ITT Shuts Down: ITT Technical Institute Closes After 50 Years Leaving Students Angry And Employees Jobless
ByITT Technical Institute announced the permanent closing of all its campuses nationwide beginning this school opening. The management blames the closure to the recent ban issued from the U.S. Department of Education. The said ban prevents ITT campuses from accepting enrollees who are receiving financial aids from the federal government.
ITT closure affects their 35,000 incoming students expecting to continue if not to finish their degree and manage to get a diploma. A total of 8,000 employees is also expected to lose their jobs as the institute closes. Some of these employees will have to serve a bit longer than the others as they will be assisting the affected students.
The U.S. Department of Education already sent emails offering forms of recovery strategies to the 35,000 ITT closure affected students. They gave them two options to choose from. Student loan debtors may avail student loan forgiveness which the government is obligated to do to student victims of school closure.
The student may also consider transferring their credits to another institution for them to be able to complete the same degree. This option, however, disqualifies them from the student loan forgiveness as this step does not invalidate their years of study in ITT.
The ITT Technical Institute Management believes that this is an unconstitutional and inappropriate act. They said that they will now have to rely on other parties to understand and to prevent this action that they consider reprehensible from happening again, The LA Times reported.
Meanwhile, John B. King Jr., U.S. Department of Education secretary said that this step was a very difficult decision to make but he believes that they have done the right thing. He said that this action was to protect many from the possibility of worse financial and educational damage in the future should ITT continues to operate.
ITT Technical Institute failed to comply with some basic operation standards. Some of the institute's officials are also facing a lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission set for October 2017. The case was due to their misleading statements about their in-house-student-loan program, The Washington Post reported.
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