www.gradreports.com/colleges/itt-technical-institute

    https://www.yelp.com/topic/los-angeles-itt-tech-anyone-know-of-successful-people-who-graduated-from-there-or-is-it-a-place-for-college-rejects

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