Complaint Review: ITT Tech

I am an ex-employee of ITT Tech in Burr Ridge - I am warning you to be careful if you are interested in going to this school!

I only worked here for less than a year and I have worked at other schools....this school is not worth going to, find a better school or a regionally accredited school. You will receive a $40,0000+ degree and won't make that a year after you graduate, despite what your student representative or the so called "Director of Recruitment" may say. They both will tell you that you will work for the FBI or the CIA with one of their degrees once you graduate...you will be lucky if you work for UPS or will end up being a contractor at another company. If you want to make $10-$12 an hour, which is good money for their graduates, then go to school here.

My biggest complaint about this school is how they treat their employees. I was a Student Representative, or what you would call an admissions rep. I have done this at other schools and never had a problem recruiting students. At ITT you would be lucky to get 1 person a week to be interested in going to school there or the degree program was not offered at this particular location.

Most of the people I spoke to said they requested the information by accident. Once I finally got someone interested they would see how much it would cost and drop. Despite the many reasons with no co-signer or bad credit but also they find out that the credits WILL NOT TRANSFER to any school because it is a trade school.

So how do you get someone to go to school there. Well, the Director might force you the student to sign the enrollment agreement even if you don't know how you were going to pay for it or if you couldn't find a co-signer she we tell the student rep, "you gotta have a friend that would co-sign for your student, we all have a friend with really bad credit, come on help me out!" Despite how much she denied she told you that! SO that was the first problem. so not only was no one interested but you would be told "YOU SUCK" everyday when you can't get some one to go to school there.

The Regional Director would come there and basically tell you the same thing. You would get told if you don't make your "Numbers" for the next start you will get written up or fired. Another employee was told she might as well find another job now.

So how are you supposed to help someone when you are critisized EVERYDAY! Even the Director of the school was a complete b***h but had no BACKBONE so she would tell the Director of Recruitment to tell you some b******t to make you feel like you are not doing your job......

So beware if you are looking for a school or for a job, do not go to school here or work here!

I feel bad for the people who never finished their degree or are stuck paying for a quarter or two. go somewhere else!!


Ex Employee - Burr Ridge, Illinois

i went to a for profit beauty school that promised me a great future! not!!!-what i got was a minimum wage career and a career that caters to homosexual males! id never tell my worst enemy to go into the hairstyling field. its lies,scams and welfare wages!

Chris, you probably don't have to worry about money being taken out of your paycheck. It will hurt your credit though. I was in the vocational school business for many years and made lots of money because nobody reads the contracts. I also was involved with collections. It's a long process to garnish your wages and then depending on your income and bills they might not get very much money each month anyway. I rarely went through the process.

Don't lose any sleep over this. If by some miracle they actually take you to court, show up if you want and tell your story to the judge. You would probably lose.
I never lost a case when I sued because of the iron-clad signed contract and I would then only sue if I had a co-signer with a good paying job.

They will instead probably keep calling to try to scare you into paying because it's a cheap way to get people to pay. They will threaten you with "legal action", but don't worry. It's usually just a legal firm that they use to try and scare you with letters and phone calls. That's all they do, try to scare you into paying. How do I know? I have used them myself.

I could get people to sign blank contracts because all they really want to hear about is the "great job" you will be qualified for and how they will help you get it
Of course if you really read the contract, it clearly states that they cannot guarantee you any type of job.

If you don't care about your credit, just hang up EVERY TIME THEY CALL. Do not respond to any of their mail.

To anyone else thinking about going to vocational school remember this:

1. Always read and understand EVERYTHING before you sign.

2. You probably won't have enough experience to get the job you were training for. (Medical training is the only field that I saw students get jobs immediately after graduation.)

3. Schools goals are to get money from you through Federal grants, Federal loans, private loans, and cash.

4. If you don't attend class for a certain amount of time, they can't collect the money from the government grants and loans.

5. You have the right to cancel before a certain time. Make sure you know the correct way to cancel, they must give you the paperwork to do this.

6. Any school that uses Federal money must be fully accredited. Make sure you receive the school catalog which must list the accreditation body with phone numbers for you to call with any problems. THEY WILL REALLY INVESTIGATE YOUR CONCERNS.

7. If you already attended a school and are now stuck with a Federal student loan, do not ignore it. If you can't make payments, you can ask for deferments which can save your credit. You will still be charged interest, but it's better than a default which then allows the Government to take your tax refund.

8. In my opinion, save your money and go to community college. We never taught anything you couldn't learn there for a lot less money.

Margaret: That is excellent advice. I am so sorry to read about Chris being duped by ITT Tech. They are among the worst offenders. One has to keep in mind that ITT Tech is an NYSE public traded company and, like all public companies, they are under tremendous pressure to produce revenue growth on a continual basis any way they can under the law. That's why they operate on the very fringe of the law. They've been investigated time and time again and the FTC is never going take any genuine substantive action against them, other than to make them change their misleading commercials just a little bit. I've been hiring technical people for nearly 30 years at different companies. If ITT "graduates" believe that they're really going to get ahead, then they are sadly mistaken. These commercial schools are all about money; they exist for no other reason. As you mentioned, the state community college system(s) and university system(s) are the best path for young people who want to get the most from their education dollar(s). Resumes from places like ITT Tech, DeVry, University of Phoenix and other for-profit businesses (I will not call them schools) will, in 99.9% of submissions, cause a very nicely worded letter to be sent thanking the applicant for their interest in the company. The resume will then be sent to a place where the paper can be recycled into some other useful product. I have never been at a corporation where the policy was any different. Many people will think this unfair. Too bad. That's the way it is.

I was raised in Louisiana and have resided in Texas for the last 16 years. I attended college and Vo Tech Education in both states. although I am unfamiliar with the other 48 states educational systems, let me explain something about the difference in public Vo -Tech Education and a private career technical school.
Louisiana is a notoriously poor state, and most work there consists of the blue collar type of employment.

Louisiana has public Vocational and Technical schools there because community college was pretty much non exisitant there until the mid 90's Some examples of this are the following schools I am familiar with. TH HArris Vo Tech, Opelousas, Louisiana and Lafayette Regional Technical, in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Lets say a person is interested in taking something like Medical/Nursing/Pharmacy Assistant, Aircraft Mechanic, NDT, Business Office/Secretarial they pay a small tuition, say 200.00 for a quarter and pay for all their own books, and supplies. Student aid is offered.
All the instructors are definately cerfified.

The schools are run by the state public education system so they know that they cannot charge a person 25,000 to become a Nurse Assistant whose average wages are 9.00 an hour. My ex husband attened the public vo tech school in LAfayette, Louisiana and took Electronics Technology. When all was said and done he had paid approx. total 3,000 in tuition and another 1000 in books and supplies, and places like ITT Tech are charging people 50,000. Its a BIG SCAM! MY ex got an excellent post secondary education and even the opportunity to work for NASA.

I do not know if other states have public vo tech education, however if a person wants to major in Criminal Justice go to either a 2 or 4 year college because if one wants to become a police officer, they will need at least 60 credit hours from either a 2 0r 4 year state college, not a private career school. Now if a person wants to take something like Sound & Recording Engineer they can attend a specialty private career school because most 2 year colleges or public vo tech schools will not offer this. But even with that said, still investigate the school and do your homework and stay on top of things and then you won't get a big SCAM!!

If people would just investigate their state's employment web pages, average wages are stated for various careers and those wages are not some uninformed sales recruiter making a bogus sales pitch saying someone can earn 15.00 an hour as a nurse assistant.

I have attended community college (Texas) 4 year college (Louisiana) and a for profit career school on line, however those studies were more about personal enrichment and additional knowledgement more than transferring credit courses.

When I transferred my college credit from Louisiana I had 25 credit hours, Texas only accepted 15 and I had to take a CLEP test to test out of the rest of my English courses. If every future student in the US would accept this advice, they would all be much better off and for profit careeer schools with heavy handed sales tactics would be curbed down to very specialty schools and education for more comman careers would shift exclusively to community colleges and public vo tech schools if offered in their state.