Complaint Review: ITT Technical Institute - Fort Lauderdale Florida

During my last week of high school in 2004, there were ITT recruiters there talking to people and trying to convince them to check out ITT's campus in Fort Lauderdale. I knew all about ITT Tech as I had seen their commercials and knew of a few people going there. I figured since I am a techie kid, I should go check it out and see if that's the career path I really want to choose. A few days after graduating high school I went to ITT Tech in Fort Lauderdale, FL (Davie) for a tour. I was feeling extremely ambitious about furthering my education and wanted to start college immediately. I could already tell that multimedia was the path I wanted to choose. I skipped summer break and decided to continue my education immediately so that I can keep updated on current technologies. I decided to go in for a tour and I didn’t know that I would be pressured to sign up for classes on-the-spot.

As soon as I walked in the front door at ITT Tech, someone was waiting for me. It was Terry, the recruiter from my high school and I felt pretty comfortable. Terry acted very cool and down to earth like he was my friend and so I trusted him. I trusted him to give me all of the information I needed to make the right decision. Looking back, everything Terry told me was either an outright lie or a major stretch of the truth. Being an impressionable 18 year old straight out of  high school, I looked up to them and thought they would have my best interests at heart.

After touring the school for a bit and answering a few of my questions about the programs, he brings me to the entrance exam room. It's just a regular office with a cubicle and a computer in it. They give you 15-20 minutes to take a short test with a bunch of math problems. I've always been terrible at math and I thought I may not have passed the entrance exam. To my surprise, Terry comes back in and informs me that I have passed the exam. ITT Tech has been known for passing anyone on the entrance exam even if they failed it. They were caught doing this when “secret shoppers” went to the schools and purposefully flunked the entrance exam. They passed and were admitted to the school. I believe this happened to me as well. Being 18 and naive, I believed him when he told me I passed and I was really excited that I would have the opportunity to further my education and open up my future to financial security and success.

We entered an extremely uncomfortable, high-pressure room where the contracts are to be signed. I didn't feel pressured or uncomfortable at the time because I really didn't know any better but looking back now, at age 30, it makes me cringe. Terry brings out the paperwork that I will be signing and tries to explain everything to me. He does a very poor job of explaining the loan situation, how much it will cost, and never mentioned having to take out private loans. I was just a kid, I didn't know anything about loans and interest rates let alone the insane terms in the contract. Private loans were never once mentioned at all in the entire meeting nor throughout my entire enrollment there. All they would tell you is that you need to fill out this form to continue your schooling here. They tell you that if you don’t fill out the forms, you will be pulled from class and will not be able to continue. I thought that I was still receiving federal loans because I had never even heard the words ‘private loan’ until after I graduated.

To read through that entire contract would take at least a week of studying it and a lawyer to interpret it, but they want you to sign with them right there in the office. They make sure to include an arbitration clause in the bottom of the contract stating that you can never sue ITT Tech for any reason.  They tell you that if you don't sign today, you might miss out on being admitted to the school and will have to wait until the next available semester. Terry knew at that point that I wanted to start college as soon as possible after high school and he used that against me. He kept asking me if I really wanted to work at Publix forever or do I want a real job?

I signed the papers because I wanted to start right away. I wanted to get my Associate’s degree in Multimedia and then my Bachelor’s degree in Digital Entertainment and Game Design. Unfortunately for me, halfway through the Multimedia course, ITT Tech pulled the Video Game Design course and no longer offered it. Basically I took a bunch of prerequisite courses to prepare me for the Video Game Design course for absolutely no reason. I spent countless hours and months of time learning 3DS Max and Maya, etc for a program that no longer exists. To add insult to injury they said I could enroll in the Information Systems Security program for my Bachelor’s Degree. The problem with that is they let me enroll without ever having taken any of the REQUIRED prerequisite classes. I was thrown into a program with absolutely no prior experience that was absolutely necessary to understand everything. I had to drop out of the program because I couldn’t keep up not having taken the required prerequisites.

ITT Tech’s response was “You indeed, were taking “bridgework” associate level courses (IT109, IT220, and IT221) to continue to prepare for the bachelor level ISS program coursework.”  I was actually pretty shocked by that response because it makes absolutely no sense. Why would I be taking associate level courses while enrolled in a bachelor program? I was taking these classes alongside the bachelor level courses so I feel that I was set up for failure.

A common pattern I noticed was a complete lack of supplies and outdated equipment. Almost every classroom / lab had students sharing computers or sharing something else because there weren't enough for everyone. The computers were extremely outdated and half-working and the software was always many versions behind the current one. For a technical school with the slogan “Education For The Future”, you’d think they’d have industry standard equipment and software and current versions. ITT Tech spends more money on advertising and commercials than they do on their actual education.

The instructors at ITT Tech actually taught students how to pirate software in order to get current versions on their own computers. They would actually distribute pirated software CDs to the students. Among the software being outdated or pirated, the computers were all very outdated and slow. All of the work that we were supposed to be doing during lab time now has to be taken home where it can be worked on using our own current generation software / hardware. This created another huge problem. We would be forced to do all of our work at home on a newer software version that wasn’t compatible with the old software version. That means we could only do work either at school or at home. I believe the point of lab time is to be able to do your work at the school while also being able to use the instructors and other resources for guidance. That’s not something that you can do from home.

Outdated and lack of equipment wasn't the only problem. Instructors were getting fired on a constant basis. Almost every class I took had at least 2, sometimes 3 instructors come and go. An instructor would get fired mid-way through a class and then a new instructor would come in. The new instructor would always come in teaching something completely different than where we left off. Every so often you would come to class and there wouldn't even be an instructor there that day so we were just sent home. One instructor even told me that you don't have to do anything here because I'm going to pass everyone. He was fired shortly after that but sure enough, everyone passed. Even the kids who didn't show up for class got passing grades. Most of the instructors would completely disregard the books and not even use them at all. Some instructors would read directly out of books that were purchased from Barnes & Noble and some would teach us using YouTube videos. That is something I could have done at home, for free.

ITT Tech’s career services department was another major disappointment at this school. They would look for potential job offerings for students on websites like Monster.com and Craigslist.org. They actually had the nerve to offer me a $12 an hour position in a warehouse answering phones. They called it a “web design” job so that it looked like they found me a job in my field. It wasn’t in my field. It was a job working for a decorative concrete company who offered no such position in my field of study. Those are not the types of jobs I was promised by ITT Tech to be set up with. They misinform you and make you believe that they have solid connections with the industry and will place you in a decent position. I had to take the job because I had $60,000 in high interest student loan debt and no way to pay for it. I eventually quit because after searching for almost a year, I found a better paying job without their help and I’m still not working in my field of study. They have no business promising “job placement” to any of their students when they can’t actually deliver that.

All in all, I find the education I received at ITT Technical Institute in Fort Lauderdale, FL to be extremely lacking and I absolutely did not get even close to what I paid for. I experienced predatory lending, false advertisement, lies, lack of equipment, outdated or pirated software, unknowledgeable instructors, instructors getting fired in every class and a career services department that is no help finding a job that they promised. I shouldn't have to pay for something that I never received.

I’m not just some deadbeat trying to get out of his loan obligations. I have no problem paying for what I signed up for. I have been paying my loans on time for over 8 years now and have never missed or been late on one single payment. I have paid over $40,000 into my loans so far and yet the principal balance doesn’t decrease by much at all. There’s no reason why interest rates on an education should be so high, this is the future of the country we’re talking about here. What I do have a problem with is being lied to, defrauded, preyed upon and sold a defunct education that has no practical use in the real world. I have not been able to use a single skill learned at ITT Tech in my current job.

I did not get what I paid for or what I was promised by ITT Tech. They have been sued and accused of fraud on multiple occasions which has ruined their reputation and ultimately my degree from them. Employers don’t want to hire someone who attended such a school and it doesn’t look good on my resume. Employers see ITT Tech on my resume and assume I didn’t get a proper education and they question my choices. I hope to see some sort of loan forgiveness for me and the thousands of others for the major damage they have caused all of us. I am not alone and it can be proven by doing a simple Google search for ‘ITT Tech reviews’. It’s hard to find a legitimate positive review about them. www.myittexperience.com and http://www.consumeraffairs.com/education/itt.html will prove that.

I would like to use this space to point out all of the facts that show ITT Technical Institute is not an ethical or moral institution. They do not have students’ best interest at heart and they will do whatever they can to squeeze as much federal aid from each student as they can, at any cost.

• In August 1998, 15 former students alleged misrepresentation, fraud and concealment by ITT arising out of their recruitment and education at ITT campuses. In September 1998, ITT settled all of the claims.
• On February 25, 2004, federal agents raided the company's headquarters and ten of its campuses. The investigation negatively affected the company's stock and triggered several class action lawsuits by investors.
• In October 2005, ITT agreed to pay $730,000 to settle a lawsuit with California in which employees alleged that it inflated students' grade point averages so they qualified for more financial aid from the State of California.
• An investigation by WGBA-TV (NBC26, Green Bay, Wisconsin) found evidence of widespread grade inflation. In one instance, a student got 100% on a computer forensics assignment by emailing the professor a noodle recipe. The station believes this to be a way to increase federal student aid funding.
• In early March 2011 WTMJ-TV (NBC4, Milwaukee, Wisconsin) ran an investigation finding teachers lying on attendance records so they could get cash bonuses paid by ITT Tech. ITT Tech formerly used an attendance policy as part of a requirement to get financial aid to show student progress.
• In 2013, a complaint was filed against ESI and two ESI executive officers in US District Court for the Southern District of New York regarding securities. The Massachusetts Laborers' Annuity Fund filed a similar complaint and the cases were consolidated. The Plumbers and Pipefitters National Pension Fund and Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Retirement Fund were the lead plaintiffs.
• Students continue to allege that private loans with JP Morgan Chase and other banks are predatory.
• In 2013 USA Today listed more than 50 ITT campuses as "red flag" schools because their student loan default rates were higher than their graduation rates.
• California Regent Richard C. Blum (Senator Dianne Feinstein's husband) has been a significant shareholder of the stock^[15][16] despite allegations of conflict of interest.
• On February 26, 2014, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued ITT for its use of loans the college chain knew would default.
• In August 2014, the US Department of Education placed ESI under "heightened cash monitoring" failing to submit financials and compliance audits tied to its administration of federal financial aid. CEO Kevin Modany also announced his resignation.
• In November 2014, J.P. Morgan Chase Bank loaned ITT Educational Services $79,000,000 to "satisfy a federal penalty".
• In December 2014, Cerberus Capital Management issued a $100,000,000 term loan to ESI. The loan will mature in December 2017.
• In May 2015 The SEC charged ITT Tech with fraud over its student loan programs.
• In May 2015 California suspends GI eligibility for ITT Tech.