ITT Technical Institute
ITT Technical Institute was a for-profit, career-focused, regionally accredited business and technology school with 130 campuses in 31 states, including a Bessemer campus at 6270 Park South Drive near the I-459 interchange at Morgan Road which opened in April 1994. That campus, which was owned by the company, included a 34,178 square foot one-story building with 295-spaces parking lot on 5.33 acres. Richard Bishop served as director of the campus from 2014 until its closure.
The school's parent company was founded in 1946 as Educational Services Inc. It was acquired by the ITT Corporation in 1966, changing its name to ITT/ESI with a divisional headquarters in Carmel, Indiana. The division was spun off through an initial public offering in 1994, but ITT still held 84% of the new company. ITT divested its holdings over the next five years, allowing the institutes to continue using their name under license.
ITT Technical Institute's degree programs in information technology, computer software, networking and security, electronics, drafting and design/manufacturing technology, business management and accounting, and criminal justice technology were nationally accredited by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS). Nevertheless, the school was accused in several jurisdictions of inflating grades and overstating student achievement to maximize enrollment and federal student loan revenues. Many campuses were reported to have higher rates of student loan default than graduation. In February 2014 the company was sued by the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and numerous states opened investigations. In August 2016, the U.S. Department of Education issued a ruling which barred ITT Technical Institute from enrolling students who receive federal aid. The company closed all of its campuses on September 6, 2016 and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation ten days later.
In 2021 the U.S. Department of Education announced that $500 million in outstanding student loans for 18,000 former ITT students would be canceled. In 2022 the department extended that program to dismiss $3.9 billion in loans from 208,000 borrowers who attended ITT between 2005 and 2016.
References
- "ITT Technical Institute" (March 21, 2017) Wikipedia - accessed April 6, 2017
- Gore, Leada (June 16, 2021) "ITT Tech Institute closure: Student loans forgiven for students of closed for-profit chain." The Birmingham News
- Gore, Leada (August 16, 2022) "Student loans dismissed: $3.9 billion more canceled; Do you qualify?" The Birmingham News