The jig is up for ITT Technical Institute, as Gizmodo reports that the for-profit school is shuttering its doors this week. The administration has issued a statement about the closure, in which it tries to shift the bulk of the blame to the U.S. Department Of Education, which recently blocked the facility from enrolling any new students with federal financial aid.
“It is with profound regret that we must report that ITT Educational Services, Inc. will discontinue academic operations at all of its ITT Technical Institutes permanently after approximately 50 years of continuous service. With what we believe is a complete disregard by the U.S. Department of Education for due process to the company, hundreds of thousands of current students and alumni and more than 8,000 employees will be negatively affected.”
The federal sanctions imposed on the school are part of a larger effort by the Department Of Education to crack down on for-profit colleges whose tuitions equal those of many public universities, while offering sub-par education and training. ITT Tech has asked the DOE to consider “alternatives” to its latest directive, which requires the school bulk up its reserves from $94.4 million to $247.3 million to protect the very students that have been taken advantage of up to this point. While that gets sorted out, the futures of 8,000 employees and hundreds of thousands of students remain uncertain, but the school’s administration still found it in its heart to give ”all employees Tuesday, September 6th off as an extra comp holiday.”