ITT Technical Institute has suddenly shut its door, leaving about 40,000 students and more than 8,000 employees in the lurch.
This announcement comes after a series of federal and state lawsuits, which came to a head in August, when the Education Department barred ITT Tech from allowing new students to enroll and established strict financial requirements for the for-profit school to meet. The shutdown affects the four Illinois ITT campuses in Oak Brook, Orland Park, Springfield, and Arlington Heights.
“The actions of and sanctions from the U.S. Department of Education have forced us to cease operations of the ITT Technical Institutes, and we will not be offering our September quarter,” ITT Tech wrote in a press release September 6. “We reached this decision only after having exhausted the exploration of alternatives, including transfer of the schools to a non-profit or public institution.”
The Department of Education made its decision in light of lawsuits filed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who claimed ITT Tech deceived students about its programs.
“These students were exploited and pressured to enroll with the promise of great careers and high salaries, but were instead left unable to repay their loans and support their families,” Healey had said in a release in April. “Our office has a history of going after predatory for-profit schools and will not stand for students in Massachusetts being treated simply as a source of income. We will continue to investigate and act against these deceptive practices and work hard to get the relief these students deserve.”
In reference to the financial requirements imposed, ITT Tech’s press release read, “This action of our federal regulator to increase our surety requirement to 40 percent of our Title IV federal funding and place our schools under ‘Heightened Cash Monitoring Level 2,’ forced us to conclude that we can no longer continue to operate our ITT Tech campuses and provide our students with the quality education they expect and deserve.”
Effectively immediately, ITT Tech is stopping its programs at its 130 campuses across the U.S., including the two Massachusetts locations in Wilmington and Norwood.
