ITT closes ... Here are student options

[dhfl143]

Here is an excerpt of an article that outlines options for current students:

"While critics of for-profit colleges applauded the shutdown, it leaves current students scrambling to figure out what to do. The Department of Education has set up a dedicated phone number, 800-4FEDAID, and a website for ITT students. There will also be a series of national webinars, starting Wednesday. Students who are currently enrolled or enrolled in the last 120 days essentially have two options, according to the Department of Education:

Transfer their credits to a similar program at another school.

Apply for a federal student loan closed school discharge. Go through the Department of Education's dedicated ITT site or work with your loan servicer to apply for the cancellation. The discharge program doesn’t cover Parent PLUS loans or private bank loans.

Transferring credits will be difficult, says Debbie Cochrane, vice president of the Institute for College Access & Success. While it’s up to a school to decide, ITT says on its own site that credits are unlikely to transfer.

Cochrane says even if some credits transfer, ITT students may be better off just starting over. “If you’re three years into a program and you find a school that will only accept a couple of credits, you are probably better off getting your loan debt wiped clean,” says Cochrane. If you do transfer your credits to another college and continue your program of study, you can't have your loans discharged."

www.yahoo.com/news/itt-shutdown-students-now-003700359.html
www.studentaid.ed.gov/sa/about/announcements/itt

[healthy11]

My husband currently is an adjunct professor, teaching electronics courses, at our local community college. They expect additional students enrolling as a result of a nearby ITT location closing, but it's unclear how many, especially since community colleges generally only offer Associate's Degrees, whereas ITT apparently granted 4-year degrees. For students trying to transfer credits to any other 2-year or 4-year degree-granting college, new schools require a certain number of credit hours be taken at their institution, so even if all their prior ITT courses were deemed to have acceptable content, students who might have only needed a couple classes would still find themselves having to take many more hours, anyway.