ITT Educational Services announced Tuesday that it is shutting down its academic operations at 130 campuses, which includes the one on West Market Street in Fairlawn. ITT officials are blaming the shutdown on the U.S. Department of Education’s decision to, in effect, strip the for-profit school of its eligibility to access federal student aid.
“This is by far the largest closure that we’ve had in terms of the number of schools and students,” said John Ware, executive director of the Ohio State Board of Career Colleges and Schools, which oversees the 40,000 students who attend Ohio’s 230 private technical schools and colleges.
The closure affects nine Ohio branch campuses and 2,000 students in the state, or roughly 5 percent of all who attend private technical colleges and schools.
In the Akron area, 150 students who mostly took design, technology, electronics and nursing will find canceled classes as the fall term was set to begin Monday.
“It’s unfortunate that this had to happen pretty suddenly because of the pressure put on by the U.S. Department of Education,” said Ware, whose office will be contacting all 2,000 ITT students in Ohio. “It certainly makes it difficult on the employees and students and everyone else who has to clean up the mess.”
Other nearby campuses included Strongsville, with about 300 students enrolled, and Warrensville Heights with 400.
Ware said displaced students have two options. They can either transfer and finish at another institution, a list of which he plans to provide to the students. Or they can seek to discharge all federal student loan debt incurred while attending ITT.
Ware said he hopes to have more information out to the students in the next two weeks.
Federal and state governments had been applying additional pressure on ITT in the past month. The school’s accounting and student recruitment practices had come under fire. California banned the private institution from enrolling new students.
The U.S. Department of Education sent Indiana-based ITT a letter 10 days ago requiring it to retain $250 million in assets in order to be eligible for federal student loans. The restriction, considered too onerous by state regulators watching the feud, forced the abrupt closure this week.
ITT Technical Institute opened its Fairlawn location in 2010. Tanya Foose, its director, said the announcement was expected.
“We knew about it on Friday. Last month, ITT was told that the federal government would no longer give financial aid to our students, so we literally had 30 days to plan a shutdown,” she said. “Now there will be about 45,000 students [nationally] without a school, and many who will never graduate and will be stuck with student debt.”
The University of Akron had been in talks to partner with ITT nationwide under former UA President Scott Scarborough. Those talks broke off early this year.
The company was facing lawsuits from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over misleading and deceptive practices, and was being investigated by multiple state attorneys general.
Beacon Journal staff writer Katie Byard contributed to this report. Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Marilyn Miller can be reached at 330-996-3098 or mmiller@thebeaconjournal.com.