Thousands of students across the country have had their academic dreams crushed as it was announced that ITT Technical Institute was permanently closing all of its locations. The move by the nation’s largest for-profit college comes as the US Department of Education announced that new students would no longer be eligible for federal student aid such as Pell Grants and loans.
The closing of the school will impact approximately 35K students who were getting ready to start classes this month. In addition, more than 8K employees at ITT will now lose their jobs. The US Department of Education announced that students who left the school within the last 120 days would be eligible to have federal loans for their ITT education forgiven if they want to continue their studies at another school.
The federal government pulled the school’s eligibility for funding after investigations of its recruiting and accounting practices. U.S. Education Secretary John B. King Jr. said Tuesday that his agency did not take its action lightly and that federal officials were committed to helping ITT’s students. King stated on the US Department of Education blog site “Homeroom”:
“The school’s decisions have put its students and millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded federal student aid at risk. Last week, the Department of Education took oversight actions to prevent ITT from continuing to add to that risk. When we made that decision, we did not take it lightly. One possible outcome of oversight actions is that a school may choose to close rather than take corrective actions, which can cause disruption and disappointment for current students. Ultimately, we made a difficult choice to pursue additional oversight in order to protect you, other students, and taxpayers from potentially worse educational and financial damage in the future if ITT was allowed to continue operating without increased oversight and assurances to better serve students.”
