ITT Technical Institute Nightmare victim of ITT READ before you THINK of going there Dayton Ohio

Graduated '01 with 3.5 GPA @ Dayton, Ohio. CNST associates degree. Heres my story...

Recruiter was amazing, and said anything, just to sell me. Much of what was "promised" was actually lies, and, I believe illegal. I was 18 and 2 months out of highschool. My parents are middle class people/income and offered to pay half of my schooling. If I were to decide to quit, then they would stop funding permanently. Basically I am getting 1 shot for help.

The excursion started great! multitudes of students, every class was full, financial aid was amazing at getting us help. We, being middle class, somehow had to pay more because we "made" more. Within 2 months exactly 80% of the "multitudes of students" had withdrawn. They obviously saw the same thing I did involving the issues at ITT, but they had more options than I. Again, i have 1 and only 1 shot at payment help with education.

The courses were a joke. We took rediculous classes, art being an example, that were "required". Point being there was more emphasis on the art class than the windows NT class. Which will an employer want you think: art or windows NT knowledge? Who was my teacher for the windows NT class? A FINANCIAL AID LADY. She knew NOTHING about windows NT. Thus, I learned nothing from the class. Most of my classes that were of any importance were similar in lack of proper teacher/teaching. You would think that a computer major would disassemble/reassemble a newer, or reasonably new, computer.

That was not the case...I got the luxury of taking apart a very old 486 computer...far beyond obsolete. Throughout my time of important computer classes, there was VERY LITTLE hands on anything...The textbooks rarely had any usefull information in them or any relevant information usually. Also, never did they cover more than the critical basics.

I graduated after a long enduring, and bitter, time at ITT. ITT pushes this "98% job placement, we find you jobs!!!" hook, and I was one who bit into it. The truth is they will give resumes to jobs they have "CONTRACTS" with...example...i ask "can you help me get a job in my home town at X place?" They reply with "No, we do not have a contract with them. How about a nice 8$ an hour job 3 hours away?". I was employed at Radioshack before, during, and after I graduated. One month after I graduated, I got a call AT WORK, from ITT. The woman asked "have you successfully gotten a job in your field of study?". I retort with "No ma'am, everywhere I have applied to seems to be ignoring me...". She replys with "You currently work at Radioshack correct? Are there computers there? " I reply with "Yes, there are computers here, and I have been here before I attended ITT." She says "Thank you, thats all I need to know!" and hangs up. 2 weeks later I get a letter in the mail from ITT. It is a congratulatory letter stating: We are happy to have helped you aquire a job in your field of study, we are proud of our 98% job placement, if you ever need our services again....etc". Obviously, I did NOT attend a 25,000$ school/get a degree to work minimum wage at Radioshack. Obviously the lady on the fone simply checked "works with computers" even though all I remotely did was SELL THEM. Glad i can contribute to their "good" numbers without them returning the favor.

I could NOT get an employer to consider me for the bottom level/entry level job in the IT ANYWHERE. I decided to continue my education because my original plan was a masters degree.

In comes the invention of online schooling. I pursued MANY different colleges...ALL telling me the same thing: your credits do NOT transfer, you will need to start over. Obviously, I cannot start over. ITT develops their online schools. I have no other choice and decide to pursue it...

I am enrolled into the second ever online class started by ITT. This online world is sold to people with the words "do at your own pace, on your own time". They totally proved that wrong. The requirements were to log in at SPECIFIC times for an "attendance" grade. Obviously, if i work 40+ hours a week dayshift, i will not be able to log in every day between 1 and 3 o'clock. So much for "do at your own pace/time". Another good trick is enforcing the "work with a group" idea. How, honestly, could one work with a group yet not see, physically talk to, or even know who is on the other end? Tragedies here include: One student does the entire project by himself immediately after it is assigned and turned in. The other members of the "group" havent even seen the task assigned...and its already done and turned in. The good student gets an A, the others get a zero score. I saw this happen to several people, myself being included. There were no options for the ones left out, no working at your own pace, nothing besides "TOO BAD".

What made me decide to stop online classes? My fourth quarter, roughly 1 year and almost half way through to being done, there is a severe problem. All of your grades for everything you have done were posted on the internet. You could see any grade at any time and any test. I just finished my 4th final exam, and somehow, ALL OF MY GRADES BESIDES THE FINAL EXAM WERE ERASED. The dean calls me. She asks if i had "been attending online classes with ITT". WELL OBVIOUSLY, IF NOT WHAT AM I PAYING FOR? I was the victim, yet I was the one who was getting the blame. The teachers couldnt even vouche that I attended any classes, they replied with "his name doesnt sound familiar..." Obviously they paid attention to the papers they were grading...I was faced with the issue of PROVE I WENT TO SCHOOL THERE. I guess the bills i was paying wasnt enough to prove i attended school with them. Heres the tricky part: Half of the work online was web based, meaning answer this multiple choice/complete this questionairre, the other half was microsoft word or equivalent. Point being half was unsavable, other half WAS. I, fortunately, saved every document i did for school that i was able to save. When i submitted all my work to the dean...after much deliberation she decided this: Since YOU can only provide half of what was done, then I am forced to only give you half the grade. I feel this is fair in this situation however it may have happened...I went from CLOSE to a 4.0 average to a FLAT C AVERAGE. I immediately withdrew. This was not a fair situation in any way. It was being made out as "my fault" their database had an error and erased all my grades.

My transcript for my online classes (which was almost impossible to get) looks like someone just filled in random numbers to "satisfy" the situation. I learned nothing and spent almost 20,000$...what a waste.

I have yet to have any employer take my education seriously. Matter of fact, most of them laugh at ITT. I ended up at the local factory AND STILL cannot get a tech job or even in the door with my degree.

On to financial aid: the "other" terrorist. Yes, they can get you money...No, you will probably never make enough money to pay it back. They are out to MAKE money, NOT help you. Example...any graduate gets a 6 month deferment period which no payments will be required, no interest incrued, no worries. I requested this when i went on unemployment due to being laid off. I was assured by sallie mae (their most used at the time in my area) that ALL of my loans were defered. 5 and a half months down the road i get a call from a collection agency saying my credit was so far down the tubes that i will never be able to buy anything until I pay 1,600$ for loan A, and 960$ for loan B by today. What had happened (in a nutshell) is they DID defer A SINGLE loan, NOT THE OTHER 7 LOANS I HAD.

Also, the real terrorist move was this: Every single late loan payment tacked 50$ late fee onto your loan...7 late loans = 350$ per month...6 months of late fees = 2,450$. I GOT ROBBED. There was no turning this around, i could not do anything like consolidation, they were flat out with me and said "all you can do is pay this. until then, your credits only getting worse and you wont be able to buy anything." No, not one single letter in the mail, not one single fone call. They swore they sent multitudes of mail, and called a rediculous amount of time...but i swear to you, would i had known it would have NEVER gotten out of hand. My credit obliterated and my wallet empty, at least i learned to NOT ever say anything good about ITT.

Devry accepts ITT credits. They actually "cancell out" your ITT classes and give you an ETA to graduation. EVERY TIME i have interviewed against a Devry grad...they have won. I will be attending there very soon.

Unfortunately, i have screwed my life over not once...but twice with ITT. Please, do ANYTHING but consider elsewhere, I BEG YOU!

Salvadore
Chillicothe, Ohio
U.S.A.