Rowan College at Burlington County Offering Help To Displaced ITT Students

Rowan College at Burlington County is offering personalized assistance and waiving late registration fees to help displaced ITT Technical Institute students after it was announced that college would be closing for good on Tuesday.

“Our hearts go out to these students who find themselves in a very difficult situation at the beginning of the school year,” Rowan College at Burlington County President Paul Drayton said. “There is still time for students to transfer to Rowan College at Burlington County this semester and we are ready to make the transition as quick and easy as possible.”

Former ITT students who want to continue their education may contact Admissions Counselor Jeannine Baumgartner at jbaumgartner@rcbc.edu or 856-242-5201. Late registration fees will be waived for students transferring from ITT and students can complete their enrollment process in time to take advantage of RCBC’s seven-week and 10-week terms starting later this fall.

“We will evaluate each student’s financial and academic situation and work with them toward the best possible solution,” Vice President of Enrollment Management and Student Success Mike Cioce said. “We understand the predicament students are in and are here to help.”

ITT has operated for 50 years and is estimated to serve about 43,000 students on 130 campuses spread across 38 states. It has just one location in New Jersey, in Marlton.

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 more than 8,000 employees, the company said.

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.”

Reporting from Patch Staff Writer Beth Dalbey was used in this report.

The attached image was provided by Rowan College at Burlington County