After ITT Tech’s Collapse, Other Colleges Try to Pick Up the Pieces

Ty Wright for The Chronicle

Across the country, community colleges are spreading out virtual welcome mats for the more than 35,000 students who were suddenly displaced this week when ITT Educational Services Inc., responding to federal scrutiny, shut down its chain of for-profit technical colleges.

But while the community colleges may be eager to increase enrollment, they’re having a hard time figuring out what to do with the credits many of the students are trying to transfer.

The U.S. Department of Education gave the displaced students two options — apply to have their federal loans forgiven or salvage what they’ve done so far by transferring credits to another institution.

For someone who has invested months or years of study and practical training, transferring might make the most sense. Community colleges, with their open admissions policies and combination of work-force training and academic study, are obvious destinations.

But even though federal regulators and accreditors are urging those colleges to open their doors to students from ITT Technical Institutes, the colleges are finding that accepting credits is complicated.

Cori Hicks, a licensed practical nurse and single mother of three young children, found that out the hard way.

Ms. Hicks, who lives in Fort Wayne, Ind., was 12 weeks away from completing the requirements for her RN degree when she woke up to an email from ITT saying her college had shut down.

Since then, she says, she and her classmates have reached out to about 10 nearby colleges, none of which has agreed to accept transfer credits. One is considering letting them take placement examinations, she says.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen with the hundreds of clinical hours we’ve done,” says Ms. Hicks. “It isn’t just money that’s out the window. It’s also the time away from our families.”

She hasn’t been able to get her transcript yet, and without that, she’s stuck. “We’re trying to pick up the pieces, and we don’t even know where they’re all lying.”

Relatively few community colleges have articulation agreements with ITT that would make it possible for a student who was halfway through a program in, say, welding or computer services to pick up where he or she left off.

‘Concern About the Rigor’

Some for-profit colleges, because they enroll many students who work full time, cram more material into shorter periods of time, meaning that the courses don’t align with the typical semester schedule of community colleges, says Texas’ higher-education commissioner, Raymund A. Paredes. “There’s also a good deal of concern about the rigor of these courses and the level of preparation of some of these students.”

He says that while the state’s colleges are eager to help the 3,000 or so displaced ITT students in Texas, transferring their credits will be a challenge.

“There might be one community college that will accept 10 courses, another three. It’s going to be a hardship for students to shop around and find the best possible match for their programs,” the commissioner says. “I’m sure we’ll hear from students who find out that none of their credits will transfer and they have to start all over. That’s the harsh reality.”

Many colleges, though, are reaching out to students through radio and newspaper ads, as well as social media, to let them know the colleges will do everything possible for them.

When Hurricane Katrina forced Delgado Community College, in New Orleans, to shut down for a semester in 2005, colleges around the country cushioned the blow for its students, allowing many to take online courses free.

Now, Delgado is in a position to help, says Arnel Cosey, its vice chancellor for student affairs.

It is contacting the 2,250 students displaced from ITT campuses in St. Rose and Baton Rouge, La., to let them know that some could start classes at Delgado as early as next month.

“We know what it feels like to find yourself in the middle of some kind of trauma and not know how to find your way,” Ms. Cosey says.

Among the programs offered at both Delgado and ITT are computer and information sciences and firefighting, although it’s not clear how many credits will transfer.

The day after the announcement that ITT was closing its technical colleges, shutting down three campuses in Houston, about 100 ITT students contacted nearby Lone Star College, according to the college’s chancellor, Stephen C. Head.

On Tuesday afternoon a team from the community college’s system office began drawing up a matrix of all of the programs both ITT and Lone Star offer in the Houston area, their learning outcomes, and the hours they meet to get an idea of which credits could transfer.

“We want to maintain our academic work-force quality and integrity, but whenever possible, I want to take those courses,” Mr. Head says.

$500 Incentive

In Ohio, Columbus State Community College is offering $500 scholarships to students from ITT.

“We recognize that the students are going to have a lot of challenges with the transition — both academic and financial,” says Martin Maliwesky, its associate vice president for academic affairs.

The college has mobilized a team from admissions, the registrar’s office, financial aid, and academic departments to help individual students decide the best point of entry. That might involve looking at portfolios, considering what a student has learned on the job, or testing their competencies by exam.

“We’re not going to change our standards, but we are going to try to package our staff better so students don’t have to visit several different offices,” says Mr. Maliwesky.

Among the concerns students might have is what happens if their eligibility for Pell Grants runs out before they have a chance to complete their new program.

The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators issued tips to its members on how to help individual students answer questions like that, and decide whether it makes more sense to transfer the credit hours they have or start over.

Before the chain of colleges closed, ITT cautioned students that it was “unlikely that any credits earned at the school will be transferable to or accepted by any institution other than an ITT Technical Institute.” That statement does not appear on the college’s current website.

A spokeswoman for ITT says the statement was not intentionally removed; it just wasn’t included on the revised site, which is focused on helping students obtain records and identify future educational options.

In the past, community colleges have often balked at accepting credits from for-profit institutions.

“Traditionally, that has been the case, but this is a crisis situation for students who are unable to progress with their education,” says Mike Midgley, vice president for instruction at Austin Community College, in Texas.

“We want to do everything we can to see if there is a way to give them some credit” for the work they’ve done, he says. That could be accomplished, in part, by allowing students to take exams that demonstrate that they’ve mastered certain material, or by having professors examine a portfolio of work to assess a student’s competencies in a field.

That approach is closer to how competency-based institutions like Western Governors University assess a student’s progress.

And that has to be done without raising red flags with Austin’s accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Both SACS and the American Association of Community Colleges have urged colleges to look carefully at ITT students and see where learning outcomes and competencies might align. The community-college association said it was doing so at the request of the Education Department.

Aside from their interest in seeing more students graduate, federal regulators have a financial incentive to encourage as many students as possible to transfer, rather than getting their loans discharged. Students who transfer even a single credit lose the opportunity to have their loans forgiven.

If all of the displaced ITT students opted for a refund, taxpayers could be on the hook for nearly $500 million.

Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.