Photo: Dwight Burdette
All 130 ITT Technical Institute campuses nationwide are closing, the company that operates the colleges, ITT Educational Services announced Tuesday.
ITT is one of the largest for-profit colleges in the nation with about 40,000 students attending colleges in 38 states.
In recent years, ITT has increasingly been the subject of numerous state and federal investigations.
In August, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, the organization that accredits ITT and other colleges, determined that ITT “is not in compliance, and is unlikely to become in compliance with [ACICS] Accreditation Criteria.”
This occurred along with more financial oversight measures put in place by the U.S. Department of Education over the past two years due to concerns about ITT’s aggressive recruiting practices, financial mismanagement, and inflated claims about job placement of graduates.
The school’s decisions have put its students and millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded federal student aid at risk, said John B. King Jr., U.S. secretary of education. Last week, the department took further actions to prevent ITT from continuing to add to that risk.
“One possible outcome of oversight actions is that a school may choose to close rather than take corrective actions, which can cause disruption and disappointment for current students,” King said.
He said students have two options.
- If they’re currently or were recently enrolled at ITT, they may be eligible to have their federal student loans for programs at ITT discharged. Their federal loan debt will be wiped away, and they’ll have the option of restarting their education somewhere new. The department will post and update information about how to receive a discharge on its ITT announcements page.
- If students want to continue and complete their program at a different school – especially if they’re close to graduating – they may be able to transfer their credits. However, transferring credits may limit the ability to have federal loans discharged. Closed school discharge may be an option if students enroll in a different program that doesn’t accept ITT credits.
Contact the department’s Office of Federal Student Aid for more information.
