ITT Technical Closing

Public educational corporations like State colleges handle different student populations differently.  Georgia Tech is very selective about who they admit as students for engineering and occupationally oriented degrees.  Medical College of Georgia has similar requirements for students.  Those who don’t get in go elsewhere. 

Down the food chain, State colleges include UGA, Georgia State, Kennesaw State, Georgia Southern and many other colleges.  The curriculum at these colleges does include some occupational degrees like Accounting, but many students take degrees that do not ensure that they will have a professional career like business, international business, marketing, communication, political science and others. 

They also offer degrees that usually require a Masters for occupational use, like social work, psychology, etc.  There are law schools that confer Juris Doctor Degrees. There are degrees in education for teachers that include credentials required to be hired as a teacher. There are boutique degrees like art history with limited job availability and graphic design with diffuse demand, but not always high paying.  These colleges also offer non-occupational “hobby degrees” and politically correct “protest degrees” like Black History. 

For-profit educational corporations like ITT Technical were formed to serve students who wanted occupational training and had veteran’s educational benefits or were eligible for student loans and there were lots of them since the government took over student loans. Before that, students had to secure loans from banks, who only gave loans to students who would probably be successful. With the government takeover of education funding, students who couldn’t do the coursework were admitted and took remedial classes or easy degrees. They did not improve their earnings prospects. Many dropped out, but still had loans to repay.

Admitting students who would not succeed enough to move on from minimum wage jobs created a $1 trillion loan debt deficit for the federal government. Well, who didn’t see that coming besides the government?  The government who caused the problem is now “fixing” the problem. Despite the well- known dysfunction existing in public colleges, government chose to close down the private colleges. They were less apt to be bastions of political correctness.

Government loves to squander $trillions on loans and giveaways to everybody and they are always ready to spend more $trillions to undo what they just did.  Now they will want to pour $trillions into public community colleges to ensure that our plumbers, electricians and construction workers will be trained in political correctness. 

Education is too important to be left to government and institutions just react to consumer demands, but until students themselves take responsibility for their own educations, we will see no forward movement.  Students need to take occupational interest tests and identify what they do well and enjoy doing. Colleges need to return to using entrance exams and scores to determine who they will enroll.  Students need to know the skills they will need to be good at what they choose to do. For example, graphic designers, videographers, editors and photographers with an artist’s eye will produce better work and will be more successful.  

The basic curriculum from pre-k through high school should concentrate on reading, writing and math to prepare them to be able to communicate and do things they will need to know.  These students need to read and write extensively about how things they use in their daily lives work. They should study history that includes descriptions of the economies and living conditions at the time. They should study the US Constitution and Bill of Rights (as written).  

They should not study propaganda or cultural phenomena their parents would not approve of. They should know facts about science and the difference between a proven theory and an unproven theory. If students succeed, they should be able to read and write and do math well before they reach high school. High school students should have part-time and summer jobs.

We need to get government out of the education business by moving responsibility for education back to the students with the use of the internet and home schooling materials. 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader