Campus: Saint Rose - 098
Director: William Wells (approved hire)
Director of Career Services: R. Christian Bilich (hiring manager)
Curent Staff: Patricia Marshall and Shelia Jones
Problem: Neither has a Bachelor's Degree as required by job posting.

HOW CAN THE ITT STUDENTS HAVE GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT WHEN THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE DEPARTMENT TO ASSIST IN FINDING EMPLOYMENT ARE NOT PROPERLY EDUCATED PER THE JOB POSTING?????

Job Posting from ITT web site:

Career Services Specialist
Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in social science, discipline, human resources, business, marketing or a related area preferred.
At least 6 months to 1 year of experience in executive search, employment staffing, career services, out placement services or sales experience in the corporate sector.
Excellent communication skills along with a helpful disposition necessary to deal effectively and courteously with internal and external contacts.
Past history of developing constructive and cooperative working relationships with others and maintaining them over time.
Proficient in utilizing a personal computer and Microsoft Office.
Ability to multi-task and handle a high pressure environment with timeline pressures.
Experience in organizing, writing and presenting reports and presentations.

I am writing because I believe that ITT Technical Institute may be trying to circumvent the "program integrity" mentioned on your web site regarding the gainful employment regulations:

Dated: September 24, 2010
"The Department of Education today announced that it is on schedule to implement new regulations of the for-profit education sector dealing with gainful employment and 13 other issues to protect students and taxpayers... Final regulations to ensure program integrity in federal financial aid programs are scheduled for publication on or around November 1, 2010, and will go into effect on July 1, 2011..."

The new regulations, in my opinion, focuses on the marketing practices to new students, relationships to federal funding, and employment strategies of for-profit education providers. However, I believe that ITT is partially moving the marketing of students to the academic area. They are calling this marketing strategy as the "re-entry" program. The focal point of this program is to gain 10% of the gross dropped student for the previous trailing 12-months. A bonus program was also attached if you achieve a certain percentage above the 10% (star bonus). Here is where I believe this strategy becomes unethical and an effort to circumvent the new regulations. If a student is dropped from a quarter, then that student is a drop for every quarter in the trailing 12-month period which means some students are counted at least 3 more times than the 1 time that student was dropped. For example, for the March quarter of the new year, ITT counts the trailing 12 months of drops which is counting back 12 months from the new quarter:

December quarter
Student dropped

September quarter
Student counted as dropped again

June quarter
Student counted as dropped again

March quarter
Student counted as dropped again

The trailing 12-month gross dropped number is more than the number of students in the school and that is the number they use to make the goal of re-entry students for the academic personnel (the 10% of the gross drops = 10% of a fictitious dropped student number - fathom students). I am told that the gross dropped student number in one school was approximately 490 but the program from its inception did not get more than approximately 350 students. How can you drop more students than you ever had in the program and then be asked to market and attain 10% of this fictitious number?

One student counts at least 3 quarters (3 times more). Then the representatives from the academic area must try to market to the actual drops (the real amount of dropped students, not the inflated number). There rationale behind this is that the period to attain re-entry students can go back decades of years, but the people in charge know that normally after a year or two of being out of college the student will probably not return. I believe that these unrealistic goals are trying to be made into a new marketing path to possibly circumvent the regulations of the gainful employment implementations. Additionally, if what I am told is correct, a re-entry fee is charged to the students in addition to the exorbitant tuition, which seems almost like a practice of "extortion". Just my opinion but please check it out!

I already disapprove of ITT holding the current technology back given the money charged for tuition - the computers are not the top of the line, the software is outdated, and equipment used in sub-par ()opinion) - when the cost of a Bachelor degree is quickly approaching $100, 000. The students should be using cutting edge equipment with the latest software. When ITT was beginning to teach Windows XP and Office 2007, Windows 7 and Office 2010 was out in the market. These students could be doctors with that price tag!

If ITT continues in this fashion, then the pressure will be off the marketing team because the academic team will be another marketing source off the radar. Off the radar because the academic marketing strategies was not mentioned as a part of the area questioned under this gainful employment regulations.

When I first spoke with the reps at ITT they informed me that it wasn't difficult to drop if you absolutely had to, which it wasn't at all. They get a ton of money out of you if you complete your program or if you drop.

Think before you ever sign any paperwork. Is $47K really worth it? When you get out you will be working just to pay off your loans.

From my experience the instructors were really nice and knew what they were talking about. The problem arises when you have to drop after attending for 2 weeks (6 classes total)! You are then paying for 50% of the quarter and that equates to roughly $3, 600.00. Ok, not the end of the world.

What they neglect to tell you is if you drop that early on your loans are null and void and that they send your balance off to a collection agency. If that balance isn't paid off in 3 months it will have a negative affect on your credit report and you will have that burdon for 7 years.

Now I am going to be stuck with this negative mark for the next 7 years because I cannot afford to pay them roughly $1, 200.00 per month.

My advice to anyone thinking of enrolling really think about the cost. You can go anywhere else and not have to pay that much money for an education. They are extremely overpriced and the financial aid department that I delt with was giving me wrong information.

I was being billed from sallie mae money I did not owe. When taken my taxes they stated that was all i owed but never could give me a receipt for payoff. NOw come to find out they billed me for $8, 147.87 who can i contact to complain besides their attornies? I called Eric Reicin there attorny he said he could not answer any questions and can not help me. I know that there has been alot of complaints and to let people know i went through ITT Technical Institute which a scam. I know a representative / recruiter quit because of their scams.

I am a former instructor for ITT, having chosen to quit after learning the truth about what goes on behind the scenes inside the ITT system.

If you are considering any ITT school, LOOK ELSEWHERE. The reasons?

1) Frankly, you will be embarrassing yourself if you attend there. Anyone can get into ITT; in fact, the recruiters target low-income, minority, and under-qualified candidates to attend. The majority of the students I knew were not even reading or writing at the high-school level. Many of them did not even have a concept of how to behave in a college classroom.

2) You will not find a job unless you are extremely lucky, or self-taught. Companies have wised up to the fact that ITT classes are watered-down and that the degrees are relatively worthless.

3) If you intend to be a serious student, you will be surrounded by people who do not. Trust me. Students at ITT are trained to expect their grades to be handed to them. There is no accountability whatsoever.


4) You will probably not get quality instruction. Instructors are re-hired based on "numbers, " which refers to how many students pass each class, get high grades, attend, etc. The result is that we are basically told, in code, to hand out false or inflated grades, and most instructors do it. We are also trained to treat the students like children. We call them to make sure they come to class, email them about homework, feed them treats to keep attendance up, and have "raffles" and other nonsense incentives to make them feel happy at school.

5) You will be paying more than you would at a prestigious private college.

6) I have taught at multiple colleges over the years, and can say with certainty that the material at ITT is so dumbed-down that I would be embarrassed to teach it to a sixteen-year-old. They design the courses so that it is virtually impossible to fail. This means that the bright and hardworking students gain no skills, and that the lazy students gain a false sense of confidence and ability (since they are getting A's mainly for attending class and turning in sloppy work whose content the instructors are trained to grade for completion, not content).

7) If you try to transfer, you won't be able to. I woke up to what was going on at ITT when some students confided in me that they felt "trapped" at the school because nobody would take their credits. One student of mine was so angry and crushed by ITT that he was willing to start from ground zero at another school (none of his classes transferred-- over a year's worth of school wasted).

Are you convinced yet?? I am not saying any of these things as a disgruntled former employee. I left very quietly, choosing to seek work elsewhere because I felt guilty and ashamed about remaining a part of this organization.

It broke my heart to see some really sweet and well-meaning kids get duped into enrolling here. They deserved the truth. So give it a second thought and don't fall into the same pit.


-embarrassed former instructor