Back in 1991 I decided that I would take courses in Electronics Engineering and enrolled at a program that was advertised through ITT Technical schools. At that time the overall course study was $14,000 and the school stated that it was a course study in Electronic Engineering Technology and that their credits could be transferred anywhere.In 2005 when I was placed on disability due to a back injury the student loans associated with this account were placed on permanent deferment. I contacted the student loan administration and ended up getting the loan removed due to technicalities.
When I attended ITT I was married and living in Houston and there was no such thing as the online classroom. ITT had two campuses in Houston and both were on the west and northwest sides of town and I lived on the east side seeing I worked in the petrochemical packing industry. I never completed the course work at ITT, lacking 2 quarters in my program. I was forced to drop 3 times because an instructor was a stickler when it came to tardiness and each time that I retook the class that he taught I was working 12 hour shifts and would be 15 minutes late and would be counted absent for the hour.
After 3 suspensions you’re required to start the entire course over, but he class that he taught I took the follow up to it and passed with a 98% average and to do that I had to know what he had taught but the school wouldn’t allow me to test out seeing they would lose money.
I never actually paid off the student loan, but I managed to have it removed completely due to several legal loopholes. The first was that ITT had used deceptive advertising in several ways. The initial fraud was that the school state in its advertisements that upon completion of the Associates program you could transfer credits anywhere they were accepted which was a mistruth. The school at the time wasn’t accredited by any college associations and the transfer was only good thought another ITT campus, and as I said there were no online course of studies then. Second what they taught was not Electronic Design Technology but strictly Electronics technology which was hands on repairs and use of the equipment needed to do so. That’s like a school saying they are teaching computer programming and design and all they teach you is data input (basic typing) to improve your typing skills to meet the speed requirements needed to obtain the job. After several months what I owed was waived and the student loans were cleared due to the technicality.
Since I went, ITT has changed their commercials and have gained accreditation through several college boards. But one thing that I have learn through several sources is that if the school is an Institute or technical school and you look to further your degree then more than likely these course probably will not transfer to a school offering the higher degree and you will more than likely have to start from scratch. So beware when you go to school to check the accreditations and make sure that credits are transferable. If needed go to your local community college for the undergraduate courses, because these you can take as your time schedule will allow and are guaranteed to be transferable.
