LETTER: Students are ones to suffer in ITT closure

I was an adjunct instructor for ITT for 9-1/2 years and I loved my second job—really more than my primary job. The students were awesome and it was a humbling experience and a true honor to watch them “turn into engineers,” as I would say.

I wanted to thank Todd Rokita for his column [Feds to blame for ITT collapse, Oct. 10]. I can assure you that the CEO and CFO of ITT were not saints in this whole situation, but the good people I worked with and the students didn’t deserve to pay the price for the C-suite’s foolishness.

I completely agree with Rokita’s stance on how this administration has targeted for-profit educational entities and how a not-for-profit with far greater sins against the government is not held to the same standard. You can point to any number of scandals such as athletes signed up for non-existent classes at North Carolina or the sexual assault scandals at Baylor and a thousand others that leave the public shocked and angry. Those schools are not threatened with yanking accreditation or pulling federal funding or having to pony up three times their balance sheet to an escrow account. 

From the time I received the news that ITT was closing, whenever anyone asked me if I was OK, I always told them the same thing: I’m not worried about me or my co-workers anywhere near as much as I am worried for my students. They are the ones who are suffering. They are the ones who feel lost.
__________
Don Brown