Does anyone recomend ITT Tech?

TommyT

I am getting into the I.T field. I am a little older (40) than most starting a new career but i suffered some injuries that require me to find a new career. Does anyone recommend ITT Tech?

tahjzhuan

I know a proud recent graduate of ITT and someone who thought it was a sham. I looked into it one point it seemed expensive for what it was offering and I declined. Been getting by with a CCAF and commensurate experience, but recently enrolled in WGU and getting tuition reimbursement from my company for it.

CCNTrainee

ITT Tech overcharges, you are better off going somewhere else for a much more affordable price. If you are going to take out a student loan might as well make that hole shallow as you can get it, assuming you don't have a GI bill to use. Good luck!!

srabiee

I highly recommend avoiding any institutions that lack regional accreditation.

MTciscoguy

I started my studies at 50, and looked into ITT, they are way to expensive for what you get, there are much less expensive alternatives to ITT, their courses are good, but they are way over priced. There are a lot of people out there that have secured good jobs because they got their education at ITT, if you are inclined to go that way, I would not worry about their accreditation, people hire people who have graduated from that school. But again, they are overpriced.

JoJoCal19

I would highly recommend against over paying for a for-profit degree from anywhere. Most any community college offers A.S. degrees in IT for a fraction of the cost and are regionally accredited. If you're looking for a bachelors (which you should), I would look into WGU.

digitheads

The ITT Tech here in Florida is NOT an accredited college. That means your money is wasted, and your degree isn't worth the paper its printed on. and Employers in our area are fully aware....

stryder144

I used to work with two individuals who went to ITT, one had an associate and the other a bachelor degree. The first was $40k in debt, the second $70k. That is a lot of money. WGU would cost $24k if you took 8 terms ($3k per term, roughly). Thus, ROI would be better at WGU than at ITT, in this instance. Check out their accreditation, their reputation in your area, and the overall cost. It may, or may not, be the right school for your situation...just make sure you do your due diligence.

bigdogz

ITT has no accreditation and is very expensive. I was looking at them and found out that none of their credits would transfer. The minimum amount of credits to obtain a BS was more than others that were cheaper and accredited .... I guess they need the money.

SephStorm

digitheads wrote: »

The ITT Tech here in Florida is NOT an accredited college. That means your money is wasted, and your degree isn't worth the paper its printed on. and Employers in our area are fully aware....

Is there only one ITT Tech in Florida? Thats wierd...

/s

You all need to be careful with your words. Half of you are saying things that are not true "but what you mean is..." Thats why we have disinformation floating around. ITT is accredited. The accredidation is (last I checked ) national and usually some type of local accredidation based on the specific program. That does often mean that the accredidation isn't worth much.

mackenzae

I haven't heard the name ITT Tech in yearsss... I thought they went the way of the dinosaur. Anyway I would stay away from institutes that started to promise you'd make $XX,000 per yer by using their program. I remember heard those ads on the radio and laughed and you know what.. 6 months later you no longer heard them making those claims.. I'm pretty sure they either got sued or were going to.

Mitechniq

At one point ITT and University of Phoenix did have a niche when it came to flexibility of classes and taking online courses. That has completely disappeared as most reputable universities have a distinct online program and now there is no NEED to go to a for profit-school.

VinnyCisco

ITT is under investigation by the SEC for fraud and deceptive financing. You can find many blogs and sites dedicated to stories of ex-students who are now in debt. One student story lists being in debt 120K due to interest he can not pay off.

My personal opinion is stay away from them.

JoJoCal19

Mitechniq wrote: »

At one point ITT and University of Phoenix did have a niche when it came to flexibility of classes and taking online courses. That has completely disappeared as most reputable universities have a distinct online program and now there is no NEED to go to a for profit-school.

This. Nowadays there are plenty of public, not for profit, state universities and community colleges in each state that offer online or evening classes.

stlsmoore

I do not recommend ITT. Attended and received my "Associates" along with a $40K student loan bill about 10 years ago. I knew I made a mistake when the teacher admitted on the first day that he's never touched a Linux machine in his entire life for our Linux course.

Dakinggamer87

I would also recommend WGU or other community colleges over ITT Tech as others have mentioned much cheaper and great accreditation.

Jamm1n

Never go to a nationally accredited for-profit school. Waste of time and money

bpenn

My GI Bill and tuition assistance from the Air Force ensures I wont pay anything to go to school and graduate with my bachelors. I decided to go to WGU and my entire tuition will be covered. Best decision I have made.

Remedymp

I have to agree with SephStorm.

There is alot of misinformation being spread. ITT operates in a two tier fashion. You have Coproate, then you have Satelites (regional locations) that have to comply with accreditation. ITT corporate can hold the accredetation and regional sites only have to meet the regional accreditation. Obviously it's an institutions choice on whether or not they want to accept the credits from an ITT graduate into their own institution. Vice versa with ITT as well.

But, not all ITT's are the same. Each one operates indepdent from the other. My experience with ITT-tech is that I had a great time and many of my collegues did as well. They all went on to work for major coproations after graduating. Each school has it's own budget. For example: my location had professors/instructors who were already veterans in the field of IT. Most of them either worked for Cisco or other big branded vendors like HP or Juniper or Akami or Palo Alto, etc. When they would receive the class syllabus and they would make neccessary to it and send it back to ITT coproate, and Coproate would then make the changes or disregard it.

I remember when our Network Professors years back asked, "Why aren't the students learning about how to make fiber optic cables and patch panels and building out racks?" Corp basically said, "we don't know" or "didn't think it was necessary". So they allocated a budget to get a bunch of items that the instructors were demanding. Eventually, they tore apart one of the under utilized classrooms and made a make shift data center out of it to create a pseudo real networking environment with CCNP voice equipment and ASA firewalls, Switches and Routers and some 1U servers with VM's. Not sure how much the budget really was; probably $20k or so. This ITT was head and shoulders above the rest because of the instructors and professors. Each site is going to be different.

The point I am trying to make here is, you shouldn't take anyones comments about ITT seriously unless they've actually attended and graduated from there.

anoeljr

I don't know any ITT sites that are "regionally accredited". Regional accreditation is the standard for institutions of higher learning. Credits earned from a school that isn't regionally accredited will most likely not transfer to any public or private colleges/universities. Several people from my church have went there and they all regret it. One reason is because they couldn't even transfer their credits to a community college, let alone a university. They also said the instruction was severely lacking, and they would've been better off on their own. It costs way more than a public school too. You can go to a state flagship school for less than what ITT charges.

networker050184

Remedymp wrote: »

I have to agree with SephStorm.

There is alot of misinformation being spread. ITT operates in a two tier fashion. You have Coproate, then you have Satelites (regional locations) that have to comply with accreditation. ITT corporate can hold the accredetation and regional sites only have to meet the regional accreditation. Obviously it's an institutions choice on whether or not they want to accept the credits from an ITT graduate into their own institution. Vice versa with ITT as well.

But, not all ITT's are the same. Each one operates indepdent from the other. My experience with ITT-tech is that I had a great time and many of my collegues did as well. They all went on to work for major coproations after graduating. Each school has it's own budget. For example: my location had professors/instructors who were already veterans in the field of IT. Most of them either worked for Cisco or other big branded vendors like HP or Juniper or Akami or Palo Alto, etc. When they would receive the class syllabus and they would make neccessary to it and send it back to ITT coproate, and Coproate would then make the changes or disregard it.

I remember when our Network Professors years back asked, "Why aren't the students learning about how to make fiber optic cables and patch panels and building out racks?" Corp basically said, "we don't know" or "didn't think it was necessary". So they allocated a budget to get a bunch of items that the instructors were demanding. Eventually, they tore apart one of the under utilized classrooms and made a make shift data center out of it to create a pseudo real networking environment with CCNP voice equipment and ASA firewalls, Switches and Routers and some 1U servers with VM's. Not sure how much the budget really was; probably $20k or so. This ITT was head and shoulders above the rest because of the instructors and professors. Each site is going to be different.

The point I am trying to make here is, you shouldn't take anyones comments about ITT seriously unless they've actually attended and graduated from there.

I don't think anyone is saying you can't learn a lot there or the instructors suck in every single location. Or that you won't find a job after. It's the exorbitant costs for a non regionally accredited degree that is the problem.

stryder144

I remember, twenty-five years ago, when I lived in New England, that ITT was well-regarded. Here, in the Denver area, not so much. Any school is going to have its issues, from Harvard to ITT. While I enjoy WGU, a lot of people wouldn't be able to attend due to the lack of structure. If you aren't self-sufficient and self-motivated, it would be a horrible experience. Know yourself and know what a school can do for you and your career aspirations. Due diligence. Period.

diggitle

I liked ITT; but only went there due to having chapter 31 vocational rehabilitation. It was highly recommended by my voc rehab counselor. If you have to take out student loans I wouldn't spend 83k (four years) to go there. You can put that same 83k into a mutual fund and do much better.

Remedymp

If you have to take out student loans I wouldn't spend 83k (four years) to go there. You can put that same 83k into a mutual fund and do much better.

This is probably the best advice I've heard on this subject.

There are other schools IIRC, that charge twice as much as ITT even if they're accredited.

Bloomberg posted this recently here about schools with high tuition and low ROI.

markulous

Take these guys' word for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWjDK_pr8_Y

Shoe Box

Do not waste your money on ITT, it is a useless degree. Learn from my story at another similar school with IADT (International Academy of Design and Technology) in Pittsburgh. I saw the commercials on tv one day and said “Dammit, I’m doing this, I’ve got to get some decent job skills”. I went there for Computer Information Management. I could have re-enrolled at the Penn State campus 10 miles away where I already had an Associate’s Degree in Business Administration (also completely useless), but I totally didn’t even think of it. I don’t know why.

Anyway, this IADT had a real good line of BS, and with no one around to tell me otherwise, I went for it. By the end of the first semester, going on weekends, I began to suspect this was not the educational utopia I had been led to believe. The so called “teachers” couldn’t answer computer questions I came up with during the week, and every semester I had to fight with the school administrator to take computer classes, not things like a 5 credit English course and other classes that they claimed would provide a “well rounded” education.

After the third semester or so, I don’t know what happened with the student loan financing, but somehow something was signed and it left me with student loans for future classes, and the school wanting me to pay back $5000 for the previous semesters. After some spirited arguments both on the phone and in person, I told them to go pound salt, they would never see cash from me, get it put back in the loan somehow. They said I wouldn’t be able to graduate with a degree if it wasn’t paid, but at that point I was beyond caring, and was wondering why I was still in the school.

One day, for the Saturday morning class, I dragged myself out of bed, drove 30 miles to the school, and the teachers’ “class” that day was to wheel in a TV and VCR on a stand, and play us some movie with Robert Redford in it, some sort of computer and spy movie, while she did paperwork at her desk. This was NOT what I was paying for! I should have stood up and bitched her out in front of the whole class, now I wish I had. But this was right after the dot com crash, and many computer people were out of work, and she claimed to be high up in some company and was in charge of hiring people, who knows what the truth was.

During most of the time I attended that school, there was a blind guy there. He’d attend classes and use some sort of headset to hear what was on the screen, but I could never understand what employer would hire him for a job that needed more speed than he could do. I figured the school was just running up his student loans to get his money too.

Finally, I found out about the whole accreditation thing, and quit the school. My attitude was “what am I paying you money for?” I went on my own and through having my own PC at home, I learned a lot more, and started advertising for local PC repair in early 2004, which eventually led me to where I am now, having just got my CCT R&S certification after 3-1/2 years of doing Desktop Support for companies.

Eventually, a bunch of students sued the school for misrepresentation of their ability to get students jobs after graduation, and in 2008 the IADT place in Pittsburgh shut down.

A month or so ago, I was on a temp assignment for IT Support right next to where the school had been, on 2 floors of a hotel in Pittsburgh. So I walked in and looked around. The place was empty on those 2 floors. The IADT logos were still on some doors, rooms I had once walked into with high hopes of a good computer education were now being used to store supplies for the rest of the hotel. I’d like to find that IADT administrator, his name was John Minchin, I remember that from our regular meetings, and beat his ass for the lies he told.

Now I know why these places are called degree mills. Useless, for profit companies, looking for naïve students.

And that $5000 they claimed I had to pay right away for the screwup on how my student loans were handled and changed? Never paid it. I let it go into collections, had some extended arguments with bill collectors for a while, and eventually it fell off the credit report. So now it’s like it never happened. Last summer, a debt collector actually called me, trying to collect on the now 12 year old debt, way out of any legal obligation to pay. I played dumb. “IADT what? What is IADT? Never heard of it.” They didn’t call back.

techfan21

I know a few people who work at a ITT tech in Tallahassee FL he said its best to avoid the place if you can.

tt0000

Is this a trick question . Heck no . Stay away from those types like ITT , Devry , Phoenix and those schools similar like that. You need to not walk but run.

1.) They are a waste of money . Too expensive for what you are getting . Why not go to a community college or do their online program . Those are also accredited so if you wish to pursue a 4 yr down the line you will not have issues transferring all of your credits.

2.) I know these kind of schools like to promise employment after finishing their work but remember there is no guarantees for these schools & some employers view them worse in their eyes so be careful.

Yarrr

I'm way late to this thread, but having attended both ITT and community college, I'd heavily advise against ITT.

ITT's hook is that it's accelerated courses with knowledgeable instructors on a schedule that's convenient for you.

Here's the problem with those things:
1. It still takes two years to get an "associate's degree." "Accelerated" just means you gloss over topics that should be covered more in-depth.
2. The instructors at my local community were considerably more knowledgeable than my ITT instructors.
3. Community college schedules are just as convenient (just about everybody in my courses had day jobs and came to class afterward).

So you're paying significantly more money for a degree from an unaccredited institution that doesn't adequately cover important topics.

Don't do it.

olaHalo

Met a guy who owed 120k in student loans. He went to ITT for multiple degrees. He will die before that debt is paid.
His job paid about 40k a year.

However Ive met a handful of guys who really know their stuff and went to ITT.

bigdogz

I had some issues about the program when I looked at it.

At the time there was no accreditation. I looked online and I verified with the counselors this was the case when they talked to me before I thought of applying.

The amount of credits was approximatley 20 over the national requirement. I would not mind it but the credits would not transfer in the understanding that I would go for another degree at another college or obtain my Masters.

I also did some research in my field. On people in technical and managerial positions and found non in my region had possessed a degree from ITT. I understand that not all will go to college A or college B.

I also asked some folks in management about ITT and they said they would not hire someone with a degree from that school. On this YMMV. It was opinions from 70 or so people.

just my two cents.