ITT Shutdown: Campuses in Oak Brook, Illinois Close for Good

For-profit college ITT Technical Institute is permanently shutting down because of federal pressure and will close all of its campuses, including Illinois locations in Arlington Heights, Oak Brook, Orland Park and Springfield.

The school has operated for 50 years and serves 43,000 students at 130 campuses in 38 states.

The “actions of sanctions by the U.S. Department of Education have forced us to cease operations” immediately, leaving tens of thousands of students about to begin the September quarter scrambling for options, ITT Educational Services Inc., the company that operates the college, said in a news release.

The DOE showed “complete disregard … for due process to the company,” negatively affecting students, alumni and employees, the company said.

Positions held by the majority of the college’s 8,000 employees were immediately eliminated, and remaining staff will help the tens of thousands of unexpectedly displaced ITT students obtain their records and explore their educational options.

The college said the decision was reached “only after having exhausted the exploration of alternatives, including transfer of students to a non-profit or public institution.”

Last month, the Education Department banned the school from enrolling new students who receive federal aid after its accrediting agency cited chronic mismanagement of finances and questionable recruiting tactics.

Federal aid provided 68 percent of parent company ITT Educational Services Inc.’s $850 million in revenues.
This spring, ITT was the fifth-largest for-profit college chain, and was among several under scrutiny by the Obama administration, which said the for-profit industry in general uses deceptive marketing tactics to enroll students who accrue thousands of dollars of debt for low-quality educations.

The school’s enrollment has been dwindling, down 22 percent from 9,910 in the second quarter of 2016 from 12,638 for the year prior.

In an editorial, The Wall Street Journal recently called the Education Department’s decision to cut off funding a “lawless execution” and said the action was taken without proving a single allegation.

The company said it believes the government’s action was “inappropriate and unconstitutional” but said that with the shuttering of ITT Technical Institutes, “it will now likely rest on other parties to understand these reprehensible actions and to take action to attempt to prevent this from happening again.”

By Beth Dalbey | Patch Editor

Patch Editor Joe Vince contributed to this report.

PHOTO: ITT Technical Institute's Arlington Heights campus (Image via via Google Earth)